vis-à-vis

Vis-A-Vis: The Struggle of Female Representation Within the Male Gaze

“As Christopher Reed argues, since the nineteenth century, modernist movements have depended on women, domesticity, and consumer culture for their patronage and cultural hegemony (Spigel 146).”   As far back as film and television can archive, there has always been a white patriarchal system that has dominated the media landscape.   And within this system lies an  atmosphere of needing to satisfy their audience, while simultaneously project in this sense of moral decency and correctness.  During World War II, application of the idea of “traditional American values” had been “disrupted.”  With their men out to war, all peoples and all industries turned their efforts towards the war., such as women joining the work force.  Even though there was a baby boom in this period, women were astray from their husbands who were at war and were gaining independence as hard-working, independent women on the home front.  When the war was over and the men returned, divorce rates skyrocketed with a million World War II veterans divorced by 1950, wherein adultery played in nearly half (Baughman 25).  Furthermore, when the war was over, what essentially occurred was a culture shock, wherein society sought to bring back and preserve the ideology of “traditional moral values” in response to the sexual uprising that occurred during the war.  Television played a major role in the presentation and projection of that “renewed” American ideology where the patriarchal voice enters into the homes of many Americans in this new future, preaching what is reality bleeding into what is truly reality.  As James L. Baughman in Same Time, Same Station states, “Private morality might be changing; public morality should continue to be proper (25).”
It didn’t take very long before the television became a staple of the “modern American nuclear family.”  And with the rise of early television programming came sponsors and commercials. Even though television advertising had heavily targeted women, female roles have traditionally been underdeveloped, two-dimensional, sex objects.  This has been somewhat of a contradiction since the television landscape has been shifted by the very same female viewers who are supposedly misrepresented through objectification and passive oppression.   This contradiction, no doubt, stems from the disparity between representation of the female within the male gaze.  By the 1970s, ratings, ad revenues, and market research  caused television networks to finally produce entertainment for female viewers, shot from a female perspective.
For years, the television industry relegated the role of women to that of the mother/wife in domestic comedies.  This underrepresentation of women in popular culture clashed with market research that showed women clearly as the core audience for the majority of television.  In the 1950s, primetime drama was thought to be a venue slot for men, completely void of female representation. For example, medical dramas had rational male doctors diagnosing hysterical female patients.  In primetime, female characters often existed for merely an episode, as a romantic interest, though these female characters usually die before the end (Desjardins. 2).

For the most part, on early television women are depicted primarily as women.  Rarely (if ever) are early television women shown to be mature, independent individuals.  Family women in particular are shown to be women whose existence is closely bound up with, and by, others in their family group, particularly their male partners. (Press 29)

The major theme of domestic comedies since the 1950s has been “the myth of female dominance and breakdown of male authority” (Walsh, Fursich, and Jefferson 2).  Women of the 1950s were dissatisfied with the female image after the war and situational/domestic comedies took advantage of this dissatisfaction by drawing humor from the frustrations of housewives and making light of domestic and gender equalities, “thus the humor in these shows function to replace female anger, if not rage, with pleasure.” (2)
During the 1950’s there were three influential shows featuring housewives in America: The Honeymooners (1955), I Love Lucy (1951) and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950). Their comedy derives from the decay of male dominance in the household and the rebellion of “the housewife.”  Each of these women represented a different step on the class structure.  Alice Kramden came from the working-class, characterized by being brash and loud, in response to her male partner, characterized as obnoxious (or just plain Jackie Gleason).  In The Honeymooners, much of the comedy is derived from Ralph’s anxiety about the decay of his male dominance over the household.  Alice’s fierce independence further strains the contemporary gender roles and the status quo in their relationship as shown by Ralph’s dependent interactions with Alice.  Ralph is often scheming and attempting to “get rich quick” in order to better his position with his wife despite her insistence of her happiness.  In turn, these schemes inevitably blow up in Ralph’s face, leading him back again to seek help from Alice.
While Alice was always cleaning up after Ralph’s many blunders on The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy introduced a female character type, Lucy, as a somewhat scatterbrained, scheming character who is always attempting to undermine the patriarchal authority (Desi).  Lucy, the eternally unhappy housewife, is always scheming to find a way into Ricky’s universe, the entertainment industry.  Despite all of her scheming, Lucy inevitably always ends up failing in her endeavors towards independence and equality with her husband, much to his chagrin.  Lucy’s impracticality in the execution of her plans is in stark contrast to Alice’s pragmatic demeanor; which reflect the contrasts in working-class and middle class attitudes toward female independence.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show introduced a particularly interesting female character in Allen.  While a lot of the comedy in this show was derived from Gracie’s ineptitude with money and automobiles, she is often shown as the “real family breadwinner” (Eagan 7).  Even though the comedy appears to be sophomoric and seems to portray Gracie as an unintelligent female, her humor is “based on complex word play, Elizabethan in proportion” (7).    Gracie seems to be a combination of Alice’s wisdom and reason and Lucy’s levity and zaniness.
She is a female character who “cannot be confined to a stereotype or even within the limits of the set (studio or television); her view of the world transcends the messages of the advertisers” (5).  The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show represented an exaggerated idyllic 1950’s middle class lifestyle to the point that when characters broke the fourth wall to represent a product for an advertiser it was both an advertisement and parody of advertisement and sponsorship itself.
As the long-running “Carnation Couple,” there were many Carnation Milk advertisements throughout the program.  The show reflexively interacts with these contractual necessities by executing advertisements in a flamboyant manner drawing attention to the obviously condescending attitude advertising takes toward women, such as the episode where Gracie entertains her house guest by bringing him Carnation Evaporated Milk, in the can, on a silver platter.
As if reinforcement of gender roles through self-defeating characters and patriarchy weren’t enough, advertisers seem to contribute to the representation of the housewife in media by additionally taking these characters and having them whore for housewares. The very fact that they are having these advertisements done by a housewife, for a houseware product, to another housewife, is telling of social attitudes within the media industry.  With women as the target audience for domestic comedies, it is no surprise that commercial advertising and sponsors contributed to the perpetual representation of traditional gender roles.
By the 1960s, television began to experiment with non-standard plot devices, storylines, character archetypes, and representation.  One show that had a particularly interesting take on representation was Gilligan’s Island (1964), which was originally conceived as an allegory representing a “microcosm of bourgeois society” (Morowitz 5). The male characters on the show represent contemporary archetypes embodying western civilization while the female characters are represented as archetypes of sex and innocence.  Howell represents imperialism, the Professor represents academia and science, the Skipper represents the hardworking middle class, and Gilligan represents the shiftless working class.
Howell’s wife, Lovey, seems to not even be a notable character, more of a footnote reduced to that of a loving wife and comic foil.  Lovey’s role is influenced by the presence of two single women, Ginger and Mary Ann, the two characters collectively representing the “eternal woman.”

If Ginger is the whore, the city, the knowing, and the sexual, then Mary Anne is the virgin, the country, the innocent, and the childlike.  Together, they embody the angel in the kitchen and the devilish seductress in the bedroom. (Morowitz 5)

The style of representation found in the female roles seems in stark contrast to that of the male roles.  While the men seem to embody complex, tangible characters with positive and negative traits, the women seem to embody an abstract representation of good or evil. Mary Ann, a Kansas-born farm girl, represents the western ideal of good and innocence: the girl next door.  In contrast, Ginger is a product of the media industry herself as a movie star.  Her appearance relies heavily on the iconic imagery of Marilyn Monroe to evoke a sense of hedonism.  Ginger is an experimental character of female representation in the television medium because as the embodiment of the movie star in a television show, she is a reflexive acknowledgement of the industry and its own representations.  During episodes of Gilligan’s Island, Mary Ann would interact with other characters with a kind heart and good intentions, whereas Ginger would often use her feminine wiles to exploit Gilligan and get her way.  It is interesting to note that Mary Ann’s good nature seems to come from naivety, effectively she is good because “she doesn’t know any better.”  In comparison, Ginger is an independent, savvy woman, and it is as though in order for her character to be independent, she must be corrupt and linked with sexuality.  It’s almost as though the representation of Mary Ann and Ginger in the pantheon of television are akin to that of Eve before and after the apple.  “The female character did not represent a human being struggling with good and evil but rather she represented an embodiment of good or evil.” (Meehan 111)
Also in the 1960s came the advent of fantasy situational comedies where traditional gender roles were challenged through the use of supernatural plot devices.  Both Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie epitomized the frustrations of women in conventional social relationships at the time.  It was only through the granting of magical powers to the female characters in these programs that these women were able to break out of their traditional gender roles.  In the case of both shows, the very devices used to liberate these characters are in of themselves constraining.
Samantha on Bewitched is a witch and is thusly tied to the iconic imagery of standing over cauldrons making potions.  In I Dream of Jeannie, the female protagonist, Jeannie, as a genie is inherently bound to a master and is thus constrained to the role of the servant, not so far from housewife or even concubine.  Despite Samantha having fantastic abilities, Darrin often insisted that she stick to “reality” and refrain from utilizing her magic.  This spoke to the reinforcement of traditional gender roles and the unwillingness the patriarchal society to allow female dominance.  As Meehan argues in Ladies of the Evening, “Like the fifties’ imp she implicitly rejected the secondary status of her role as wife, but, unlike Lucy or the others, she had the power to alter the consequences (Meehan 100).”    Samantha was often successful at subverting male dominance and breaking out of her role through the use of deception and magical trickery.

The depiction of her subtle rejection of her secondary status and of the sisterhood who supported her was appropriate to a decade of feminine protest and affiliation.  But the covert aspect of her rebellion and her penchant for manipulation and deceit meant that her actions were not quite acceptable to the American public.  (Meehan 100)

By taking conventional female sitcom roles from earlier fifties television show and subverting them through the use of magic they have created an experimental space wherein the female is allowed to break out of her role.  Darrin and Samantha’s marriage is that of the military man and the reserved housewife. In this match, much of the tension arises from Samantha’s independence against such a conservative archetypal male character in that her magical powers interfere with his life.   Samantha’s magic and use of deception is the key to her power and independence as a female, yet it conflicts with her military husband’s moral compass, causing instability in their marriage.  The use of deception and magic is sort of self-defeating for her own character if she wants to progress as an independent woman.  This female character is never fully allowed to realize this independence because her own actions compromise the stability of the patriarchal society to which she belongs.
It seems that the female independence represented in these shows is as fantastic as the magic; the idea of an independent female in this patriarchal system is an impossibility.  In the case of both Samantha and Jeannie, they are both non-human women married into traditional patriarchal society.  Their “otherness” is the only reason they are allowed to be such experimental characters in female representation.

From Lucy’s schemes to enter show business to Samantha’s shortcuts on housework, television’s women characters regularly sought ways out of their roles as wives, mothers, or girlfriends but remains steadfastly — and most happily — fixed in those roles. (Levine 128-9)

Like many other conventions in the television world, the progress of the independent woman is inevitably held back by the nature of television’s reliance on the status quo.
The “independent” or “progressive” housewife of the 1950’s and 60’s of television is represented more like a controlled burn than the wildfire that real world social undercurrents reflected.  This is undoubtedly due to the control of the industry resting in the white male hands of a privileged few.

A primary difficulty is the dominance in feminist film theory of Freudian and Lacanian theories of psychoanalysis, which describe personality development from a position which favours the masculine, and as such, operate conservatively to extend and naturalize the repression of women, defining ‘woman in terms of aberrance and deviance and effectively obscuring any variant ‘voice’ (Pribram 111-12).

Despite all efforts to become independent, each of these women is bound by the male gaze.  Earlier characters like Alice, Lucy, and Gracie, were largely defined in relation to their husbands, mere housewives struggling for equality.  As time wore on, representation became more experimental and women became more independent.  This independence often came at the cost of their humanity as fantastic elements and unrealistic representations of women became commonplace in television.  None of these characters is a fully realized woman. While each of the character’s attempts to subvert her partner’s dominance or assert her own are admirable, they always seem to fall short.  Within the context of television, the female character never seems to push far enough to reach the male safe word.   The female character is allowed to express her frustrations about individuality and independence but ultimately is never allowed to fully act upon them.
Ultimately, television is saturated with images of women repressed into traditional gender roles by the male gaze.  These representations influence and inform society causing a perpetual cycle of male oppression and female repression.  This cycle doesn’t exhibit its first real disruption until the 1970’s with the advent of television shows being produced from the female gaze such as Cagney and Lacey and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
The real change in representation of women in television was not fueled by the roar of the women’s liberation movement.  In the end, it would be the influence of advertising dollars and the growing demographic of 18-49 year old women that comprised the largest television audience (Levine 129).  “We don’t dictate to the audience,” remarked Helffrich. “The audience dictates to us from the sanctity of its living room.” (Baughman 28)