A non-sexual, non-marginalising version of the term '(gender)-gaze'?
January 6, 2023 6:29 PM Subscribe
Looking for the term that describes when the author of a piece of media is obviously from a specific demographic, due to the perspective or a detail that they put in. Mainly thinking about general-audience works where the voice or audience isn't necessarily of a demographic but one or two details still give the author away. Sometimes the work marginalises other demographics but not necessarily.
'-gaze', '-normative', '-centric', '-fantasy' words seem close and would fall under the umbrella of this word.
Examples:
. A general-audience work that makes you think 'this was definitely written by a hetero woman' because it contains: a gentle and martyring female character, an exasperated older academic male/young-feisty-clumsy-intelligent female pairing, a gay male pairing that falls under heteronormative patterns, hurt/comfort dynamic, males characters that are strong and pretty, a moment where a female character is feeling insecure about herself.
. A general-audience work that makes you think 'this was definitely written by a hetero man' because it contains: an out-of-the-left-field description of a woman's body that comes from the author's way of perceiving women, rather than them depicting a character that's observing a woman this way as a character trait; a woman sleeps with another character as a matter of course and there's no internal crisis following it; descriptions of shitting/farting/belching; a male academic wears a blazer with elbow patches and drinks whisky; guns are described by their make; a detail about dogs being better than cats
Examples:
. A general-audience work that makes you think 'this was definitely written by a hetero woman' because it contains: a gentle and martyring female character, an exasperated older academic male/young-feisty-clumsy-intelligent female pairing, a gay male pairing that falls under heteronormative patterns, hurt/comfort dynamic, males characters that are strong and pretty, a moment where a female character is feeling insecure about herself.
. A general-audience work that makes you think 'this was definitely written by a hetero man' because it contains: an out-of-the-left-field description of a woman's body that comes from the author's way of perceiving women, rather than them depicting a character that's observing a woman this way as a character trait; a woman sleeps with another character as a matter of course and there's no internal crisis following it; descriptions of shitting/farting/belching; a male academic wears a blazer with elbow patches and drinks whisky; guns are described by their make; a detail about dogs being better than cats
Alternative to 'provincial': 'parochial' -- ? Its dictionary definition is 'having a limited or narrow outlook or scope'. Or one of its synonyms.
posted by JonJacky at 7:43 PM on January 6, 2023
posted by JonJacky at 7:43 PM on January 6, 2023
Using "gaze" as in the "male gaze" of mid century film theory implies not just a point of view but an objectifying gaze at an other. The gaze in this sense compels the viewer to identify with it, to identify with the empowered male subject and to see the feminine object of the gaze as other. That sense of "gaze" is not necessarily equivalent to the subjectivity of an author's general perspective or point of view, which can be gendered but which is not defining itself vs the gazed-on other. I'd call it perspective or point of view.
posted by ojocaliente at 10:59 PM on January 6, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by ojocaliente at 10:59 PM on January 6, 2023 [17 favorites]
xyz-coded might be what you are after based on above the fold, but clichéd, stereotypical or tropey based on your examples below.
posted by Iteki at 11:50 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Iteki at 11:50 PM on January 6, 2023 [2 favorites]
a woman sleeps with another character as a matter of course and there's no internal crisis following it
to hold this up as an example of anything would require a full argument, it doesn't speak for itself. I mean I don't think one single bit of jargon would suffice even if invented fresh for the purpose.
part of the problem with these condensed interpretation-signifiers is that when you identify some more straightforward example of writing to an imagined audience demographic -- which can definitely be done -- correctly identifying that imagined audience demographic is not the same as correctly guessing "when the author of a piece of media is obviously from a specific demographic, due to the perspective or a detail that they put in." when you don't already know who they are, it isn't obvious. talking cogently about e.g. the "male gaze" does not need to presuppose that the person catering to it is in fact male, since anyone can fake certain common biases and habits if they have a good ear or a good eye. same goes for other culturally favored backgrounds not related to sex or gender. I think that analyzing the text is more interesting than catching the author in the act of having a personal history, but that is my own bias.
but so ok, the language you're looking for does, as you say, assume an obvious identity between the work's constructed perspective & choice of detail and the author's own background. when I make these assumptions, which I do, I talk about it as an author (filmmaker, whatever) being transparent, narcissistically self-regarding, giving herself away, giving the game away, being embarrassing, being obvious, accidentally writing his diary in place of a novel, living in a bubble, mistaking a mirror for a window/her college social circle for the universe, so on and so forth. none of these are short and snappy enough to be mistaken for technical rhetorical terms but I think this is good as it is an inherently tricky way to approach a thing.
posted by queenofbithynia at 12:41 PM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
to hold this up as an example of anything would require a full argument, it doesn't speak for itself. I mean I don't think one single bit of jargon would suffice even if invented fresh for the purpose.
part of the problem with these condensed interpretation-signifiers is that when you identify some more straightforward example of writing to an imagined audience demographic -- which can definitely be done -- correctly identifying that imagined audience demographic is not the same as correctly guessing "when the author of a piece of media is obviously from a specific demographic, due to the perspective or a detail that they put in." when you don't already know who they are, it isn't obvious. talking cogently about e.g. the "male gaze" does not need to presuppose that the person catering to it is in fact male, since anyone can fake certain common biases and habits if they have a good ear or a good eye. same goes for other culturally favored backgrounds not related to sex or gender. I think that analyzing the text is more interesting than catching the author in the act of having a personal history, but that is my own bias.
but so ok, the language you're looking for does, as you say, assume an obvious identity between the work's constructed perspective & choice of detail and the author's own background. when I make these assumptions, which I do, I talk about it as an author (filmmaker, whatever) being transparent, narcissistically self-regarding, giving herself away, giving the game away, being embarrassing, being obvious, accidentally writing his diary in place of a novel, living in a bubble, mistaking a mirror for a window/her college social circle for the universe, so on and so forth. none of these are short and snappy enough to be mistaken for technical rhetorical terms but I think this is good as it is an inherently tricky way to approach a thing.
posted by queenofbithynia at 12:41 PM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
"Lens" is the word you're looking for if you're trying to talk about how the individual identity of a creator has impacted their creative work. But "lens" is something you talk about from a curious, generous, analytical point of view, usually? I don't think it is the term you actually are looking for, especially based on the examples you gave.
The examples you gave are about tying certain textual tropes with certain specific attributes of creators. That's not "lens". And that's not sounding very nice to me. If you want to be non-marginalizing, trying to deduce the specific gender or race or sexuality of a particular creator from textual clues is very much the wrong direction to go in, isn't it?
I think I am seeing some misunderstanding on your part about what the term "male gaze" means. When people use the term "male gaze" they're saying "patriarchally normative", NOT "made by a het man" nor "enjoyed only by het men". The term is neither sexualized nor marginalizing precisely because it avoids assuming the identity of the individual creator or the individual person in the audience who happens to enjoy it: rather it is a term that takes the heat off individual people and their identities, and points our attention towards larger trends, the social and cultural privileging of certain types of framings/lexicons/codes. If you want to say "this sounds like it was written by a [P-gendered] [Q-raced] person" that is doing the opposite, scapegoating specific named individuals for larger societal trends. THAT is marginalizing - or to be more accurate, bullying.
Like, it's cool and all, I guess, when used ironically or tongue-in-cheek as a throwaway twitter meme. But I would never want to see something like this legitimized in, say, academic contexts. Not without rigorous data analytics research to back it up! At a bare minimum, I'd want you to set an AI engine (better yet, several competing AI engines) on analyzing some large random samples of novels and let those engines spit out some hard numbers showing correlation between a given text containing a "woman experiences insecurity" scene and the writer being a het woman: then and only then would it be ethical to say the things you want to say without the cover of some part of your tongue up against your cheek.
posted by MiraK at 1:51 PM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
The examples you gave are about tying certain textual tropes with certain specific attributes of creators. That's not "lens". And that's not sounding very nice to me. If you want to be non-marginalizing, trying to deduce the specific gender or race or sexuality of a particular creator from textual clues is very much the wrong direction to go in, isn't it?
I think I am seeing some misunderstanding on your part about what the term "male gaze" means. When people use the term "male gaze" they're saying "patriarchally normative", NOT "made by a het man" nor "enjoyed only by het men". The term is neither sexualized nor marginalizing precisely because it avoids assuming the identity of the individual creator or the individual person in the audience who happens to enjoy it: rather it is a term that takes the heat off individual people and their identities, and points our attention towards larger trends, the social and cultural privileging of certain types of framings/lexicons/codes. If you want to say "this sounds like it was written by a [P-gendered] [Q-raced] person" that is doing the opposite, scapegoating specific named individuals for larger societal trends. THAT is marginalizing - or to be more accurate, bullying.
Like, it's cool and all, I guess, when used ironically or tongue-in-cheek as a throwaway twitter meme. But I would never want to see something like this legitimized in, say, academic contexts. Not without rigorous data analytics research to back it up! At a bare minimum, I'd want you to set an AI engine (better yet, several competing AI engines) on analyzing some large random samples of novels and let those engines spit out some hard numbers showing correlation between a given text containing a "woman experiences insecurity" scene and the writer being a het woman: then and only then would it be ethical to say the things you want to say without the cover of some part of your tongue up against your cheek.
posted by MiraK at 1:51 PM on January 7, 2023 [4 favorites]
> A general-audience work that makes you think 'this was definitely written by a hetero woman' because it contains: a gentle and martyring female character, an exasperated older academic male/young-feisty-clumsy-intelligent female pairing, a gay male pairing that falls under heteronormative patterns, hurt/comfort dynamic, males characters that are strong and pretty, a moment where a female character is feeling insecure about herself.
Oooh I put my finger on what sounds so familiar in your post, especially your examples. You know what this is? Essentialism. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Men like blue because they went hunting under open skies, women like pink because their job was to gather berries. Men can't see dirt because their brains are specialized for seeking mates and hunting prey, women are good at cleaning because their brains are specialized to prevent their toddlers from eating dirt off the floor. That's the genre your examples belong in. "Men write about whiskey and fighting, women write about hot guys and feeling insecure."
So perhaps you'll find it interesting to delve into evolutionary psychology. That's the "scientific" field that comes up with ... these things. I may not think much of it personally, but the field has legitimacy in some circles and certainly gets lots of funding. You will probably find terms and frameworks that are useful and illuminating to your interests in their books and papers. Some famous writers to look into: Steven Pinker, Jordan Peterson, Larry Summers, Christopher Hitchens, and correct me if I'm wrong but I think Richard Dawkins used to write about this for a while as well.
posted by MiraK at 2:11 PM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oooh I put my finger on what sounds so familiar in your post, especially your examples. You know what this is? Essentialism. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Men like blue because they went hunting under open skies, women like pink because their job was to gather berries. Men can't see dirt because their brains are specialized for seeking mates and hunting prey, women are good at cleaning because their brains are specialized to prevent their toddlers from eating dirt off the floor. That's the genre your examples belong in. "Men write about whiskey and fighting, women write about hot guys and feeling insecure."
So perhaps you'll find it interesting to delve into evolutionary psychology. That's the "scientific" field that comes up with ... these things. I may not think much of it personally, but the field has legitimacy in some circles and certainly gets lots of funding. You will probably find terms and frameworks that are useful and illuminating to your interests in their books and papers. Some famous writers to look into: Steven Pinker, Jordan Peterson, Larry Summers, Christopher Hitchens, and correct me if I'm wrong but I think Richard Dawkins used to write about this for a while as well.
posted by MiraK at 2:11 PM on January 7, 2023 [2 favorites]
The word that comes to mind for me is myopic. Defined by Britannica dictionary as "only thinking or caring about things that are happening now or that relate to a particular group rather than things that are in the future or that relate to many people"
Basically a narrow view or perspective.
posted by CleverClover at 3:55 PM on January 7, 2023
Basically a narrow view or perspective.
posted by CleverClover at 3:55 PM on January 7, 2023
talking cogently about e.g. the "male gaze" does not need to presuppose that the person catering to it is in fact male, since anyone can fake certain common biases and habits if they have a good ear or a good eye.
Yes. Women can write fiction aimed at male audiences, and may even use male pen names when doing so. Likewise, men can write romance novels, and might use female pen names when doing so.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:02 PM on January 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yes. Women can write fiction aimed at male audiences, and may even use male pen names when doing so. Likewise, men can write romance novels, and might use female pen names when doing so.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:02 PM on January 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
> Women can write fiction aimed at male audiences, and may even use male pen names when doing so. Likewise, men can write romance novels, and might use female pen names when doing so.
Also, orthogonally to artifice_eternity's point about (mis)assumed identities, het women can write romance novels using their own female names on the cover of the book, novels that are aimed at a target audience of other het women, and yet the novel's description of women's bodies (a heroine who looks in the mirror and thinks to herself that alas, her breasts are too big and her hair is too shiny and her waist is way too small) or the way the novel shows women's interactions with other women (they only ever have pillow fights with one another and that in their underwear?) could quite easily conform to the rules and standards of "male gaze".
posted by MiraK at 11:55 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, orthogonally to artifice_eternity's point about (mis)assumed identities, het women can write romance novels using their own female names on the cover of the book, novels that are aimed at a target audience of other het women, and yet the novel's description of women's bodies (a heroine who looks in the mirror and thinks to herself that alas, her breasts are too big and her hair is too shiny and her waist is way too small) or the way the novel shows women's interactions with other women (they only ever have pillow fights with one another and that in their underwear?) could quite easily conform to the rules and standards of "male gaze".
posted by MiraK at 11:55 AM on January 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
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and, while it may be marginalizing to some readers, I always enjoy a broad application of "provincialism" to works that obviously are constrained by borders that reside entirely inside the author's own head.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 6:48 PM on January 6, 2023 [5 favorites]