John Berger Ways of Seeing Part 2

== Abstract ==
John
Berger's Ways of Seeing
is
a your part video series that “Criticize traditional Western
cultural aesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in
visual images.”(1) In part
2, Berger discusses the concept of the female nude. He begins by
making the distinction between “naked” and “nude” as such:
“To be naked, is to be one's self. To be nude is to be seen naked
by others and yet not recognized for one's self.” (2) This
distinction is used to help make the argument that in order for a
naked body to become a nude, it must be completely objectified and
exist only for the sexual pleasure of the owner or viewer. This claim
is supported by a number of example
paintings all of which containing characteristics of an object
intended only for the viewer. Characteristics
such as the lack of hair which according to Berger removes an
association with sexual pleasure on the woman's part, the fact that
the woman's gaze is almost always directed outward at the viewer even
when a male figure is present, and the fact that the women in these
paintings are almost always laying down, languid as “They are there
to feed an appetite, not have any of their own.”(2)
== Key Concept ==
Berger discusses a
contradiction in European paintings of female nudes between “the
painter's, owner's and viewer's individualism and... the object, the
woman, which is treated as abstraction.”(3)
He believes that these differences within the relationship between
men and women play a deep role in our culture and how women view
themselves. He opens and
closes this episode with a discussion focused around how women see
themselves. At a round table
discussion at the end of this episode one woman discusses how, though
she never thought about it until now, she doesn't see herself as she
is, naked, when looking in the mirror, but instead sees a nude. What
she means by this is that she is so influenced by the world around
her, whether it be through advertising, opinions of others, or some
cultural aspect influenced by the European paintings in discussion,
that she doesn't see her true self but instead an image of what she
wants to be or things she should be. It
is also mentioned that men don't have this same image of themselves
or constant reflection of themselves. This enforces Berger's belief
that this inequality between men and women exists heavily in our
society. 
== Examples ==
== Keywords ==
Nude
Naked
== Sources ==
(1) []
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GI8mNU5Sg
(3) http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.com/2011/05/john-berger-ways-of-seeing-summary-3.html
Category:Film
Category:Reading
Category:Visual rhetoric