Comments on: Opting out of the gaze economy

By: fouroboros

fouroboros — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:25:24 +0000

Don’t apologize, Grant. The seed material makes it easy. Stanley and Stella did seem perfect, if a bit long — my turn to mea culpa. [/bigfoot]

Thanks for the great topic.

mark

By: Steve Portigal

Steve Portigal — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:15:44 +0000

While in University, I lived in residence (or, for Americans, while at college I lived in the dorms) with a woman who would go into sleepiness every time she was approached in the cafeteria by a (regular) unwanted suitor. The sleepiness was an amazingly instant transformation that allowed her to practice gaze avoidance while maintaining some social norms – masking the slight which was deliberate in a behavior that was more tolerable.

It didn’t fool anyone, and I think even encouraged the guy who probably enjoyed the reaction.

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:30:12 +0000

Fouroboros: my deepest apologies, you grace us with the funniest line of the blog, and what do you get in reply, a misattribution. Sorry, sorry, sorry (as we say in Canada). And thanks for the extended passage from Streetcar. Very apt. Best, Grant

Marshall, I share your sentiment, it’s often better to unplug and be an unnoticed noticer. I find that aging helps increase one’s invisibility, even, if as Martin Amis, it is sometimes hard on the ego. This is why I sometimes wear a giant alarm clock like that guy in Public Enemy. Thanks.

Virginia, precisely right, dark glasses are a great way of withholding the gaze. It prevents that first condition of contact, “catching someone’s eye.” I believe that some women wear walkmans for the same purpose. It says, “I am engaged.” I know a Torontonian who has a fall back “wall of protection” when the sun glasses and the walkman fail her. She looks at her “suitor” with abject gratitude and begins to sign as if deaf. Works every time apparently. When I was working on the big hair book, I decided that “cross blonde with dark glasses” was a species of Toronto street life, a respite both from the sun and the obligation to be sunny. Anyhow, very apt. Thanks. Grant

By: Virginia Postrel

Virginia Postrel — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 02:11:51 +0000

It’s amazing no one has mentioned sunglasses–the touchstone accessory of glamour and a highly effective way of rationing gazes. I once saw Julia Louis-Dreyfuss at LAX. She first caught my eye because she was was wearing sunglasses indoors. She might as well have held up a sign saying, “I am a celebrity.” At first, it seemed like a stupid thing to do if you’re trying to be anonymous. But, on second thought, I realized that it works. Sunglasses create an implicit wall of protection. You may recognize her more quickly, but she keeps her essential distance.

By: LK

LK — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:59:45 +0000

hi grant,

i completely disagree that safety-pinned, mohawked, torn everything punks do not want to receive our gaze. i know you hate most cultural studies discourse but in this case i think their ritual of resistance is a way of making their invisible selves (invisible in terms of status, economy, attractiveness, etc) aggressively visible. i will MAKE you look at me. and it will *not* be pleasant. and you will not just gaze you will stare. and you will hate yourself and me in the process. and in that way s/he with the face tattoos and tattered everything “wins”. how else do they participate in the urban economy, unless they hijack it in this way?

ps was greg’s admired line the one about the meaning of the “kate spade to the groin”? if so, i concur, it’s a keeper.

By: Marshall

Marshall — Wed, 25 Aug 2004 15:40:54 +0000

Maybe all this gazing doesn’t matter so much. I am not always counting my pennies. I am not always stroking and being stroked. I am not always in contest. And sometimes I just like being invisible and “looking around”.