>>. Most of us are sensible to the surprising >> resurgence [laugh] of the male gaze in visual media. >> I for one am bored and intellectually astonished at the frequently obscene, >> let alone sexist, portrayals of women, their lives, and their actuality in >> media. the propensity of mass culture and mass media to see/portray women as "essentially" sexual, hardly needs to be argued . . . and this tendency is, as susanna suggests, very much having a "resurgence" . . . still, this does not necessarily entail the corollary claim that the instruments of sexism are themselves gendered male and inherently [if not "essentially"] sexist . . . even though some tools or instruments seems predisposed to lead in certain specific directions [e.g., the apparatus of television seems to entail different cultural formations than the apparently similar apparatus of cinema] it surely remains possible to appropriate a single apparatus or mechanism for radically different purposes . . . the fact that the camera has been appropriated for sexist purposes may say much more about access to money and other resources [including cameras, film, support systems, etc.] than about anything inherent in cameras themselves ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html mike