I am Spartacus! (Not really, but I'm going to the gym.)

About 1:47 into "Ice Cream Truck"

My wife and I watched a music video recently for a song called "Ice Cream Truck" by Cazwell, a DJ from New York City.  At one point in the video, when I saw the image to the right, I remarked, "That guy has a PERFECT body."

I forwarded the link to several friends with this message: "This video is likely to turn you on (if you're a gay guy or a straight woman) or make you feel inadequate (if you're a straight guy)."

And that is where Laura Mulvey comes in.  I have mentioned her before, in "Snark-Infested Waters."  She wrote a very famous essay called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," and in it she suggests Hollywood films were shot from a male perspective.  The camera is like a man looking at women and sizing up their physical appearance.  The women in many films were "erotic objects" for the male characters and for the audience -- it was assumed that the men in the theater wanted to have the women on the screen and the women wanted to be them.  The women on the screen embodied a phrase Mulvey invents: "to-be-looked-at-ness." 

Mulvey does not say Hollywood invented this idea; Hollywood just perfected it.  "To-be-looked-at-ness" is an extension of dynamics that already existed in a patriarchal society.  We can assume the female audience members were conditioned (even further) by Hollywood to appeal to that "male gaze" even though they were not in films.  Women became hyper-aware of how they appeared to others. 

She describes this as a sort of reverse scopophilia (the pleasure of looking at people, especially for erotic pleasure).  Being looked at can be pleasurable, she writes, but it also can cause anxiety.  It can undermine a woman's confidence, as she is possibly aware of being judged by others and being judged against other women -- especially against idealized images of women.

Hollywood and popular culture in general eroticized women's bodies in ways they did not eroticize men's. But I think that is changing.  I think we are seeing men's bodies become the "erotic object" on the screen (big and small), in music videos (such as "Ice Cream Truck"), and in advertising -- such as this ad for Marc Jacobs's Bang cologne that I have seen in Esquire.

One could protest my list because Cazwell's video is clearly homoerotic; it uses men's bodies as erotic objects because that is what its audience wants.  But gay culture went mainstream several years ago, and now gay music videos circulate as freely as straight music videos.  More than ever, straight men are seeing men's bodies presented as erotic objects.  And these images are not always in productions intended specifically for gay audiences.

Spartacus, for example.

Andy Whitfield as Spartacus

The gladiators in the Starz television series are more naked than clothed in every episode.  Sometimes we see them completely naked, despite there being no narrative need for them to be so.  (That is one way to reduce a costume budget.)  And when we see a man and a woman in a sex scene, the man's body is featured just as much as the woman's -- if not more so.

I challenge any man, straight or gay, to tell me that Andy Whitfield, who plays Spartacus, is not lust-worthy.  In Mulvey's description, he is an "erotic object" because it is likely the audience either wants to have him or be him.

One legacy of "to-be-looked-at-ness" among women is eating disorders based upon poor body image.  Research indicates that "body image dissatisfaction" is growing among men.  There are more eroticized male bodies visible in popular culture, and this increased attention has led to changes in those ideal bodies.  They are more muscular then ever.  One study suggests that a 1976 Playgirl centerfold model would need 12 fewer pounds of fat and 27 more pounds of muscle to be a centerfold in 2001.  

Finally, if you are skeptical that male "to-be-looked-at-ness" is spreading, then please explain Spanx for men to me.

Snark-Infested Waters

Last night the Golden Globe Awards were handed out in Hollywood, and with them came the usual red carpet spectacle of actors passing the fans and the cameras like floats in a conspicuous consumption parade.

Each award show is followed online by fashionistas grading the appearances of the celebrities who run the gantlet of cameras and fans.  What puzzles me about this process is the apparent randomness of those assessments.

At Yahoo's OMG! site, Angelina Jolie was rated an A- for her glittering gown.  Scarlett Johansson was given a D and was accused of channeling the Bride of Frankenstein with her hair and derided for her embroidered dress.  Anne Hathaway received an A- for her dress that was "embellished with paillettes and Swarovski crystals."  And Vanessa Williams was given a B- with pretty much no commentary at all.

My problem?  I cannot see much quality difference among the dresses.  Of course, they are different.  I see that.  But why is Angelina Jolie's glittery dress worth praising and Scarlett Johansson's not?  Why is Anne Hathaway's dress "embellished" when to me it looks like it could have been made from a thousand Chiclets?  And why is Vanessa "Still Hot at 47" Williams given a begrudging B-?

I know taste is subjective, but it shouldn't be RANDOM.

And then there is Helena Bonham Carter.  The fashion police give her an F for her wild hair, her sunglasses, her mismatched shoes.  Don't they realize she is purposefully refusing to play their game?  Don't they realize she is giving them an F U?

I think I agree with Carter, who may be channeling Laura Mulvey.  In 1975 Mulvey published a famous and influential essay called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."  In it, she speculated that the camera in classic Hollywood films could be thought of as a heterosexual male.  That is, the camera looked at men and women differently.  It looked at women more as objects of sexual desire -- even though at least half of the people in the audience were women and probably 90 percent of those women were heterosexual.  Why not sexualize the men in the film, too?

Mulvey wrote,  "The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking...."  But the pleasure it provides tends to be one kind: heterosexual male pleasure.  This teaches the women in the audience to look at other women from that perspective, Mulvey wrote.  That is, women begin to rate themselves and other women by how they can be pleasurable to view from a heterosexual male perspective.  When the women begin rating themselves according to the measure of that male gaze, they internalize its criteria and work to make themselves conform to it.  According to Mulvey, "In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.... she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire."

Can you say anorexia?  Can you say bulimia?  Can you say breast implants?

Mulvey called this habituated concern about physical appearance "to-be-looked-at-ness."  I realize that is not the most poetic turn of phrase, but I think it describes the process and I think it is true.  Hollywood encourages "to-be-looked-at-ness" in women.

Evidence that this has been interanlized by women in general and not just those in Hollywood is that the televised red carpet event tends to be most watched by women.  Women are watching and rating and admiring or deriding.

Meanwhile, men are not subjected to the same external and internal pressures.  The men in Hollywood cinema are not sexualized in the same way or to the same degree as the women.  And so the men in the audience are not conditioned to internalize a constant state of self-discipline and self-judgment.  They find it possible to think of themselves as attractive regardless of how they may actually appear.  (I think this has begun to change recently, as the male body is getting more sexualized in recent films, but that would be the subject of another essay.)

Evidence of the different criteria for judging men and women also can be found on Yahoo.  All of the photographs of women on the red carpet can be found under the title "Red Carpet Report Card."  The men?  They are found in a slideshow called "Dapper Dudes."  No grades.  No snark.  No distinguishing one man's appearance from another.  They pretty much all look like Brad Pitt.

The women are on display.  The men less so.  The women work to distinguish themselves from each other, the men seem to work toward homogeneity.  How many jokes have been made about the disaster of two women wearing the same dress to a party?  But how many men have run crying to the restroom because some other guy wore the same tuxedo?

These differing criteria help explain the common sight in Hollywood movies of the attractive woman with the average-looking man -- or even the below average looking man.  Think Kevin James married to Winona Rider in The Dilemma.  Or Kevin James married to Maria Bello in Grown Ups.  Think Homer and Marge Simpson.  Think Peter and Lois Griffin. 

Now try to think of an opposite example.  Hot husband, average wife.  You can get back to me when you think of one.