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Gaze

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{{wiktionary}}The Gaze in Lacan refers to the uncanny sense that the object of our eye's look or glance is somehow looking back at us, a feeling that affects us in the same way as castration anxiety (reminding us of the lack at the heart of the symbolic order). We may believe that we are in control of our eye's look; however, any feeling of scopophilic power is always undone by the fact that the the materiality of existence (the Real) always exceeds the meaning structures of the symbolic order. Lacan's favorite example for the Gaze is Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors (pictured here). When you look at the painting, it at first gives you a sense that you are in control of your look; however, you then notice a blot at the bottom of the canvas, which you can only make out if you look at the painting from the side, from which point you can make out that the blot is, in fact, a skull staring back at you. By having the object of our eye's look look back at us, we are reminded of our own lack, of the fact that the symbolic order is separated only by a fragile border from the materiality of the Real. The symbols of power in Holbein's painting (wealth, power, ambition) are thus completely undercut. The magical floating object "reflects our own nothingness, in the figure of the death's head" (Lacan, Four Fundamental 92). See the Lacan module on the Gaze. == def == 
The concept of '''gaze''' (often also called '''the gaze''' or, in French, ''le regard''), in analysing [[Visual perception|visual]] [[Mass media|media]], is one that deals with how an audience views other people presented. The concept of the gaze became popular with the rise of postmodern philosophy and social theory and was first discussed by [[1960s]] [[France|French]] [[intellectuals]], namely [[Foucault]]'s description of the [[medical gaze]] and [[Lacan]]'s analysis of the gaze's role in the [[mirror stage]] development of the human [[psyche]]. This concept is extended in the framework of [[Feminism|feminist]] theory, where it can deal with how [[man|men]] look at [[woman|women]], how women look at themselves and other women, and the effects surrounding this.
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