The male gaze; celebrities; healthy elitism

[Brian Sorgatz]

Dan Stiffler wrote:
>In this way, the playmate is a subtle but ingenious cross between male
>and female porn.  Of course there is her beautiful body that excites
>the male viewer.  But there is also the story about her background,
>about her dreams, about her favorite song.  And that story, by all
>accounts, is closely akin to the romance novel.
>
>This is the point that feminists have often missed in their
>condemnation of the PLAYBOY playmate as simply an object for the male
>gaze: the playmate story.

I hope I'm not testing your patience, Dan, but I'm still not sure I 
understand your distinction between the two types of pictorials.

It seems to me that you believe male erotica must strive towards
androgyny in order to justify itself.  Purely visual stimulation is
too exclusively male to be "mature" or "enlightened."  Frankly, I find
this sexist.  It mirrors Professor Henry Higgins: "Why can't a man be
more like a woman?"  Men have to insist on the right to be men.  If I
misunderstand you, I apologize and ask for clarification.

Besides, I think that every nude photo of a woman tells a story, with
or without accompanying text.  Lin Yutang said, "All women's dresses
are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted
desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress."  Whenever a
woman freely chooses to get naked in front of a camera, the drama of
this struggle is unfolding.  This is true even if the woman reports,
with all sincerity, no anxiety or hesitation about posing nude,
because the event has an archetypal dimension beyond any one person's
subjective experience of it.

Speaking of celebrities, I think that fascination with celebrities per
se is not the problem.  The problem is our society's current tendency
to choose celebrities poorly.  In earlier decades, most famous people
became famous through talent, beauty, charm, or truly impressive
accomplishments.  Today, a disturbingly high number of celebrities
have only crime, scandal, obnoxious behavior, or an overly hyped gig
on a "reality" TV show as their claim to fame.  We Americans have no
one to blame but ourselves for this situation.  (I don't blame the
media: we financially support this sleaze of our own free will.)  This
brings me back to one of the themes of my "Hef needs a successor"
post: too much egalitarianism can be harmful.  Among other things, it
cheapens fame.  "Elitist" is one of the dirtiest names in the lexicon
of our many dime-store social critics.  But I believe there is a
healthy elitism that reserves fame and glory for the lucky few who
deserve it.  PLAYBOY can be a leader rather than a follower by wearing
its (let's face it) elitism as a badge of honor.

Brian Sorgatz