Blog #4 - The Gaze
Assignment...
We were to "choose a work of art/image that you feel embodies some aspect of the gaze, be it the male gaze, female gaze, a different type of gaze altogether" and discuss the power dynamics that were created by said gaze.
Chosen artwork: Catwoman zero issue cover by Guillem March (2012)
This cover was a huge controversy in the comic world both online and within in-person communities. It caused a ton of backlash against the artist, Guillem March, and rightfully so in my opinion. This is the cover for the zero issue of Catwoman, published in 2012. Catwoman, or Selina Kyle, is a character in the Batman universe who is one of Batman’s well known enemies. Her character is cunning and mysterious; she’s a slinky and sly femme fatale badass who often butters up Batman at the same time she has antagonizing conflicts with him. In the fanbase and also in the comics, Catwoman is often portrayed as sexy and seductive, and there’s a lot of art of her that's like this cover. This cover was later redrawn and reissued due to the backlash mentioned earlier, but I feel like it’s still a prime example of the male gaze in the comic world.
The cover focuses on Catwoman herself breaking through the first cover variant of this issue. She’s viewed from a high-up perspective in an action shot of her jumping forwards with her claws on full display, but her pose highly exaggerated and distorted unrealistically to focus on her breasts and posterior. The glossy fabric of her costume ripples at her exaggerated proportions to aid in the playing up of the sex appeal, and the zipper at her neck is unzipped down so her breasts are more visible. Her expression is purposefully as seductive as the rest of the illustration, with her smirk and lower-lidded eyes.
Just by looking at this cover at first glance, you can tell immediately that it’s purposefully made to sexualize Catwoman. Her contorted pose, exaggerated chest and backside, emphasis in the folds of her costume, and so many other attributes just scream out the message that this art was one: made to purposefully amp up sex appeal, and two: illustrated by a male comic artist. There’s this common theme of sexual exaggeration in a lot of comics that I feel makes it very obvious when a female character is drawn in the male gaze or by a male artist. Guillem March is a highly talented artist, but he has a frequent tendency (at least in my own opinion and view) to sexualize the female characters he draws. From Catwoman to Supergirl to Batgirl to Harley Quinn, all of them are purposefully sexualized, no matter if it’s subtle or in your face, in the same sorts of ways as this piece in his other pieces.
This is a hard topic for me to talk about, because I try very hard not to generalize artists by their genders and being able to decipher what gender the artist is. I feel as if this is a dip into other morals that I have about not assuming things about people, especially things about their gender identities, as I feel this is one of the many many things that contribute to the severe problems with gender discrimination and gendered stereotypes in our society. Not every male comic artist, or male artist in general, sexualizes women this way in their art, and it's never strictly men who draw sexual imagery of women. There are plenty of women artists who draw sexualized art of women, as well as sexualized art of men. It’s a multiple direction street. But at the same time, I feel as if the fact that you can tell that a man drew this cover is contributing to said stereotypes, both on the artist’s end and on the viewer’s.
In the edited cover, Catwoman is in the same general action pose with the same perspective, but it’s far less sexually exaggerated and she is less unrealistically proportioned. Her costume is still shiny and glossy, more than before actually, but has less wrinkles focusing on her certain physical attributes. The zipper at her breasts is now closed, and although her seductive expression sticks around, it seems toned down and more fitting.
I often find my thoughts and opinions on sexualized art complicated and hard to decipher. I feel as if art that is sexual in nature, is inherently sexual, or is straight up smut or porn is just as much a piece of art as the next thing, and I often find myself enjoying that type of art. But at the same time, there’s so much of a moral debate in this topic, not just because of how it creates stereotypes and stigmas for both genders, but also because of how sometimes it’s brought into the wrong audiences and settings. It’s a difficult debate and topic that I’m not going to tackle talking about in this blog entry.
I want to include with a thought creating question. Imagine your favorite visual media, whether it be a comic, manga, book, TV show, movie, etc. and try to pretend that you don’t know anything about the artist. Would you be able to tell what the gender of that artist is based off of just their art, and how they portray men and women in their work? What about their art makes you draw these conclusions? And how does drawing these conclusions make you feel about stereotypes and enforced gender in both media and in our society?
Continued Images...
Edited cover:
Side-by-side:
