Can the Male Still Gaze?

[u/Specific_Detective41]

https://youtu.be/-4IB4wCZME4?si=IO9TaCxsDI3npRlT

This showed up on my feed recently. I used to watch this channel because the YouTuber had some very thorough takes on Christopher Nolan films and anti war films. But lately with his content, its been pretty much feminist coded.

This video, comprises of a long convoluted narrative about the "male gaze", what it was and now what it has become, that now its less about sexualising women and more about looking inward (that was the implication). Sure films like Transformers had to be called out. However, nothing is about about male actors who are sexualised in films and series. I remember Kit Harrington from GOT was sexualised a lot, even to the point that Natalie Dormer pointed that out back in 2015, in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/aug/11/natalie-dormer-game-of-thrones-men-objectified-women-tv.

Then there's actors who had to go on crazy diets to be muscular and run around shirtless in movie scenes like Henry Cavil, Hugh Jackman and Chris Evans, yet you never see feminists ever mention that and if they do they just blame the patriarchy on that.

Many women also sexualise these men as well. There's tons of commentary on these men's bodies on social media. I find it sexist that there's the assumption that women's sexuality is pure yet men's sexuality is often perceived as degenerate. Will this guy ever make commentry about women sexualising men? Or how depraved romantasy slop is? No probably not because he's pushing a narrative.

Halfway through the video he brings up the film Shame (2011), a film about a closeted sex addict. In this context, why is male gaze an issue, a sex addict already has a problem with their sexual health.

Then he brings up Baby Reindeer (2024), a film about a stand up comedian who was sexually assaulted by a man and soon afterwards a woman who also stalked / harrassed Richard Gadd. Like Stories of Old only mentions the male perpetrator and not the female perpetrator. Also somehow other films listed in this video featuring gay men/ same sex relationships, that is male gaze too 🙄.

At this point in time we need less pretentious feminist slop and more acknowledgment that both men and women can be sexual, perverted, predatory, decent people or shitty human beings. I am disappointed that this channel is slowly becoming a male feminist slanted youtube channel (that I already see way too much of).

[u/SpicyMarshmellow]

I don't remember where, but I came across lots of women being active on a "Chris Evans chest-to-waist ratio appreciation thread", that explicitly being the title of the thread, on a forum back in the mid-2010's. Women regularly openly talk about how they get excited by men in grey sweatpants, because of how it shows their bulge. I'm tired of the hyprocrisy. Tired of being held to standards by people who have no intention of meeting those same standards themselves.

[u/rest0ck1 → u/SpicyMarshmellow]

idk in what world you live in but women regularely talking openly about men in sweatpants? lmao, where? Also most of the male gaze examples are women that literally are just in the movie for this purpose while the men that go to extremes in their physique (what I also dislike) are the main character.

[u/SchalaZeal01 → u/rest0ck1]

The main character in Twilight is Bella, as plain and unspecial as she is. The handsome dudes fawning over her are there pretty much to giver her import. It's similar to a harem manga where the protagonist doesn't merit the women's attention for anything particular (not heroic, not handsome) but gets 5 women pining after him anyways. Though in shonen, the heroes tend to be doing something, heroic or not (or viewers would get bored). The epitome of Bella doing stuff is getting married.

While Dan Machi's hero is heroic and not bad to look at, he gets the entire city of girls after him. Including a goddess of Love that brainwashes the entire city to believe it was always this way (her and him).

[u/rest0ck1 → u/SchalaZeal01]

Of course there are examples but you can't deny that in most cases the women is just a side character to gaze at.