How Adele's Rolling Stone cover destroys the male gaze

November 26, 2015 6:14 PM

[slvice]
posted by St. Peepsburg (35 comments total)

I'm not really sure I buy that this cover is really disruptive or indicative of change. There have always been a handful of exceptional women who do more to prove the rule than they do to change the status quo. I'll be more impressed when the B list gets the same treatment-- when fewer young women are expected to showcase their looks in order to prove their talent. But maybe I shouldn't be cynical; I like Adele too.

A little Poly Styrene anybody?
posted by frumiousb at 6:43 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

It's a photograph. It has not destroyed anything.

slplateofbeans
posted by kcds at 6:46 PM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

That cover reminds me of nothing so much as Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow.
posted by lumensimus at 6:49 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

As a male who gazes, my worldview has been shattered. I'm literally milling confusedly about my man cave, gnashing my teeth and beating my bosom, unsure of the nature of reality. Soon i will collapse to the floor, whimpering "whyyy????" until the darkness takes me.

/likes Adele's music.
posted by ELF Radio at 6:51 PM on November 26, 2015 [19 favorites]

You have to love the casual way she tossed all this off tho. Oh, number one single? Sure, no prob.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 6:53 PM on November 26, 2015

I clicked on this really eager to hear Adele cover the Rolling Stones.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:53 PM on November 26, 2015 [13 favorites]

Good photo, though.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:57 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was walking through Walgreens the other day and I saw this cover and literally stopped in my tracks. I'm not sure the last time a Rolling Stone cover has done that to me.

Sure, it hasn't destroyed anything, but hyperbole aside, it's a stunning cover without being objectifying.
posted by mokin at 6:59 PM on November 26, 2015 [11 favorites]

I like the cover very much and I'm glad they did it.

That being said, I'm sure that right next to it on any given magazine rack are umpteen other covers that glorify and exalt the male gaze. So let's applaud this for what it is - one magazine making a different choice - and see if it has any ripple effects at all (including what the subsequent cover choices for Rolling Stone are) before we declare anything destroyed.
posted by nubs at 7:06 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

And here, Adele destroys the muggle gaze.
posted by roger ackroyd at 7:08 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Uh, I don't see that at all. How does this reject the male gaze? So she looks a little annoyed, but she apparently just climbed out of the shower and into a robe, managing to put on makeup and have her picture photoshopped so she looks thinner...
posted by touchstone033 at 7:11 PM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

Clicks. Money. Repeat.
posted by Xavier Xavier at 7:12 PM on November 26, 2015

I clicked on this really eager to hear Adele cover the Rolling Stones.

Right? I was thinking "Heart of Stone" or "Wild Horses."
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:12 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

If this were the exact same closeup of Adele and she was wearing makeup, they'd complain that Rolling Stone is trying to hide her body. Just another screed about women only wearing makeup for men's pleasure.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:15 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Vice article is kind of a mess, but I do find this photo quite striking and I think what it is is that Adele looks very adult in it, to an extent that even women celebrities who are much older don't usually have the latitude to project in the way they're depicted.
posted by threeants at 7:25 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's a good photo, but I found the Vice article to overstate its case by a lot.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:33 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

A closeup of a young, conventionally-attractive woman who is groomed and made up (and make no mistake, she is made up, just in a more subtle way than, say, Lady Gaga) and posed and lit and Photoshopped to be maximally aesthetically attractive is NO change from the status quo.

Are we supposed to think it is, just because she's wearing a bathrobe? I'd think many men would be attracted *because* of that. I mean hey, all those body parts are all the more accessible.

What would really reject the supremacy of the objectifying gaze would be to show a woman *doing* something rather than posing. And/or show a woman who makes kick-ass music but doesn't look conventionally attractive.
posted by mysterious_stranger at 7:38 PM on November 26, 2015 [7 favorites]

Yhe caption on the RS cover -- part of a PR blitz for her latest album -- was "A Private Life", meaning that rejecting publicity is now fodder for publicity, and the media coverage of it is being hailed as a rejection of the media. I give up.
posted by Etrigan at 7:41 PM on November 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

If this were the exact same closeup of Adele and she was wearing makeup,

She's not wearing makeup? Looks like smudged eyeliner, mascara, a natural shade of lipstick.

Anyway, I clicked on the link expecting it was going to be like Clothed Adele + Hot Nekkid Male, like the photographic version of How To Be A Heartbreaker.
posted by picklenickle at 7:47 PM on November 26, 2015

a woman who makes kick-ass music but doesn't look conventionally attractive.
posted by rocket88 at 7:50 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

The lede made me imagine Adele DESTROYING a cardboard set like in a Godzilla or Hulk movie. Graaaar! SMASH male GAZE!

That would make one hell of a magazine cover.
posted by clvrmnky at 7:50 PM on November 26, 2015

Yeah, this article was written by women who clearly doesn't under the width and breadth of the male gaze. Because this cover had a pretty hot looking Adele, just out of the shower and who's posing for an audience.

That's plenty for the male gaze to work with. It's a bit better that most covers because it's not explicitly catering to just the male gaze. Hurray, progress.

Thank you for posting this article, which allowed me to smugly point out why its wrong, giving me an inflated sense of intelligence! More please!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:52 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Right? I was thinking "Heart of Stone" or "Wild Horses."

I was thinking something like Cat Power's Satisfaction.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:55 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I might be wrong, but I'd guess that a stroll through Rolling Stone's cover photo archives would show this one's not as unique as the writer's implying. Quite a big fuss over some wet hair, IMO.
posted by davebush at 7:57 PM on November 26, 2015

She has makeup on and is gazing wistfully--passively--into the camera with her hand in a delicate, artful pose. This isn't any more transgressive than portraits by Joshua Reynolds.
posted by Bassariscus at 7:59 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Nope, not clicking that link. I'm already three years away from bifocals.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:01 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think she's lovely. I don't know or care if that means anything.
posted by tommasz at 8:06 PM on November 26, 2015

I am completely missing how this is any different from the treatment of any other female celebrity. It is, as others have pointed out, a photo of a made-up attractive woman in a bathrobe (implying nudity underneath), lit flatteringly. If this were any other female celebrity, there would be no such discussion. It seems to be based entirely on Adele's sesecualized reputation, not at all on the photo.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:13 PM on November 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

What would really reject the supremacy of the objectifying gaze would be to show a woman *doing* something rather than posing

Here is a woman spot-welding, that's pretty close. Of course, the world being what it is, all the related images are "sexy welder".
posted by Jon Mitchell at 8:23 PM on November 26, 2015

Also, in what sense does it destroy the male gaze when many people are going to react to this picture by thinking "wow, I can't believe she lost so much weight!" The same old patriarchal bullshit hasn't gone anywhere.
posted by Bassariscus at 8:26 PM on November 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm not sure what sort of people wrote that article, but in my world (ok, me), a woman who has just exited the shower is a whole bunch of 'pretence of sex'. Wet hair in particular is pretty stimulating for a lot of people, and has often been used as sexual indicator. Ok, the cover isn't glam, but surely the idiot who wrote this understands that sexual imagery transcends glamour, right?

OTOH, its a great cover.
posted by Bovine Love at 8:28 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I am still trying to wrap my brain around how putting a photo Of a person with a healthy glow, bed head and a bath robe on the cover of a popular magazine that is well known for using sexual photos to promote sales is "without the pretense of sex." I think both the Rolling Stone cover and the Vice article are using sex for clicks.
posted by wobumingbai at 8:34 PM on November 26, 2015

This bums me out because... well. she's wearing natural looking make-up- mascara, gloss, etc. I'd do the same thing if I were in the spotlight, but claiming it's a feminist thing just seems like a swat in the mug. It's still your standard issue sultry pose. That Janis Joplin cover rocket88 posted above seems like something much less directed by a PR team.
posted by biddeford at 8:40 PM on November 26, 2015

This thread would be a lot better if it had less male gaziness in it, even of the ironic variety.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:48 PM on November 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

It might also do with fewer men explaining what male gaze is and why this article doesn't understand it.
posted by maxsparber at 9:02 PM on November 26, 2015