bell hooks's "Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators"
TLDRThis video analyzes bell hooks's essay 'The Oppositional Gaze' as a response to film theory that ignores race. Hooks argues that black female spectators are not addressed in dominant theories like Mulvey's. Black women are neither the phallocentric looker nor the objectified white woman. Hollywood uses black women to maintain ideals of white femininity. Julie Dash's film shows a white actress mouthing a black singer's vocals, exploiting black talent to prop up white stars. The video will next relate hooks to 'Get Out', asking how she would see the black female characters and the theme of looking in the film.
Takeaways
- 😀 Diawara and hooks argue that race is a socially and historically constituted aspect of identity, beyond just psychic forces
- 😧 Hooks critiques film theories that rely solely on universalizing concepts like 'Woman' that ignore race
- 😮 Hooks argues black women are completely left out of dominant film theories like Mulvey's
- 🤔 Black male spectators can identify with patriarchal cinema, but black women have no recognition
- 😟 Representations of black women in film serve to enhance white womanhood's status
- 🥺 The lack of black women in film roles mirrors their erasure and instrumentalization behind the scenes
- 😢 An example is black singers dubbing for white actresses, made possible by cinema's separation of image and sound
- 🤨 Hooks sees oppositional gazes from black women spectators critically interrogating racism and sexism in cinema
- 😠 Appropriation allows white admiration of black culture to fold into objectification
- 😃 The film Get Out provides more contemporary examples of hooks' arguments
Q & A
How does bell hooks build on the work of Manthia Diawara regarding oppositional spectatorship?
-Hooks agrees with Diawara that film theory often ignores the historical and social construction of identities like race and gender. However, she critiques Diawara for not fully capturing the position of black women, who she argues are completely absent from the equations of spectatorship posed by thinkers like Mulvey.
What does hooks mean when she says that black female spectators are 'out of the equation' in dominant film theory?
-She means that theories like Mulvey's psychoanalytic framework fail to account for the position and gaze of black women at all. These theories presume a white male gaze and a white female object, excluding other subject positions.
How does the example from Julie Dash's film illustrate the critique hooks is making?
-The glowing close-ups of the white singer seem to exemplify Mulvey's theory of female objectification. But Dash reveals the hidden race dynamics behind this, as the actual voice is that of an uncredited black singer. Dash shows how black creativity was appropriated to maintain white womanhood on screen.
What does hooks say about the possibility for black male spectators to identify with the patriarchal gaze?
-Hooks argues that black men can at least find themselves, anonymously, in the assumed male spectator position in dominant cinema, as the gaze is structured around heterosexual male desire. So they have that possibility for identification, problematically.
Why can't black women identify with either the male gaze or female objectification in film?
-Because the male gaze is white, heterosexual, and patriarchal. And the construction of femininity on screen is white as well. Since black women were largely excluded from representation, they cannot find a point of identification in these binary structures.
What causes the 'violent erasure' of black womanhood in cinema, according to hooks?
-It stems from the outright lack of representation of black women on screen and from the way black women tended to appear primarily as props to affirm white femininity when they did appear.
What does hooks mean when she says black women were used to 'enhance and maintain' white womanhood on screen?
-She means that the few portrayals of black women often served to bolster white stars' appeal, charm, and objectification as ideals of femininity. Black women tended to play secondary roles that enhanced the position of white women.
How does the appropriation of black male bodies in Get Out relate to hooks' analysis?
-It connects to this idea of admiration and objectification intertwining. The black men in Get Out seem to be admired for their physicality and artistic talents, but ultimately this slides into dehumanization and appropriation, much like the uncredited singer in Dash's film.
What does hooks suggest focusing on regarding the black female characters in Get Out?
-She would likely analyze how they fit into the roles she critiques in dominant cinema - whether they enhance white womanhood, complicate the film's gaze structure in progressive ways, or remain marginalized.
Why is the theme of 'looking and the gaze' important to analyze in Get Out, for hooks?
-Because the dynamics of looking/being looked at are central to the horror and message of the film. Analyzing the film's manipulation of various gazes through an intersectional lens is key to hooks' methodology.
Outlines
🎥 Connections between Diawara and bell hooks on film spectatorship theory
This paragraph discusses the connections between Diawara and bell hooks in how they critique mainstream film spectatorship theory for not accounting for race and identity. It highlights their agreement that spectators are both psychically and socio-historically constituted, and that abstract notions of 'woman' ignore racial differences. The paragraph also introduces hooks' stronger claim that black female spectators are entirely outside of the equation in these dominant theories centered on the male gaze.
👩🎤 hooks responds to Mulvey's theory of female spectatorship
This paragraph focuses on how bell hooks directly challenges Laura Mulvey's conception of female spectatorship and the male gaze structured around the phallus. Hooks argues that black female viewers do not identify with either the phallocentric gaze or white womanhood constructed as lack. She sees black female pleasure in films coming from interrogating and deconstructing them rather than visual delight.
🌟 Black women's exclusion in film industry and representation
This concluding paragraph highlights bell hooks' point that black women know not to expect positive representation in films given the racism and erasure of black womanhood perpetrated by the film industry. When black women are depicted, it is often to serve and enhance the position of white women under the male gaze. The paragraph ties to an example from the film Illusions.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡spectatorship
💡oppositional
💡representation
💡objectification
💡subjugation
💡erasure
💡recognition
💡illusion
💡appropriation
💡gaze
Highlights
Diawara and hooks critique film theory for not accounting for race in constructions of subjectivity
Hooks argues black female spectators are completely out of the equation in dominant film theory
Black male spectators can identify with the patriarchal gaze, but black women have no such possibility
Black women in film serve to enhance and maintain white womanhood as the object of the gaze
Most black women don't expect to see compelling representations of black femaleness due to racism
Identification requires recognition, confirming the ideology of the status quo
Illusions in film appropriate black women's talents to serve white womanhood
Get Out appropriates black men through a mix of admiration and objectification
What about the representation of black women in Get Out?
How does the theme of looking relate to hooks and Get Out?
Diawara and hooks show blind spots in dominant film theory regarding race
Hook argues black women are outside film theory addressing white male viewers
Black women lack possibility of identification in patriarchal cinema
Cinema violently erases black womanhood, serves to elevate white women
Get Out appropriates black bodies through admiration and objectification
Transcripts
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