' For a director -- and most directors just like most voyeurs, clinically speaking, are male -- can render even a heterosexual woman's gaze into a desiring male gaze, simply by focusing on such sensual aspects of feminine behavior, such as Marylyn Monroe's bejeweled cleavage in "Gentlemen prefer Blondes." The female viewer might prefer to gaze at the male faces of the suited individuals who fawn about the lovely Ms. Monroe's amply evident charms. But by virtue of Howard Hawk's production, the men of this song and dance routine who wave black ropes of diamonds at the conventionally attractive and voluptuously presented actress are virtually faceless -- there is no camera focus on any individual, so the men appear to be a sea of white faces in black suits in a sea of pink. The pink costume of the actress makes all eyes draw to her, as well as the fact that she is the singer. Even a scene where Monroe and her compatriot, the even more generously endowed Jane Russell, sing at a cafe in a French street, the broadness...
All eyes are on the actresses and their most feminine assets of legs, breasts, and highly roughed lips and cheeks. "Don't you know that a man being rich is like a woman being pretty?" asks Monroe's character Lori lee, of her desired object of marriage. However, unlike wealth, which can be concealed, beauty is in evidence, in the camera's visually present lens, unlike money that is concealed, visually. In the film, we know a man is rich because we are told by the women he is wealthy, but we know as voyeurs that they are sexually desirable because the camera tells us, by virtue of its focus, even if 'we' as viewers are heterosexual female who would not see them as such, in ordinary life.Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
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