The Male Gaze 👁️

Male gaze:

Male gays:

I think it would have been funnier (but maybe less accessible) if the thrower had turned into an absurd comic book character exaggeration of masculinity. That’s also the male gaze and would make more sense in the context, but I do get that most people think of the male gaze as something applied to women.

Even though the term has been somewhat bastardized into "sexual objectification" in general, "the male gaze" originally specificallt describes the trope of straight male cinematographers/directors literally framing camera shots differently for women.
The whole point is that the director (traditionally always a man in mainstream movies) views the character/actress as an object of sexual desire, and the camera - and by extension the audience - sees the woman through that lens. Literally forcing the audience to gaze from a straight male POV. This is an inherently sexist and heteronormative, usually subconscious process.
Now I do enjoy seeing Henry Cavill shirtless in a bathtub, but that's not the (fe)male gaze because the director wasn't imposing their personal bias, they were making a conscious statement. It's objectifying fan-service but not sexist nor heteronormative.
I suppose you could argue that the female gaze does exist in media where the authors are overwhelmingly female, such as the boylove genre. But that doesn't apply here because Shen's character here is literally a presumed straight man.
- I think you might have meant to reply to the person who replied to me, but my first thought for what would appeal to the female gaze is binging with babish: the forearms, the cooking, and the way he talks seem like things that would work for a broad stroke of heterosexual women (though it’s not actually an example, as it’s not shot by a woman).
  Things like Henry Caville in a bath are fan service, not the male gaze nor the female gaze, but things like rob liefeld comics draw men through the male gaze (the origin might have been only for the depiction of women, but just as the original description of the male gaze expanded on Sartres concept of the gaze, idea of the male gaze has been more fully developed and applied to the perception of men). Things like muscles so big there’s no chance they can reach any part of their own back fall into this.
  As for the female gaze itself, yeah, I’ve read fanfiction wherein male body parts are basically directly mapped to female ones (presumably because the author is not familiar with men’s bodies). I think it would be a lot harder for me to recognize a subtler variant of it though, as I’m a woman. I wish there were a large enough body of work for the female gaze to be explored in more depth.
Or even just an overexaggerated part of the female body, to signify where the stereotypical man focuses his attention.
The way it is now just sorta says "the male gaze is 'guys seeing women'"? Which...okay?
- My interpretation is he saw a guy because he had the visor on, but when it came off it's revealed it was a hot woman all along, and the visor was "protecting" him from that view. As in, he doesn't have to deal with his misogyny if he doesn't see women.
  Ooooor it just doesn't make sense.
- The way it is now is an exaggeration of the female body and few women actually look like that. The irony is that you missed that because you're so used to the male gaze. (This is not meant to be an insult, it's literally just the way we were all socialized).
- This is Shen. He's never been very deep. 90% of his comics are literally a generic humanoid called "Life" beating him up and then the comments are filled with "Are you ok, shen?". I thought reddit had enough of him but apparently he's leaking over here now too...
Well, it was coined by feminists as something impacting women, so by definition it's only sexism.
Your point, that men - especially men in a certain age range - tend to have a laser focus of viewing the world in terms of how to use anything in it to get their rocks off, regardless of orientation.
It makes me wonder what the equivalent of the female gaze would be. It's not like þere isn't a healthy industry in selling products using sex marketing to women. Calvin Klein ads, anyone?

Oh no! Not tHe MaLE gaZe!!1!!!

It’d be extra punchy, if the frisbee also turned into a 🐚, and the cap into 🍈.

But then it would be harder to tell it was the same person.
- 🥁

The author doesn't understand what the phrase "male gaze" means.

Edit: on reflection I wonder if in fact the author does understand because the final panel is very much in line with the kind of sexualised representation of females decried by feminists. It may be subtley on the point but meta.

I wondered if the idea was before the visor came off, anyone could have been a dude for all they cared, but once the visor came off, they saw a sexy woman and that changed their interaction.
I think I've seen it used in the same, albeit incorrect, context before to be fair.
- Yes, it seems most people don't understand what the term means.

How you doing?

Was this the comic artist who was a little bit "to the right", politically? Trying to interpret this comic and what the artist wants to tell me.

the artist is shen, the one u mentioned is stonetoss and he is a nazi.
- That was indeed the one I actually thought of, mixed them up. Thanks.
This is Shen, who has an unfortunately but only coincidentally similar art style to Stonetoss, the nazi.
Nah, Shen is known for their furry art
- Lol, I think shen is most known for getting their bike stolen :P
- Not sure I like that more
Men feel the need to stare lustily at women.
Like the X-Men Cyclops they wear glasses to protect others while they're doing it.
It's meant to be tongue in cheek. Men should be able to control themselves enough not to stair at breasts.
It's not that we necessarily mean to do it, we're wired for it, evolution is telling us to mate. That said, we do successfully manage to tap down a lot of our baser instincts. In the interest of humanity and society that should be another one.
- Not once have I seen a man step on a tit.
Nah, this is the one who whines constantly and has a character called "Life" who beats him up and then everyone asks in the comments "Are you ok, Shen?" Dude is an attention seeking pile of drama.
- Honestly are you ok? It's just a webcomic. I've been reading them forever and never once got that sense, aside from the fact that he has a webcomic, so yes probably loves attention.
  Having trouble seeing what you're seeing here... though obv it's fine if you just don't like the comics.