Lei's questions

(1) Mulvey proposed “the voyeuristic-scopophilic look” in the film and assumed the image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man. I am wondering about male image (e.g. with strong muscles) in the film. Is there any argument that regarded male image as passive raw material for the active gaze of woman? Put in another word, I feel like there is capitalism (produce every image in the film as commodity) that underlie patriarchy in terms of the representation in the film.

(2)/(3)I buy the point in bell hooks’ article that “the commodification of difference promotes paradigms of consumption wherein whatever difference the Other inhabits is eradicated, via exchange, by a consumer cannibalism that not only displaces the Other but denies the significance of that Other’s history through a process of decontextualization.” It reminds me of a feminism article in which the author argued that advertisement such as NIKE’s “Just do it” seems to encourage women to pursue their dreams, but actually takes advantage of the feminism ideology to promote consumerism. In addition, “as signs, their power to ignite critical consciousness is diffused when they are commodified.” It seems that capitalism is always related with patriarchy, feminism and other ideology. (It also echoes the above question.) Can I say there cannot be ideology analysis of feminism or patriarchy without analyzing capitalism?

But bell hooks also said that “patriarchal bonding mediates and becomes the basis for the eradication of racism”. I am wondering whether there is a hierarchy of all the ideologies.

(4) In the article “A case study of Women of China”, the authors concluded that “the interlocking of party control and societal influences determines the image of Chinese women shown by Women of China.” But my impression is that, in addition to party control and societal influences, western consumerism culture, such as American culture also greatly influenced the representation of women in China’s media, especially magazines. I feel like in magazine industry (with its root in western countries), the image construction more tend to be dominated by commdification rather than reflect the reality compared other mass media. A great number of Can we say magazine cover image analysis is a special case for study the media representation? (Both in China and other countries).

(5) Most articles we read in this week focus on films or magazines rather than traditional mass media such as newspaper and television. I am wondering, does media type play an important role in influencing the media representation?