How did the male gaze affected the representation of young women in American popular culture in the 2000’s ? by Lola Delesalle 

The 2000’s decade was filled with iconic moments in popular culture. In 2001, Apple was developing the iPod, starting a revolution in the digital music industry, Beyoncé Knowles was releasing her first solo album Dangerously In Love in 2003 and in 2005, the American adaptation of The Office aired for the first time on NBC. But unfortunately, this inspiring decade was also a one of humiliation and sexism for many young women who saw themselves harassed and mistreated by the media. This research is going to build on the theory of the male gaze and its impact of the representation of women in American popular culture between 2000 and 2009. The idea of ‘male gaze’ was first explored by Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), who argued that most popular movies are filmed in a way that satisfies a heterosexual, masculine gaze. Sarah Vanbuskirk (2021) explains that the male gaze depicts women in ways that are harmful and degrading and works to perpetuate a patriarchal structure. This theory does not only apply to film, but to any medium in which women are involved in and, generally, in real life.

An obsession with young women in the media became prominent in the early 2000’s, with the famous 2003 Vanity Fair cover “It’s Raining Teens”. The paparazzi industry also started exploding and spreading content became a huge part of society. With social media barely existing at the time, people’s only glimpse of celebrities’ lives were through reality tv or through the lens of paparazzi cameras. Celebrity culture paired with patriarchal ideologies started an unhealthy portrayal of young women in the media, where a lot of them were criticised for not always representing what society expected from them. A lot of people believe that the 2000’s decade was the peak of popular culture and seem to want to look back at all the young women they believed had gotten it all wrong at the time. But it is time to ask ourselves if it is not the culture of the time, that got it all wrong instead. In this essay, we will analyse how the male gaze affected the way young women were represented in the media in the 2000’s, using specific study cases.

Literature Review :

The impact of the male gaze on female representation in the media has been well researched. Using feminist theory and psycho-analysis, we can demonstrate how damaging it has been for young women over the years. In feminist theory, the male gaze represents a sexualised way of looking at women. The idea of ‘male gaze’ was first explored by Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), who argued that most popular movies are filmed in a way that satisfies a heterosexual, masculine gaze. This theory does not only apply to film, but to any medium in which women are involved and, generally, in real life. A report by the American Psychological Association (2007) on the sexualization of girls in the media found that girls are more often than boys, depicted in a sexual manner. Women as Sex Objects and Victims in Print Advertisements (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008), found that on average, 76% of women that appeared in advertisement in men’s magazines were objectified. Sarah Vanbuskirk (2021) explains that the male gaze depicts women in ways that are harmful and degrading and works to perpetuate a patriarchal structure. Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) provides an understanding of being a woman in a society that sexually objectifies the female body. Objectification theory explains that being sexually observed can lead girls and women to body monitoring, which can cause shame and anxiety. Additionally, the male gaze represents very specific ideas about men and women and contributes to some stereotypes. A study on gender bias and implicit assumptions (Jo Yurcaba, 2020), shows that many people tend to assume that men are smarter than women because of negative representation in the media. Mainstream culture allowed men to take advantage of women, in a way that became instilled in our society. The recent documentary Framing Britney Spears (2021) shows interviewers and paparazzi asking the pop star sexist and upsetting questions and how she was sexualised from a very young age. Ivo Niehe, who was 53 at the time, asked 17-year-old Britney Spears about the size of her breasts and her thoughts about breast implants on national TV. Monica Lewinski (2015), addresses in a TED conference her affair with Bill Clinton 17 years later, and how she was blamed and attacked by the media, when in reality, she was a 22 year old victim of abusive power. The #MeToo movement enabled a new era of reflection and allowed many women to reclaim their power. Its

impact caused a re-evaluation of the culture that allowed powerful men to objectify women without the fear of punishment. It also allowed a collective sexual liberation for women. Professors Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad (2018) wrote an article for the 20th anniversary of the gender studies journal Sexualities, in which they reflect on the changes seen over that time and explain how #MeToo is an example in which sex and power intersect. The rise of collective awareness opened the door to the “female gaze” theory, brought by Jill Soloway (2016), and how it uses the frame to evoke a feeling of being in “feeling”, rather than in “seeing”, and where the objects becomes subjects. Putting all these theories together, we can see that the theory of the male gaze has evolved over time and became a way for women to feel empowered about their own bodies and express their sexuality unapologetically, without seeking the validation of men. Sexual expression is an essential aspect of sexuality for an individual’s well-being (Peterson, 2010). The impact of the male gaze on female representation has been toxic for decades, but it has been the occasion to look back at what was considered normality and start changing what had been done wrong for so long. In his book Reading the Male Gaze in Literature and Culture: Studies in Erotic Epistemology, James D. Bloom argues that male gazing can also be understood as an illuminating, intellectually engaging, aesthetically compelling, and even politically progressive practice. Being aware of the male gaze is the only way towards progressivism and change and it is thanks to all of these studies that we can hope for a raise of awareness and a better future.

I- The rise and fall of Britney Spears

As American popular culture revisits the misogynistic treatment of many young women in the 2000’s, we have to ask why this era was so toxic for women. A key answer to this question is the myth of postfeminism, which implies that we live in a society where misogyny and sexism no longer exist and yet, feminism is no longer necessary. This term was first used in the 1980s to describe a backlash against second-wave feminism. Angela McRobbie (2007) argues that post- feminism suggests that “feminism is decisively aged and made to seem redundant”. This controversial theory made it very hard, if not impossible, to call out instances of misogyny at the

time, which led to public humiliations and sexism towards women. Rosalind Gill (2019) writes that “[the term postfeminism emerged] as a way of making sense of paradoxes and contradictions in the representation of women” and that in the media culture of the time, the celebration of female success and ‘girl power’ were attached to the aggressive scrutiny of women in the public eye. Britney Spears is an excellent example of a young women who suffered from the myth of post- feminism. From a very young age, Spears suffered from sexism and objectification and only recently has it been addressed. The #FreeBritney movement has sparked a lot of debate and the documentaries that followed exposed the way Britney Spears was treated and used by the media for years.

Britney Spears made her big screen debut at age 11, in the Disney show The All-New Mickey Mouse Club in 1992. At the age of 15, Spears signed with Jive Records and in 1998, her debut album Baby One More Time sent her to the top and became one of the best-selling albums of all time, making Spears the best-selling teenage artist. “[The song Baby One More Time] is obviously sexual by nature” says critic-at-large Wesley Morris in the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears. Morris also acknowledges that Britney Spears started exploding at the same time of the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky affair and that it was a really charged moment for the United States, where the country was talking about sex in a way that had never been done before. From a very young age, Spears started to be over-sexualised and portrayed as a provocative school girl. The 1999 Rolling Stone cover of Britney Spears, who was just 18 at the time, shows her in her bedroom, surrounded by teddybears, wearing a revealing outfit and high heels. This shows that the media had a very specific brand for Spears from the beginning of her career, which was a sex symbol, while also keeping the idea that she was still an innocent and pure little girl.

In her book The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti (2009) exposes the obsession of America with virginity and purity, and examines the “virgin/whore” dichotomy that plagued the United States, and how it affected women of all ages. Speculations about Britney Spears’ virginity started making headlines after she explained that she wanted to save herself for marriage. Her relationship with Justin Timberlake was extremely mediated and when they broke up in 2002, she was publicly slut- shamed and demonised for, supposedly, being the cause of it. In his interview with Barbara Walters for NBC News conducted the same year, Walters asks him if Spears lived up to her

promise of staying a virgin until marriage, leading to Timberlake laughing before answering “sure” is a sarcastic way. In a 2006 article, abc News called him “a quiet, clean little boy”, while Spears’ name was constantly being tarnished by the media, which led to her mental breakdown in 2007. These examples illustrate perfectly the way America functioned in the 2000’s and show that it was far from being a post-feminist era and that sexism was very much present. Spears was judged for not projecting what the patriarchal system of the time expected from her, however, Justin Timberlake was never called out for talking about their sexual life. By 2008, Spears was removed custody of her children and put under a conservatorship by her father James Spears, giving him a full control over her life and finances.

The #FreeBritney movement was first started in 2009 by Megan Radford, and aimed to draw attention to the singer’s conservatorship. It became viral in 2019 after allegations were made in an episode of the fan podcast Britney’s Gram, that the 37-year-old singer was being held against her will in a mental institution. Many people showed their support, including singer Eve and actress Rose McGowan. Spears finally spoke up about the conservatorship and on November 12th 2021, the conservatorship officially ended after 13 years. After the release of the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears, that sheds light on how Spears was exploited by the media and her own father, many people including Justin Timberlake, apologised publicly. Framing Britney Spears also shows presenters like Ivo Niehe, who was 53 at the time, asking 17-year-old Britney Spears about the size of her breasts on national TV, which he was called out for only recently. Fashion director Hayley Hill, explains in the documentary that she worked with a lot of boybands and that not of them was ever under any scrutiny. This again, shows that the American popular culture of the 2000 decade was very destructive for young women in the public eye, where many of them were blamed for men’s unacceptable actions and sexualised unapologetically. Just like Britney Spears, Megan Fox has also received apologies and recognition on social media after she explained how her concerns about being objectified as a young teen were completely ignored for years.

II- Megan Fox : The deconstruction of a sex symbol

Megan Fox was a sex symbol in an era that turned against sex symbols. Rising into stardom after 2007 Transformers, she embodied the feminine ideals of the 2000’s and early 2010’s through her sex appeal, her svelte figure and her unfiltered persona. By playing characters that personified the sex symbol myth, Fox was self-aware about what she represented and called out many times the way Hollywood and the media treated her. In response to her honesty, she was being actively diminished as a human being and criticised for expressing anything other than “gratitude” for the attention she was receiving. Fox was typecast to a degree that there was only one type of role people expected from her. This connects to the aspect of Mulvey’s theory in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975). For Mulvey, identification is always from a male point of view, and female characters are always subject to the controlling male gaze. The woman’s lack of a phallus gives meaning to the man’s possession of such, and the power and status it brings. This is reinforced in cinema. Megan Fox’s looks attached her to roles that only put her appearance forward, and she was used as a bait to attract a male audience. In Mulvey’s words, “women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact”. The same way it happened to Britney Spears, a specific image was assigned to Fox from a very young age, but in the wake of the #MeToo movement, American popular culture has given Fox a second look after past interviews resurfaced where she clearly expressed how uncomfortable she was being treated purely as a sexual object from adolescence on.

In a 2009 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Fox explains that she was cast as an extra in the movie Bad Boys II when she was fifteen and that director Michael Bay had her dance in a bikini under a waterfall because she could not be seen sitting at the bar at that age. Firstly, we can see here that Michael Bay’s alternative to Megan Fox being underage was to sexualise her, and found that more suitable than having her sitting at the bar. Secondly, Jimmy Kimmel seems amused by the fact that Fox was put in this position at such a young age and just answers “that’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work”. Again here, Fox exposed a real issue that many young women faced in the industry but it was ignored and mocked. Fox also told British GQ that she suffered from body dysmorphia because of how her body was objectified. Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) explains that being sexually observed can lead girls and women to

body monitoring, which can cause shame and anxiety. As Driscoll theorises, the girl is “defined by a conception of her body as sexualised territory”. Due to her overly sexualised image, Fox was not taken seriously as an actress nor as a person: “I knew I was smart, I knew I was funny. And then all of the sudden I was none of those things, I was supposed to just be a sexy girl” says Fox in a 2019 interview for ET. In the 2019 Jennifer’s Body (2009) reunion, Diablo Coby, the screenwriter, and Megan Fox who interpreted Jennifer, talk about the movie 10 years after its release, and how it was criticised when it came out.

Comedy-horror Jennifer’s Body is a perfect example in which camera framing, subversive writing and self-aware characters bring a female point of view to a male genre. Diablo Coby explains that she always wanted to write a horror movie for a female audience about female friendship, sex, revenge and empowerment. Unfortunately, this was not something that was celebrated or even understood at the time. Director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Coby wanted the movie to appeal to young girls, however, the studio insisted on promoting the movie Megan Fox’s sex appeal to a male audience, resulting in disappointment and misogynistic reviews. But over the years, Jennifer’s Body slowly gained public praise for addressing predatory behaviour and assault, long before this was represented in the mainstream. Jennifer’s Body earned its place in feminist horror by reclaiming the revenge story formula for women and denying the male gaze. Where many horror movies put women characters into specific categories, such as the damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by a man, the promiscuous one who gets killed because of her sexual activity or the final girl who survives because she is more pure than the others, neither of the female protagonists in Jennifer’s Body correspond to any of these archetypes, and their sexuality does not define their character, at the contrary, Jennifer’s sexual activities is what allows her to survive being sacrificed.

In her book The Monstrous Feminine (1993), Barbara Creed explores the theory of the Femme Castratrice, or castrating woman, in revenge horror films: “She assumes two forms: the castrating female psychotic and the woman who seeks revenge on men who have raped or abused her in some way”. To illustrate this theory, Creed discusses the movie I Spit On Your Grave (1978), where the victim gets revenge after being raped by a group of men and, literally, castrates one of them. Creed argues that the representation of woman in I Spit On Your Grave is misogynistic and “whereas woman-as-victim is represented as an abject thing, man-as-victim is not similarly degraded and humiliated”. A lot of revenge horror films contain very graphic assault

scenes before showing the victim’s revenge plan, however, Jennifer’s Body focuses more on how the character feel, instead of what has been done to her, and the violence is kept for Jennifer’s own killings. Remakes of Last House On The Left (2009) or I Spit On Your Grave (2010) were praised for their depictions of graphic assault, by the same critics that miss the point of Jennifer’s Body. This is were we can see the difference between a revenge horror movie made by men and one made by women. Jennifer’s Body purposely does not detail the actual assault, but instead focuses on the complicated feeling of surviving it, through Jennifer’s physical transformation. After her attack, Jennifer’s sole purpose is to destroy anyone who reminds her of her assailants. She begins eating boys but does not try to find her specific attackers. This symbolises that the violence she suffered from is not just the fault of her attackers, but a bigger societal issue.

While some critics appreciated Jennifer’s Body at the time, the reception from this male dominated industry was largely negative. The inability for men to relate to the film’s argument hurt its reputation. It is easy to see why Jennifer’s Body got so popular since the rise of the #MeToo movement, as the story is a direct parallel of real life power dynamics. The band that sacrifices Jennifer uses her fascination for them to get her alone with them, before exploiting her body to benefit their career. Megan Fox has even compared that plot point to how she felt about Hollywood at the time. Indeed, Jennifer’s Body was not only ahead of its time for addressing systemic issues, but for also opening the door to a female gaze in horror movie where the frame is used to evoke a feeling of being in “feeling”, rather than in “seeing”, and where the objects becomes subjects. The #MeToo movement enabled a re-evaluation of the culture that allowed men to objectify women without the fear of punishment. It also allowed a collective sexual liberation for women. Samantha Stark, the director of Framing Britney Spears, also thinks that social media played a role in America’s current urge to look back at the past. In the 2000s, whenever something inappropriate was on TV, there was no immediate way to comment on it like there is with social media today. Because of that, many sexists comments went unnoticed or undiscussed.

Overall, mainstream culture allowed men to take advantage of women, in a way that became instilled in our society. Many key roles in film-making, such as directors and cinematographers, were for decades dominated by men and not until recently has it improved. The theory of the male gaze has evolved over time and has now become a tool for calling out instances of misogyny and for women to feel empowered about their bodies and express their sexuality without seeking for the validation of men. The first step to eliminate the male gaze is to recognise that it is here. Although there is still a long way to go, we can hope that in the post #MeToo era we live in, more powerful female figures will keep inspiring younger generations and lead us to a rehabilitation of the past.

Initial Proposal :

Unhealthy relationships on screen : why were the early 2000’s romantic comedies so toxic?

In my critical essay, I will study 3 romantic comedies from 2000 to 2004 that glorify unhealthy relationships and romanticise unrealistic expectations. These 3 movies are Shallow Hal (2001), Love Actually (2003) and The Notebook (2004). I have chosen these 3 movies as they are considered “classics” and they all made millions at the box office. They also all represent different toxic aspects from fatphobia to mental and physical abuse.

I will start by defining a toxic relationship according to psycho-analysis and show how these toxic traits are glorified on screen. I will also explain why these common traits were considered “acceptable” at the time but why they would suffer from backlash nowadays. I am planning on using video essays and read about toxic behaviours in relationships from a psychological point of view to back up my theories.

Annotated Bibliography :

1- Mulvey, L. (1975) ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Screen, 16(3).

Laura Mulvey’s theory is that women in Hollywood are used to provide a pleasurable visual experience for men. This essay is extremely relevant to what I want to demonstrate in mine, as I will address the sexualisation of women in the media and the concept of ‘male gaze’.

2- McNamara, K. (2015) Paparazzi: Media Practices and Celebrity Culture. Polity Press.

Kim McNamara explores the controversial paparazzi industry, and how paparazzi culture has become a key element in today’s media and a very unorthodox way of making money. This is a helpful source as I will show how the media has done extremely wrong to a lot of women and how celebrity and mainstream culture has affected young women overtime.

3- Grady, C. (2021) Paris Hilton’s sex tape was revenge porn. The world gleefully watched., Vox.
Available at: https://www.vox.com/culture/22391942/paris-hilton-sex-tape-revenge-porn-south-park-stupid-spoiled-whore-video-playset-pink-stupid-girl  (Accessed: 5 November 2021).

Paris Hilton was only 23 when this tape came out and although she said many times that she never wanted it to come out, she was mocked and humiliated by the media. This is a relevant source in terms of showing how the media can use a woman’s sexuality against her and being blamed for a man’s actions.

4- Stark, S. (2021) Framing Britney Spears. The New York Times Company.

In Framing Britney Spears, we see how she was treated horribly by the media and the impact it had on her mental health throughout the years. She was overly controlled from a young age and her own image was constantly used against her. Today, many people have supported Britney

Spears and her fans even started the #FreeBritney movement to get her out of the conservatorship her dad started. This shows how collective awareness can be extremely beneficial and how speaking up is important, which is one of the points I will make in my essay on how some celebrities have been exploited by the media for many years and how, nowadays, these issues are finally addressed. The #MeToo movement sparked a new era of reflection on the ideologies of post-feminism and It has also been the opportunity to look back at mainstream culture and what was considered ‘acceptable’ back then.

Revised Proposal :

How did the male gaze affected the representation of young women in the media in the 2000’s?

-Britney, Paris and Lindsay : the rise and fall of America’s favourite starlets

The 2000’s decade was an era where popular and mainstream culture were on peak and it was filled with iconic pop stars, fashion and music. It was also a time where the paparazzi industry starting exploding; spreading and consuming content became a huge part of society. Many young women, like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan, were subject to mainstream attacks and harassed by the media.

-Jennifer’s Body and the male gaze

In the male gaze, women are positioned as a sexual object for heterosexual desire. The male gaze has affected the way women are represented in the media. Actresses like Megan Fox were portrayed as overly sexual and not taken seriously. In her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975), Laura Mulvey argued that most popular movies are filmed in a way that satisfies a heterosexual, masculine gaze. In the 2019 Jennifer’s Body (2009) reunion, Diablo Coby, the film’s director, and Megan Fox who interpreted Jennifer, talk about the movie 10 years after its release. Diablo Coby explains that she always wanted to write a horror movie for a female audience about female friendship, sex, revenge and empowerment, however she says that the marketing team wanted to sexualise Megan Fox and sell the movie to a male audience. The movie was a commercial failure in 2009 as no one understood its real meaning.

-The #MeToo movement and the rise of collective awareness

The “Me Too” phrase was started by Tarana Burke in 2006 on MySpace, to raise awareness of women who had been sexually abused. It became viral 11 years later, after a tweet by actress

Alyssa Milano. The #MeToo movement sparked a new era of reflection on the ideologies of post- feminism. Its impact caused a re-evaluation of the culture that allowed powerful men to subjugate women without the fear of punishment, and on how women need progress as a collective. It has also been the opportunity to look back at mainstream culture attacks what was considered ‘acceptable’ back then. Many women were treated unfairly in the media because of men’s action. Monica Lewinsky was publicly attacked with sexist criticism when her relationship with Bill Clinton came to light, but has received public support in recent years as society has come to understand the toxicity of how she was blamed and slut- shamed for being a 22 year-old victim of abusive power. The next series of American Crime Story, produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, will focus on the Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky being one of the producers herself, giving her the occasion to reclaim her narrative. The #FreeBritney movement and the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears also shed light on how tabloids had an extremely damaging impact on her mental health and how her hyper-sexualised image was used against her from a very young age.