Hello, Dinner at Sera’s! Thank you so much for coming, please make yourself at home!
I am so excited to chat with you for this guest edition.
For this week, I’d like to share with you some thoughts that I hope to explore further as part of a larger essay, as well as some fun stuff.
A few months ago, I was fed a TikTok that really bewildered me. It was of a young woman modeling various outfits she had put together, tailored to either “the male gaze” or “the female gaze.” The “male gaze outfits” were low-fashion, traditionally sexy pieces like a corset top or a low-cut, short-hem LBD. The so-called “female gaze outfits” were slightly more fashionable, slightly more conservative items of clothing, more aligned with specific personal style and emphasizing “chic” over “sexy.” With a little digging, I realized this was part of a larger trend where creators modeled outfit ideas for different occasions catered to the “male gaze” and the “female gaze.” My anthropologist glasses went immediately on.
I think it’s a cause for concern if the concept of the male gaze is being understood as a morally neutral way of describing what men find attractive, and that it is something you can take on and off, or something that you would want to. There is a LOT to cover in a discussion of the male gaze, but basically the male gaze refers to the phenomena of women being portrayed in visual media from the perspective of the heterosexual male, which results in the depiction of women on screen not as subjects of a story but as objects for consumption. When visual media caters to the male gaze, women become, according to Laura Mulvey in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, defined by their “to-be-looked-at-ness.” Woman is “spectacle” and man is the “bearer of the look.” “The gaze” in general can also be a phrase to describe visual media portraying the perspective of any dominant power structure (consider a white gaze, a western gaze, etc.).
In the TikTok, the creator said she was tailoring outfits for the male gaze. As much as I would argue “that’s not how that works,” I do think she was experiencing the internalized male gaze, and by that I mean the warped perspective one develops when the visual media available to them depicts life exclusively from the dominant ideology (patriarchy), which sees the world through the perspective of a heterosexual man. As we see ourselves in the women depicted in media, and as we see those women as objects to be consumed by The Man, we begin to see ourselves as an object to be consumed. We begin to think of the patriarchal perspective as the “real” perspective and to think of ourselves as a character, or object, living under this perspective. The result is constantly considering how we would be viewed from a perspective that is not our own, even when we are alone.
John Berger expresses this idea in Ways of Seeing as follows:
“A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life. Her own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another....”
I’d imagine the internalized gaze Berger describes becomes more potent, and potentially more destructive, as the landscape of visual media becomes more integrated with our lived realities (think social media), and more and more we experience life as an imitation of media, instead of media as an imitation of life (think trends like “main character” or “written by a woman”).
Upon reflection, I think I had an outsized reaction to what was surely just some throw-away content to showcase cute tops because I myself am so haunted by the feeling of internalized gaze. I don’t usually text all my friends and learn the names of film theorists when someone I don’t know uses a word wrong in a video, I promise. I think I needed to learn more about the concept I was so shocked to see used incorrectly on the internet so that I could become more aware of my own experience with it. It is annoying to me that the world I live in has primed me to have a perspective that is not my own, and to project its ideal onto my every moment. Ultimately, I’d like to know what it feels like to live in my own body, rather than to look at it from afar.
Fake eyelashes
Anyways, here are some other things that have been on my mind:
I’ve known for a while that every beautiful woman I see on TV is wearing false lashes. I’ve always imagined that if I could just learn how to apply them myself, I could access a new level of glamor. It’s been my intention to wear them for various events and what always has happened is: I buy a pair at the drugstore, I get ready for the event, I remember about the lashes, I realize I don’t know how to apply them and will not be able to learn in the 20 minutes before I HAVE to walk out the door, and I instead apply a coat of mascara. Off I go, less-than-bachelor-contestant-ready. Recently, a friend graciously applied them on me and my life changed forever. I inevitably had to take them off a few days later and was horrified by how my face looked without them. I am probably going to spend 100 hours figuring out how to put them on myself.
Tomato season
I enjoy summer as much as the next person, but what I really look forward to is tomato season. I live in Brooklyn so am able to access some of the juiciest, most flavorful tomatoes every August. Every Sunday of The Season I go to the farmer’s market to buy more tomatoes than I can eat. There are a few ways to enjoy peak-season tomatoes, and my favorites are: tomato sandwich, which for me is two slices of a fresh multi-grain bread from the bakery, a little mayonnaise, two thick slices of your best tomato, and a sprinkle of maldon salt. I also enjoy a pasta pomodoro. I roughly chop a variety of tomatoes– I like to use some cherry heirloom for variety, throw them in a cast iron with olive oil and a little salt, and let it simmer. Some recipes want you to strain the sauce at the end but I do not do this. Then meld your al dente pasta into the sauce, plate, top with a little parm and a drizzle of good olive oil. Finally, a simple caprese. Tomato, mozzarella, basil, drizzle of olive oil, drizzle of aged balsamic vinaigrette. These are just the staples, for me. This year I made a tomato galette. I meant to make tomato jam but sadly forgot.
The Outro of the Taylor Swift song “The Other Side of the Door”
I was not a Taylor Swift fan during her “Fearless” era, so I didn’t know this song until recently. I don’t have much to say about it besides I need to listen to the back half of this song every day.
Tennis
My current obsession is playing tennis. It is extremely fun and the perfect sport to play. It is also very fun to watch. I got really into the U.S. Open this year. I never in my life thought I would turn on ESPN on my own accord. I also never thought I would request to go to “a bar with a TV” after dinner so that I could watch “the big match” (Tiafoe-Alcaraz in the semi-finals). I realized that the pleasure I was having must be what others experience watching sports. This may seem obvious but I had to experience it to understand it, I guess. Sorry to the sports fans out there who had to pretend to listen to me talk about whatever while the sport they’re watching was on. I didn’t get it.
Not enjoying football
On that note, I am now unashamed to say I do not like or care about football (American Football). I am actually really bummed for it to be football season because I don’t want to be around it.
Note from Sera: A giant thank you to the incredible Jessie Carnevale - a lawyer by training and a writer by trade! We grew up together in sunny Sarasota, Florida, and I am honored to have her both as guest writer and a very loyal friend.