Contemporary Depiction of Male/Female in Movie Posters

Berger says women in traditional European oil painting direct their glances towards the "one who considers himself her true lover -- the spectator-owner" (p.56). I was curious whether this standard holds true today. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I would look at one form of widely posted "modern oil painting," the movie poster.

My gut reaction was that movie posters would uphold this "flatter the male" standard. But I was hesitant to pronounce such a hypothesis as fact. Social standards have changed. Womens' rights movements have changed our perception of the female. And in Michael Crichton's travel memoir, Travels, he writes in a chapter titled "Them" how traditional male / female roles (a tradition established no clearer than in European oil paintings) have not only changed, but have been inverted. Males, Crichton argues, are the soft and sentimental ones. We're the ones who want flowers, want to cuddle, want foreplay consisting of conversation and "get-to-know-you" ice-breakers. Women don't, Crichton continues. Women treat men as sexual objects. Not the "centuries-old" other way around.

But, at risk of devolving into a nature/nurture debate, I think Berger touches on something fundamental to human psychology when he discusses why European oil paintings depicted women as the viewed. Something impervious to time and shifting cultural norms.


Now, here's a perfect example that runs contrary to the European oil painting model. The guy is looking at the viewer; Angelina Jolie is not. Angelina is, however, the bigger figure. She's in the foreground. Might this poster be trying to satisfy both male and female viewers? If we consider Berger's commerce-determines-what's-painted argument, I think it is clear that a dual-sex satisfaction is in order.


Hmm...same deal. The Titanic poster shows a fair representation of both sexes. Because of her open eyes, Kate acknowledges the spectator a tad more than Leo, who is immersed in his passion for her. But still, this poster is for a more egalitarian audience than the European oil paintings.


And one more. Both the guy and girl are completely captivated with one another. Never mind the audience.

Conclusion: Visual representation of the sexes certainly has changed. There are, however, compounding factors to consider. For one, movie posters are not European oil paintings, so any comparison is necesarily skewed. Movie posters are signifiers for a two-hour show. Clearly, they want to leave some mystery, otherwise, why pay a dime if the poster did it all? And posters would want to appeal to the largest possible viewership to maximize their viewing potential. So slighting a woman as the "visual apple" of a male is dangerous.

Berger and movie posters can agree on one thing: image depiction is dictated by commerce.