desnoise:

oldtobegin:

i can’t speak about lana del ray in particular, because i honestly have not heard her yet. but i can speak to the idea of the male gaze and i want to say that the answer to kasia’s question is “nothing.” everything a woman does in our society is subject to the male gaze, unless she fully secludes herself from men, which, as we know, is nearly impossible - and even other women act that male gaze in the way they’re conditioned to judge and compete with one another.

i guess that this is the criticism lana del ray is making - or that her fans perceive her to be making - and it’s a criticism i think is really right on. everything we do as women, no matter how self-oriented, no matter how authentic, can be twisted into totally foreign meanings when reframed by male perception. 

I agree with this, but isn’t this a different question than the one asked by those who criticize Lana Del Rey for not existing outside of a desire to please a male listener? Isn’t there a difference between acknowledging there’s no escape from the male gaze and acting as if the male gaze is all that matters? Maybe you’re saying there isn’t, which would make sense, and would also potentially make Lana Del Rey’s music more intriguing to me. But then again, wouldn’t it be easier if the songs themselves were as obviously entertaining as say, the hits of Britney Spears, who eventually rendered these sorts of conversations about her totally perv-friendly videos moot because, well, who hates fun?

Pretty sure that Laura Mulvey, originator or at least popularizer of “male gaze” has backed away from this interpretation of it. The “male gaze” as a constant and non-negotiable feature denies the fact that audiences are complicated, and that meanings from texts require us to actually agree to them. I for one don’t actually agree with most readings of LDR’s so-called positioning of herself, particularly through her lyrics, which is to say nothing of her (to me) self-evidently ridiculous production. These arguments feel very “words on the page,” when the impact of hearing this stuff is different — sometimes radically different — than easy quoting suggests.

But as for the audience stuff, there are communities of listeners that don’t subscribe — or actively resist — male gaze-y presentation, reception, and use. Not all of these communities are devoid of any men. And not all men watching some of the easiest-to-pin-the-gaze-to media are watching it in the environment that the gaze supposes (the subject of camp, reinterpretation by marginalized communities, etc.). Important not to conflate what the object is doing — which requires our interpretation of it — with any assumptions about what the audience is doing with it. LDR criticism is pretty egregious on this front (along with the fact that it seems, to me, if not technically “wrong,” pretty misguided in its approach to analysis of the music, or perhaps any music, except that the only time such analyses will be trotted out is for this and other “exceptional” cases.)