Concepts of the Gaze

 Shane Rollins 

This week in film class, we continued to talk about the gaze. Unfortunately, while researching for my fascination project, I noticed a lot of unfair treatment. I am researching the different perspectives of bell hooks who were incredible for the black female community. She gives a lot of various points of view that help us get a better understanding of their mistreatment. While thinking about a lot of quotes and work, I started to think about how many movies that are filmed from a black woman perspective, and I fell silent. In fact, I could barely think about movies with a black women protagonist, although there are some that have made huge box office numbers.  

  Being a white male, it is hard to put myself in the shoes of bell hooks, so I must use my imagination the best that I can to be able to try and understand the struggles that she has been through. Writing her first book at the age of nineteen, she became a prolific writer giving everyone the ability to see a fraction of what her life has been like. She shows remarkably interesting perspectives that would help shape our culture in significant ways. I have always been an endorser of multicultural films because that would give more people a relatability factor to the same film. For example, the movie Green Book shows two different perspectives of a black man during segregation and a struggling Italian in the Bronx. A lot of people can relate to that movie in unique ways, mostly because it has a strong message that still relates to our world today.  

  I am going to start paying more attention to different perspectives in film. I have always had such a narrow mind when it comes to diverse cultures in cinema, so looking out for that will help me locate my film experience. Film culture has gotten much better in recent years when it comes to relatability, so it is important to keep growing as a culture. There have also been a lot of extremely popular public figures discussing the topic, which has helped influence your directors to make a change. That said, we have much more improvement to make before we can say that our culture is diverse enough.