The media is a huge social entity, affecting a mass number of people worldwide. In terms of intimacy one would consider that it can only be found through physical acts and states of mind between two people, however one would argue that the media embed images have connotations of intimacy through all platforms.
Can we truly be intimate with a media text?
Laura Mulvey who is a film theorist, argued that Hollywood cinema was a male dominating industry.
“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly.” (Mulvey, 1975, p. 8-9)
Because a media text has been constructed through ‘appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.’ We then become voyeurs, taking pleasure from what we then see, but only for the male gaze perspective. Through this, we become intimately focused and engaged within that media text.
Films especially can have a profound impact on our most intimate dark and hidden desires, through use of visual, sound and camera perspectives. A way a camera pans across a room following characters or a way it is angled to have emotional impact on a characters perspective. All these things are essential in order for the audience to feel intimacy through a lens. Surely a visual by itself cannot have a profound effect on us? So a combination of these elements (music, pace, acting, style, colour) placed together intrigue and create these subtle intimate moments.
An audience initially can derive pleasure whether it be subconsciously or consciously through these techniques, notice at 1:18-1:42 how sadistically intimate the sequence is, the audience also feel this intimacy as they are essentially spying on the woman changing too. The use of dark tones colours, and close up camera angles can reinforce some real intimate moments.
However, because of social change and role changes within society film itself has changed, cinema now targets a much broader audience, targeting the female gaze in which displays images of the ideal masculine man, for example, Sex and the City (2008). Women especially now are becoming a lot more interactive and intimate with media platforms and texts.
Gammon and Marshment (1988) suggest that in recent years a number of texts have represented men as objects for the female gaze.
Pornography, especially is an example of a media platform that the viewers regularly engage in a intimate act whilst watching.. Especially as now most media platforms tend to be more interactive and at times intimate within communication, there always seems to be something intimate about communicating online on a messenger at night between two people. We can communicate but we cannot touch or see each other, is this still intimacy? I believe it is.
Although media texts cannot really affect us physically, they can affect us psychologically and emotionally, especially through intimate acts displayed on screen in full front view of everyone else watching. Individuals all have different ways of reacting to intimate moments, we either try to hide and not project our intimate feelings, we can become embarrassed by the content on screen or it can bring us together as human beings.
Written By Jordan Tallis, edited by Leanne McKettrick
Works Cited:
Mulvey, Laura (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narative Cinema. Online: http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html (acessed: 9th December 2012)