Don’t Look Now

Abstract

‘One of the things I really envy about men,’ a friend once said to me, ‘is the right to look.’ She went on to point out how in public places, on the street, at meetings, men could look freely at women, but that women could only look back surreptitiously, against the grain of their upbringing. It is a point that has been reiterated in many of the personal-political accounts that have emerged from the consciousness-raising of the Women’s Movement. And it is a fact that we see endlessly reworked in movies and on television. We have all seen, countless times, that scene of Young Love, where, in the canteen, at school, in church, the Boy and the Girl first see each other. The precise way it is done is very revealing. We have a close-up of him looking off camera, followed by one of her looking downwards (in a pose that has, from time immemorial, suggested maidenliness). Quite often, we move back and forth between these two close-ups, so that it is very definitely established that he looks at her and she is looked at. Then, she may look up and off camera, and we may go back briefly to the boy still looking — but it is only briefly, for no sooner is it established that she sees him that we must be assured that she at once averts her eyes. She has seen him, but she doesn’t look at him as he looks at her — having seen him, she quickly resumes being the one who is looked at.

This article was originally published in Screen, Vol. 23, No. 3/4, 1983.