The article discusses the voyeurism that existed in modern cities based on the architecture construction such as window viewing to achieve the desire, which leads to variable negative phenomena within society, including residents’ life isolation, privacy surveillance, and gender bias. In response to these social issues, the circumstance of the virtual world created by using high power Len and surveillance remain controversial. According to the article, which reinforces the “male gaze,” Mulvey argued the trend of women objectification from the male gaze. Specifically, the two of the articles’ films also described the lens as a tool for pleasure, especially in

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

The concept of voyeur and flaneur is discussed in this week’s tutorial. In the first movie Rear window, the main character is more like a flaneur instead of voyeur in my opinion, because the relationship between the main character and his neighbors seems to be two-sided. When he peeks through the window to see what his neighbors are doing, the neighbors could also see him through the window. However, in the second movie Sliver, the owner of the building observes what the people in his building is doing through cameras. This is an unbalanced relationship cause the residents have no

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

Start with the three movies, this article introduces Voyeuristic Modernity and gives some ideas behind it. On the one hand, despite people may be uncomfortable with their privacy being invaded when they are under the systems of surveillance and it might violate human rights in some sense, the systems of surveillance have played a great role in maintaining social order and stability. As in the third movie, Ray has seen the kidnapping because his job is to monitor the video screens at an FBI crime prevention facility. However, on another aspect, monitoring system act as the virtual spectacle as the

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AISayyad

The article based on three movies discusses voyeurism in modern society and the problems behind this phenomenon, including alienation of urban life, surveillance on people’s privacy and gender inequality. Among these social issues, the existence of widespread cameras and systems of surveillance has been highly controversial. On the one hand, surveillance is efficient in finding criminals as well as recording the real situations when dangers happen. This function of cameras lead to a decrease in crime rate to some degree. For example, in Sliver, through video-surveillance system installed by Zeke, he have the chance to find out a girl being

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

The crux of the reading to me is power imbalance, whether it be voyeurism or ‘flaneurism.’ Throughout history, voyeurs adapt to yet more advanced means to observe their subjects, from binoculars, one-way mirrors, surveillance cameras, to the smart devices everyone possesses nowadays. Distance between the observer and the observed increases, from a visible distance (binoculars) to thousands of miles away (smartphones); yet the monitoring and documentation of one’s private life become more comprehensive than ever. The observed, by enjoying a higher degree of convenience, gradually surrender their last bits of privacy and security. Voyeurs become gods and their subjects are

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

After reading this essay, I began to think about the identity of voyeurs in our daily life. The author comes up with a different word, flaneur, to distinguish between these two idiosyncrasies. By taking voyeurs’ behaviors in different countries as examples, this essay expounds the behavior modes, personality characteristics and evolution process of voyeurs in films. The writing of the essay is also very clear, following a chronological sequence of the development of the voyeur. It shows the development of snooping devices from the man who peeks through binoculars in the movie to the current surveillance system. In today’s society,

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

After reading this text, I want to talk about my thoughts with respect to the real and reel. The real and reel complement each other. We can take the lens as an example of the reel. In the movie Rear Window, although the monitor behavior replaces most of the social life of Jeff with other neighbors, it also creates a new kind of connection between Jeff and others. Even though it’s only visual contact, they indeed facilitate interaction between people who might never be in touch, which also enables the rise in levels of social interaction. However, can we use

Continue readingReading response: Nezar Alsayyad

In the beginning, Nezar AlSayyad declared the concepts of voyeur and flaneur, then further discussed the “male gaze” with Elizabeth Wilson’s argument. To get a better understanding of this particular type of voyeurism, I tried to analyze films introduced in this reading from three perspectives of the male gaze: the man behind the camera, the male characters, and the male spectators. Zeke in Sliver (1993) viewed women through the video-surveillance system before making relationships and having sex with them, which shows that man as a character is in control of the action, and as a character, director and spectator consume

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad