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The white gaze

The white gaze is an ideological approach to studying racial disparities between the dominant white view and non-white experiences. Like other gaze theories, the white gaze is a simultaneous process of being viewed, the observer, and reacting to being viewed, the observed. The observer is the dominant group, white people, and the observed are minority groups.

The dominant culture has the privilege to evaluate other cultures and orient the hierarchy of cultures and the roles of individuals in them. Consider a television, or a mirror as psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan would, where the observer has the opportunity to spectate events of the on-screen characters and criticize events. Dominant groups can use observe from any distance and utilize the priviledge [to] see without being seen" (Naejai 2019). Typically, ideological approaches to social discourse involve "power relations" with society (Howells, Negrerios 2012). The white gaze is not exempt from the commonality. White people have more power in racial disparity because they are in a position of control. The dominant culture occupies its "social dominance [by] orienting" itself as the superior group that governs all other groups and minimizes the existence of "othered" groups (Perreault, Bourhis 1999). White people can reduce the presence of others in many ways. In media studies, it often looks like exclusion, stigmatized realities, or misrepresentation.

However, the observed are stereotyped and can either conform to the pressure that the observer imposes or resist. The pressure to act a certain way when being watched can be described as the Hawthorne effect. Non-white individuals can face anxieties to act a certain way to prevent being punished by the superior group or further stigmatized. These individuals are under the evaluation of social attitudes toward fashion, art, and literature and consequently produce conditioned content in these fields.

Toni Morrison is an African American author who wrote a book titled "The Bluest eyes". She recognized the prevalence of the white gaze in literature and resisted its influence on her storytelling. The main character in her book struggled with a common beauty condition on the white gaze where she believed she was ugly because she did not have the features of a white girl. "Othered" have to pick between Agency and conformity, and Morrison advocates for the freedom of authors from external control or influence.

Sources

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/dech.12550?casa_token=vb1kyfvlQ4cAAAAA%3AfEGzLax59VlSSjVilr6W0adcnDJypR6mcFP7X69emq0x0lDy06AXkByThgx5YXtaLm1kxEBVed_-LPRf

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Q8ZuDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=black+bodies+white+gazes&ots=grFhSbwGh3&sig=4BKU30mJcMBovBScYaOSP2ZoL5o&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=black%20bodies%20white%20gazes&f=false

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167299025001008?casa_token=nY6AJ35TbX8AAAAA:zPCtER3YhJOCsj_3jvymU6THSfsh7lrXAYFyJ5CyM4P7Ud2cj2qCDLmgEmPVd-WVzATOIiiRwzXrfA

https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=05OHrHUsl1UC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&dq=visual+culture+&ots=Wim5DHctDs&sig=I6Y_4IXIRuU9dMhwf0KybIiKC2I&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=visual%20culture&f=false Student at the University of Ottawa, Vheneko is an undergraduate seeking a degree to propel a career that works with and for a community.