Bell Hooks Male Gaze Theory
Both Laura Mulvey and bell hooks describe the idea of the "gaze" in film. In both of the theories presented by Mulvey and hooks, the "gaze" is the way in which viewers are subjected to a particular perspective because of their social standing. In Mulvey's case, she argues that the "gaze" in which the audience is forced into is that of the "male gaze" while hooks argues a more nuanced "gaze" including the "oppositional gaze". While some of Mulvey's argument is accurate, hooks argues that it leaves out important other factors, in particular,race. Both arguments have many similarities and differences, and can be seen exemplified in many films, such as Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It. Mulvey's theory of the "male gaze" is centered on two main...show more content...
When considering Mulvey's theory of the "male gaze" and patriarchal domination, this film clearly demonstrates this notion. While the film opens with the main protagonist, Nola Darling, defending her actions to what seems to be a documentary camera crew. As the film progresses, the male counterparts are afforded more instances of "gaze" than Nola Darling is. Viewers are often subjected to watching the men watch Nola. When the audience does watch Nola's "gaze" it is when she is discussing things with the camera crew. In a reading of the film, viewers are looking through male subjects "gaze" more often than that of Nola, proving Mulvey's theory in this
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Bell Hooks was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky to a working–class family. An avid reader, she went to school in racially segregated public school, and wrote of great difficulties when making the transition to an integrated school, where teachers and students were mainly white. She graduated from Hopkinsville High School then went on to obtain her B.A. in English from Stanford University in 1973, and her masters in English from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1976. In 1983, after many years of teaching and writing, she finished her doctorate in literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She noticed a lack of diversity in feminist theory, so she published In Feminist Theory: From Margin Get more content
bell hooks, American feminist writer and literary critic, once said, "The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility." Even when she wrote these words over 20 years ago in 1994, there was a clear, unsullied idea of what a child's education should be composed ofв”Ђpossibilities. In the time of hooks' writing, America's people were being tested on their strength as the deindustrialization of major cities occurred, leaving most of the factory workers without money and homeless. After Reagan left office, there was an abundance to clean up. The country's people were trying to create possibilities that might work out. The Americanschool system remains about what hooks said: possibilities. Even with the media continuously...show more content...
We see constant disparities in funding within our school system between class and between race. Because of this, we need to regulate the funding between the "good school bad school poor school rich school" paradigm. Why aren't there already laws permitting and enforcing equal funding? In the ruling of Rodriguez vs. San Antonio Independent School district, it was found that even if it was completely morally ethical, laws against or for inequitable funding are not in the constitution and therefore it cannot be ruled upon in the high court. So, even if two schools in the same district are within a 10,000 dollars funding difference, a pupil cannot do anything about it because it doesn't say anything about it in the constitution. States in the deep south, like Texas and Alabama, get the least funding, says a study done by the National Law Center for Education. The U.S. average for funding per state is $10,132 for one pupil. Tennessee's money spent per pupil is $6,839. Also, Tennessee has one of the lowest GDPs and its education effort is one of the lowest. Why is this? Because Tennessee still didn't take advantage of its fiscal capacity, and that's why it received an F on the effort scale. In a study done by Education Trust, it said that there is a 1,200 dollar gap between the districts with the most poverty and the districts with the least
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Women, Writing and Language: Broadening the Definition of Dominance
In her essay entitled Teaching the New Worlds/ New Words, bell hooks focuses on exploring and illuminating the close link between language and oppression from a feminist perspective. Recording that language is a self–imposing kaleidoscope of productive challenges and assistances that is impossible to bond or repress; she suggests that trying to circumscribe, it according to their interest is precisely what oppressors do with it. Hooks adresses African–Americans' relationship to the Standard English as a reality more than a mere case study, and illuminating that how their native language, their most immense mean of bonding to each other had been taken away from them and...show more content...
It can be seen that the poem clearly had an affection of hooks since the two texts have visibly parallel mindsets. In fact, hooks highlights that parallelism by quoting a line from Rich: ''This is the oppressor's language yet I need it to talk to you.''(1) recurrently. hooks expresses that the words of Rich inherently possess the power to demand disobedience to domination through language and they evoke a deep craving to reach out the colonized peoples, to internalize how they suffered, got killed, made languageless, exiled, marginalized. Naturally, Rich does not make this call by a theoretical, dull understanding but through summoning to sympathy, ability to feel the expelled through the imagination derived from being the other: being the other is the catalyst of the unification that awakens the oppressed and make them seize the language, reinvent and utilize it to celebrate their differences; and synchronously, draw in the non–others to a unfamilliar landscape of language. Even though the words of the other would occur to the non–other as alien, the effort on encouraging the majority to walk on the land of the other's knowledge without a claim of mastery or superiority is crucial for a multicultural society to offer life to a broader range of individuals. Also, this sense of learning without a sense of supremacy is one significant
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Is Education Equal?
The United States provides our society with the undeniable right to learn. The right to higher education is not limited to the middle and upper classes; it allows the less privileged, minorities, as well as both sexes, to receive an equal education. Two arguments which present interesting views on higher education are bell hook’s “Keeping Close to Home'; and Adrienne Rich’s “What Does a Woman Need to Know?'; Hooks views higher education with a concern for the underprivileged, whereas Rich views it with a concern for women. Of the two works, I personally do not agree with Rich’s argument.
Bell hooks views...show more content...
Society, peers, and educators make assumptions that label the underprivileged and minorities as “‘lower class ’ people'; who have “no beliefs or values';(88). Professors expect these students to perform badly because of their past and their reputation in today’s society. The students are not given the fair chance other students receive. Knowing the way society portrays them, the students keep to themselves. Even after they prove to be serious and capable students, they are still looked down upon.
Hooks, at first, thought that in order to succeed in college, she must change who she was, to blend in with her peers. She said many “believe that assimilation is the only possible way to survive, to succeed.';(89). After going through the transition and facing these obstacles herself, hooks came to the conclusion that this was not the case. She has maintained close ties with her family, knows where she came from, and has succeeded in life. Hook’s essay tells us that you can maintain close relationships with home and still succeed. Not only are the underprivileged discriminated against, but women are too. One extreme feminist side, Adrienne Rich claims that women are not getting what they deserve when it comes to higher education. Rich states, “There is no woman’s college today which is providing young women with Get
