The male sex object

When writing my paper, it made me think about Mulvey’s point and go back and read her essay again and more thorough. I think she makes very good points about women being the object of desire and that there is a male gaze. However I think the male gaze is much more out there in society, like out on the streets. When it comes to movies I think the guy or the male is just as a sex object as the female. I don’t usually think of the woman as the ONLY one who is the sex object any more. Just as much as the women flaunt and look sexy on screen, I think men do it just as much. For example in the James Bond movies, the women are usually criticized for being the damsel or the sex object not only for Bond but for the men or women in the audience as well. If you think about the character and things that James Bond does himself, he becomes a male sex object. He is suave, rugged, the heroine, he is seen as sexy. He dose not get criticized for flaunting and being gazed at as a sex object, although he is doing the same thing. Maybe women do not whistle and yelp at men while walking down the street, but I think viewing men as sex objects, especially in movies is very there. Men and women alike are viewed as sex object and both receive “the gaze” whether or not society sees it or not. I think viewing people as sex objects is more of the problem today than who is being viewed as them. It has become much less of a gender problem, although what is sexy for each gender still has its rules.

The rules part comes across by what is expectable for each gender to be shown on screen. I recently went and saw the movie 300 in theatres. The movie is about the Trojan society and army. Although the movie was amazing, there were some things the audience acted towards when it came to gender roles and what is sexy. In the beginning of the movie there was a scene was a young girl, who was the oracle. She was half naked and flailing into the sky. Not a comment was made and no one seemed to have a problem with the girl’s breast and naked body failing in the air. It was not until the next scene when the king of the Trojans was shown with the back to the audience completely naked. From the three guys behind me I heard “Well, that was just unnecessary.” So does that mean it was unnecessary to show the half naked girl? Probably not, that would be considered sexy, but the moment we have to see the ass of the guy, it not sexy. Don’t get me wrong, the Trojan king sweating and fighting I’m sure would have been seen as sexy, just not his bare ass. Even in modern movies there are still “rules” to what is considered sexy or expectable to an audience.