‘The Gaze’

Daniel Chandler.

Forms of gaze.

• Key feature of the gaze is that - object of the gaze is not aware of the current viewer –though they may originally have been aware. (Adds a voyeuristic dimension.)

• Jonathan Schroeder “to gaze implies more than to look at – it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior o the object of the gaze.”

Key forms identified.

• The spectators gaze – viewer looking at object in the text.

• Intra diegetic gaze – person looking at someone else in the text.

• Direct address to the viewer – person in the text looking “out of the frame”

• The look of the camera – the cameras view of the people.

Gaze that are less often mentioned.

• Gaze of bystander – view of another viewer.

• Averted gaze – noticeable avoidance of another's gaze.

• Audience within the text – shot game show audience.

• Editorial gaze – institutional process.. Use and emphasis.

James Elkins – 10 ways of looking at a painting in a gallery.

• 1. you look at the painting.

• 2. figures in painting look at you

• 3. figures in painting looking at one another.

• 4. figures staring off into space.

• 5. the museum guard who is looking at the back of you head.

• 6. other people in the gallery.

• 7. the artist who once looked at this painting.

• 8. models for the figures in this painting.

• 9. other people who have seen the painting.

• 10. people who have never seen the painting.

• Here perhaps it should be noted that even if your primary interest is in media texts, to confine yourself to the gaze only in relation ‘textual practices’ is to ignore the importance of the reciprocal gaze in the social context of cultural practices in general.