Look and See

What do we see?

With a split-second illumination and a punctuated click a photo is created. The photo as advertisement acts as a dual representation of what the photographer intends to be seen and what we – the audience – invariably pull from the image. Within advertising, business and art work in tandem to create a societal mirror.

Capitalism weaves us –the captive consumers—a tale of a product that we must purchase in order to achieve a status that in turn assures the purchaser happiness. Inspired by the photo’s subliminal message, the consumer then follows the advertisements directives and purchases not just a product, but also a supposed lifestyle. Therefore, the stagnant photo is a representation of what industry desires us to desire and what we as buyers reflect and internalize about those directed desires.

The human body is an incredibly malleable substance; it is a subject often twisted and turned into object, marked with inauthentic meaning. From this physical world, so deeply rooted in shame and subjection, we go to John Paul Sartre’s theory of “The Look”. According to Sartre, “If we were alone in the world…we would be utterly free –within physical constraints – to be whomever we wanted to be, to be the creatures of our own self-fantasies, to define our behavior however we like” (Bordo 179).

However, we are not free. Even those of us outside of the lens, on the other side of the glossy page are subject to the so-called hell that is inflicted by Sartre’s “Look.” I, unlike the fashion industry’s models, may not be forced to contort my form to sell an oppressive ideal of female degradation and subjugation, but I am encouraged to attempt to recreate that very same contorted form if not in pose but in action. I look at the beautiful albeit weak woman and I am taught that to look anything less than perfect and pristine is shameful. Therefore I feel shame when I have spotted skin or grease slicked hair.

If the “most compelling images are suffused with “subjectivity”—they speak to us, they seduce us” and unlike the other kinds of “objects”…they don’t let us use them in any way we like. In fact, they exert considerable power over us—over our psyches, our desires, our self-image“ then subconsciously I piece together an image of myself culled from the millions of other images that invade my vision (188). I am a self-made woman, a photographic patchwork of beauty attempts. I have created this physical shell in order to avoid unwanted notice. In an effort to belong I have internalized the advertisement's collective wisdom.

Then, What Do We Learn?

Bordo makes the claim that a person does not gain any widespread societal knowledge from looking at advertisements (to specify, she is focusing on fashion ads), that in our “’post-modern’ age, it’s more of a free -for all, and images are often more reactive to each other than to social change”(192-3).

I understand that there is an underground war of escalation going on in the seedy world of media, but I dare to disagree that we can no longer “tell a lot about gender and race from looking at ads” (192).

We learn that women should exude perfection, that our skin should be blemish free and our bodies slashed to zero fat. We learn that chores are for women and that men are inept at childcare. So we take what we learn in those brief glances and reflect those ideals and misconceptions back into the world we inhabit. Thus, the backlit world of fantasy bleeds into our reality.

And don’t you forget: we learn that although there may only be one person trapped beneath the lens, we—all of us—are trapped by the “Look” of all others.