...IN THE MIDNIGHT LINE THE OTHER NIGHT THERE WERE ABOUT 90 GUYS ALL STANDING AROUND READY TO BUY. AMONG THEM, A FEW RANDOM GIRLS INTERSPERSED WHO RIGHTLY LOVED THE LAST GAME AND ARE NOW GOING TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH A REALLY, REALLY STRANGE TONE. OH SURE, CHANCES ARE THEY’RE USED TO MOST OF THE SEXISM IN VIDEO GAMES, BUT THIS IS A SPECIAL KIND OF ORNAMENTAL. THIS IS STEALTH SEXISM. SOMETHING FAR MORE INSIDIOUS THAN THE NAKED PANDERING OF DUKE NUKEM.

Gender roles among contemporary comics characters has been scrutiized in the wake of DC Comics' rebooting of its product line (previously), as well as in its prior days of stuffing damsels inside refrigerators. But the latest writeup on the Male Gaze's role in superheroics has emerged from the irradiated brow of...The Hulk. And not Feminist Hulk, nor Drunk Hulk but...well, the one who analyses movies.
posted by Smart Dalek on Oct 20, 2011 - 168 comments

Would you buy a pepsi blue pantyliner from this man? How about if he takes off his shirt? [more inside]
posted by Forktine on Sep 2, 2010 - 172 comments

"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves." Also: male gaze on the Gender Ads Project. Laura Mulvey's original 1975 essay on Male Gaze in cinema.
posted by Optimus Chyme on Mar 12, 2009 - 248 comments

If you were asked to design the perfect weapon to exploit this vulnerability as it manifests itself in attractive, urban gay men, you’d want something that would intensify our isolation, exaggerate our propensity to objectify each other, and persuade us to objectify ourselves -- by encouraging us to believe that our purpose is to look good and have lots of sex. Manhunt would be your perfect weapon

"Has Manhunt Destroyed Gay Culture?". It's a great article, but what happened after its publication may be just as interesting. [more inside]
posted by Weebot on Aug 28, 2008 - 49 comments