For my PSA I decided to focus on the aspect of the cinematic gaze that was brought up last week in Laura Mulvey's essay. I feel the main point of the cinematic gaze was how society has used the female in movies and advertising and such things to make her into some symbol or special image. The viewer is the active male, there is no question about this, and his image is the woman. There are countless example of this in the world from films and society but one other aspect of modern entertainment that shows the cinematic gaze in action is the obsession with celebrity gossip. Most of the attention of these gossip columns are women celebs who are usually seen by the males as superstars and fit the "woman image" perfectly. These pictures and stories are so common now that it is just accepted, this gazing of the media on these women. Women are more that just a symbol and an image, but we rarely see this in these celebrity gossip photos and stories.
This is why I chose to use a picture that a lot of people probably have seen, to emphasize just how much the celebrity gossip industry uses this cinematic gaze concept. They use it so much so that even the most extreme measures are not seen as that shocking at all any more. I chose to use the infamous picture of Britney Spears getting out a car at a club exposing everything underneath her dress. The constant cinematic gaze on poor Britney has made this picture and this ludicrous invasion of privacy an every week occurrence that barely even makes a lot of news any more. My message was: If people believe that women are not generally seen as an object by men, then these images should be extremely shocking to us! The problem is, they are not, because this constant cinematic gaze and objectification of women does take place in society, especially in the ridiculous industry of celebrity gossip. Hopefully my PSA will make some people realize this and they can stop and think about how disgusting this industry is, no matter who it is they are objectifying.
I installed my PSA outside my apartment on campus in Nittany Apartments. I live in the 37 building that is in a unique shape creating a tiny courtyard where all the front doors to each apartment in the building face each other. I also chose to place it here because I have neighbors of both sexes and wanted to create a situation where maybe a male and a female could be looking at it the same time to possibly start a discussion over it.
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