The Ethics of Looking And The “Harmless” Peeping Tom
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2022
- Watching people’s stories on screen can be fascinating and exhilarating, but the act of looking can also feel uncomfortable, invasive, even violating. And underpinning these uncomfortable moments we often find alarming messages about the role of consent.
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REFERENCES
• Intrusions by Melissa Febos
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• Girlhood (2021) by Melissa Febos
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• Ways of Seeing with John Berger, Episode 2 (1972)
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CREDITS
Writer/Editing: Jonathan McIntosh
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It’s astounding how Fez in the closet is represented as just silly when in reality someone hiding in my closet/home and spying on me is an actual nightmare.
Not to mention, it’s increasingly taboo to depict consensual sex scenes but this remains very common! How odd.
I love That 70s Show but this always struck me as sort of odd
oh so it's a nightmare or creepy when I spy through people's closets, but when the US government does it it's "national security"?
Just imagine how hard it would be to keep hetero male audience members sympathetic with a gay male protagonist, if he started spying on the boy next door.
That's what I was thinking!
Megamind actually parodied this when Titan/Hal said he had his eye on a special girl; Megamind and the audience initially assumes he means this metaphorically, but then the shot zooms into the female lead's living room where she's working, and we realize he spying on her. It's framed as gross, villainous thing to do, which I haven't seen in any other superhero media.
Been a decade since I last watched it.
I came to the comments to say this. This movie does so much to uncover the covertly perverse nature of ‘nice guys’ while also displaying what a healthy relationship looks like. Hal always treated Roxanne like a romantic object, a trophy, and an accomplishment he could flaunt. Megamind, especially as Bernard, treated her with a genuine degree of respect. He truly liked her because of who she was (a good person), not because she was physically attractive.
Had two coworkers at an old job pass around a phone with nude pictures of a girl that one of the guys was sent. When I told him not to hand me the phone, his response was pretty much "your wife will never know" as if my refusal to violate another person was only because I thought I'd be "in trouble" if I did.
The interesting thing about the role reversal of the peeping tom is that whenever the girl does it, it IS portrayed as violating and uncomfortable for the guy. Like that scene with Moaning Myrtle and Harry, we the audience aren't being directed to leer at Harry, we're expected to understand how uncomfortable he feels about it.
In Dreamwork's Eldorado film there is a moment with "reverse peeping" where it is portrayed as funny, though in that case most of the scene before it was rather flirty
I think, with Moaning Myrtle, we're only supposed to feel uncomfortable because Myrtle isn't conventionally attractive and is known for her whining. There are plenty of "girl peeps on guy" scenes where it's "fine" because they're both attractive.
It’s also used to show a woman is otherwise unwell, where women who use the “telescope towards the neighbors” often are dangerous or unhinged.
i think part of why we're supposed to feel uncomfortable with that scene is because moaning myrtle isn't conventionally attractive. more leeway is given for hot women.
Thats true, but i also feel like if Myrtle were conventionally attractive, it wouldn't be framed that way.
Even as a guy who's usually not the subject of them, these kinds of scenes have always made me incredibly uncomfortable. The idea of me looking out of my bedroom window or shower door and seeing someone just...staring at me is one of my greatest fears.
I honestly think one of the most damning pieces of evidence against this trope is that, with literally just a music change, a lot of the scenes wouldn't seem out of place in a horror movie.
You are actually very right. This kind of weird espacially with media aim at more younger viewer.
It's really important for everyone to learn consent.
The fact that many of the women's reactions to be spied on in these films and TV shows is the equivalent of a shoulder shrug is so unrealistic. Like “eh, boys will be boys”. In reality most women (and people in general) would be horrified to find themselves in that kind of situation.
I remember being told by a neighbour (when I was at the beginning of elementare school, Germany) that I should remember to always remember to close my certain because otherwise they ans others would be able to look into my room when I got changed. Of course, I guess it is great in retrospect that they told me this at such a young age, but I remember feeling quite terrified ans shocked at the thought alone that somebody might do such a thing and might have already done it. But yeah, that was naive elementary school me.
This is just an example of how still very present grooming is...
I can second that. At my room in my parents house it is posible to look into our neighbours house and vice versa and the curtain on that window is always closed exept when l open the window once in a while
@@cdevine9459 It’s so traumatizing. I still avoid my neighbors after seeing one looking at me while I was changing 11 years ago. Dude had the nerve to smile and wave at me when I saw him. Now I rarely have my curtains open at all.
It really says something about the industry that you were able to cut together well over 20 minutes of footage, without repeat, of this problematic trope.
exactly! I would have never even thought of this as such a disturbing issue before I assume because either I'm brainwashed or it becomes more subtle lost in the rest of the plot? but wow I was taken back by how MANY he cut together and how it instantly made clear how pervasive this REALLY is!!!
This is a HUGE problem in South Korea for women actually. "Molka" or hidden cameras are a huge thing in Korea that it's very paranoia inducing for women to use public facilities like bathrooms or changing rooms etc.
That is actually horrifying
the more I hear about South Korea, the more I understand why the 4B movement is a thing
"Because men's sexual attention is always supposed to be flattering. Regardless whether or not those feelings are reciprocated."
Thank you for making this video. I learnt stuff the hard way but my younger self would have really needed to hear these critics.
This is so engrained into women still, I remember I was once flirted with (given the circumstances I would now say harrassed) by an airport security guy and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. My female friend I was travelling with expressed confusion over his actions, at first I thought she was upset for me, but then I realised she was upset he hadn't acted the same way to her! As if his lack of unwanted attention was an insult to her. So weird.
As a girl who was terrified for years after she caught a 40+ year old man watching her through her window when she was 14, I'm glad you brought up the lasting psychological effect this can have on women.
That absolutely sucks. I'm so sorry that happened to you and at such a young age. I had a similar experience when I was in college and it definitely changed the way I go about securing my window coverings etc. even today.
Also, I say this in case in case it brings you any vicarious enjoyment, but when I caught my peeping tom looking in my window, I ran outside and threatened to beat him with a hammer if he ever came back. He ran away and did not come back. It probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done but there it is.
@@bettievw It IS scary that everyone has a story. I have stories of some Spanish-speaking man who would beep his car at random times whenever I do something or space out. One time he was enthusiastically speaking to a lady in Spanish, I don't comprehend Spanish but I can tell he was talking about me specifically, which she replied with an audible laughing sound. I can hear these people in my room due to how quiet nighttime is. I also have stories and separate instances where a single car or multiple cars would shine their lights on my window. I was 14 when all this was happening before I decided to put up cardboard on my window. The cardboard didn't cover all of the window so I still had instances of cars shining their lights on the window.
The "performing" section addresses something that always gets to me: that in nearly EVERY Peeping Tom scene, the woman is seductively sauntering around her apartment, performing a striptease for nobody. I want to see a scene where a guy peeps on a girl, but she's just sitting on the couch in sweats watching TV, then she catches him and presses charges and never speaks to him again.
It's mostly telling how that peeping is almost always sexual.
Imagine a 90's teen comedy where the guy climbs into a tree with binoculars to see The Girl being beaten by her dad because he's drunk that day? OOPS, guess you weren't that interested in her actual secret life.
i REALLY appreciate that you directly said that the fault isn't on women who're spied on (or whose intimate photos are shared), but the people who spy/share the photos. i was recently telling someone about an incident where a woman's long-time husband posted intimate photos of her online. it RUINED her career, even made it into news articles. my discussion partner replied, "well she shouldn't have taken those photos, that speaks to her character." please to the younger generations, help this mindset die and remain buried.
Omg it "speaks to HER character"?? Her husband betrayed her trust, but it "speaks to HER character"? Some people are just awful.
@@tuczyn far too many people honestly.
I see it from women a lot too. I think they convince themselves that if they just don’t do certain things, they’ll be safe from the violation of privacy so anyone that does those things “deserves” it. It’s basically a self soothing reaction, and it doesn’t even protect them because things like up skirt photos and peepers can happen regardless.
I often wonder what kind of bosses fire someone because of that. They could so easily be hacked as well. Or be betrayed.
Since when does sharing intimate photos with YOUR HUSBAND say something negative about a woman's character!??
Something similar happened in the first season of Overwatch League (OWL for short). The TL;DR version of the story is that one of the players for one of the teams, DreamKazper, got into an online conversation with one of his female fans (who was under 18 at the time, I think) and he coerced her to send pics of herself. One thing led to another, and let’s just say he was willing to buy her tickets on a plane so they could meet in person. What’s just as pathetic is he apparently did all this while having a girlfriend. 😖
Then she blew the whistle on his creepiness and the team axed him from the roster a week or so later. IIRC, most fans supported the decision, but there were a few odd ones who did the victim blaming over the pics and not over him leveraging his status and her enthusiasm for him to his benefit.
Even to this day, quite a few in the community don’t really wanna bring him up, and some people just call him “TeenGrazper” because of this incident.
And that was in season 1. About a year or two ago, news broke over something arguably even _more_ perverse. I’m talking about actual rape and zealous overprotectiveness. I’d share that one, but it’s honestly so shitty I already feel dirty thinking about it (I used to be a fan of him, but not anymore). In fact, it’s so bad people liken him to Voldemort and say he’s “he who shall not be named”. 😕
Thank you. When I was growing up we had a peeping Tom, the cops knew about him, but treated him like he was an annoyance, harmless. Scared the crap out of me a couple times. Just watching TV and suddenly there's a man's face in the window. Then he started exposing himself. We called them "flashers" back then, there was even a whole couple years when "streaking" was a thing, so, haha, it's funny, right? Not to a 12 yo girl it's not funny, it's terrifying.
That is sickening. I am so sorry that you have had to go through that.
The fact that so much media has portrayed that as funny is appalling.
How can they see something that has traumatized so many people as something to laugh at?
There's a really great example of a male character respecting a woman's privacy in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where one of the male characters tells a woman she should take a bath if she wants and that he won't look. Not only does he not spy on her, he sings so that she can feel comfortable knowing where he is at all times during the scene...
I caught a 40+ years old man nodding and smiling at me while I was changing in the back seat of my mom's minivan. I was literally going from karate practice to ballet practice. It still fucks me up when I think of the sinking feeling I had. I was only 8, but I knew it was messed up.
Want an example of the harm this trope has? I and many women I know feel the fear of being spied on all the time. We check unfamiliar bathrooms, hotels, or B&Bs for cameras. We don't sleep in a room on the ground floor, and keep our bedroom windows covered almost all the time. I even hesitated to have plants in my bedroom, because that would necessitate keeping a window partially uncovered a lot of the time.
It's so far from "harmless."
So much this! Every time I'm in an unfamiliar bathroom, I worry that any weird round shiny spot I see is a camera. And then I'm like, "oh shit, I looked right at it-- what if this has to go to court and he says 'she's lying, she knew it was there-- she looked right into the lens, see?'" Not only am I paranoid about being watched, I'm also paranoid that I'm not performing society's expectation of victimhood well enough to prove that I didn't want to be watched!
Another real life consequence is people feeling entited to look inside other people's houses in general. Even though I haven't (hopefully) been spied on while changing, some people, many times men, look through the windows of my house and keep doing so even if I'm right there expressing discomfort so they'll to look away. It's wild the number of people that can look you in the eye and still not get (or ignore) that you're angry/uncomfortable being watched by them without consent,
I dont think I fully realized how messed up this had me, living without sunlight most of the time, until I moved to my current apartment. I kept pulling the curtains and blinds and feeling uneasy about being in the living room after dark (cause it doesnt have curtains or blinds), kept putting concerned looks at the windows. The reality is Im now living on the top floor and the windows, well unless theres a dude with a telescope on the other side of the city across the park, heating plant, river, river parks on both sides (aka miles away), no one is looking into the windows. It took me about 6 months to a year to stop automatically going into panic mode at the sight of an uncovered window.
I had an exemple of that when I moved to live with my girlfriend.
I'm really casual about my own nudity, I go in the kitchen with just a towel around my waist, change in the bedroom with the curtains open, etc...
Whereas she always change in the bathroom or close the curtains when she put on or off her pajamas.
I think I never felt being the subject of peeping. I'm not an usual victim, or preyed on. And she may have felt this way.
I my life I've seen naked people by mistake. Never looked at, just seen, and it was always a "oops sorry my bad" moment. And when I've been seen it was the same.
I hope a lot of men feel the same, and I find this trope very disturbing.
As far as I find women's body beautiful, consent is the sexiest of their assets.
Things you don't think of being a man. It never occurred to me before how scary it can be to see these things being normalized. Yeah this behavior needs to die and the ethics of it must be taught seriously.
You had the clip from Scott Pilgrim vs The World briefly, and I realized that's the only film I can think of in which a character comes upon their crush changing clothes and immediately apologizes and covers their eyes. Plus the character changing, Ramona, is not doing a sexy pose or framed in a sexual way while topless. I think it's funny because in the rest of the movie Scott is framed as a bit of a jerk in some ways, yet even he clearly knows that "peeping on someone is wrong."
I love she is not doing a pose and also confronting him with his behavior in a non-playful kind of way.
Was gonna point this out too. Honestly just another reason Scott Pilgrim is such a great film
Everyone are a little bit of a jerk in some way
Steve Harrington calling out Jonathan, destroying the photos and the camera was the turning point that made me say 'wait I thought he's supposed to be the mean jock'. It made me love the character, especially how he develops into nicer and more respectful with every season.
16:15 “Now don’t get me wrong, sexual curiosity is completely normal. However, nonconsensual behavior should *never* be confused with healthy sexual exploration. The default should always be an expectation of privacy.”
16:47 "Men dream of women. Women dream of being dreamt of" is so telling about how society views women's sexuality. Instead of being equal in this situation ("women dream of men"), women's desire is passiv and completely dependent on men's actions. I'm not saying, that women never want men to dream of them, but the complete exclusion of an active sexuality just grinds my gears.
Also: not mentioning that this of course excludes any sexuality that is not straight.
that's how we get men who give us "advice" on what makeup we do. Like honey, that's not for you, your opinion doesn't matter.
May I add that I'm certain many straight men also would love being dreamt of? Why are people trying so hard to divide into two genders if we are all people with more or less the same wishes and needs...
And that men have no interest in women being active participants or attracted to them!
@Elanor Gamdschie Yep...made me think of this scene from The Fall (with Gillian Anderson) czcams.com/video/QRiG39VMG3E/video.html (warning: strong language)
In Stranger Things Steve Harrington did nothing wrong when he broke Jonathan's camera. It was a perfectly reasonable response to break the tool he used to take pictures of someone undressing without their consent.The fact that the show frames him as a douche for doing it, yet excuses Jonathan's actions with some BS about how he 'sensed her loneliness' has unsettling implications.
The fact that there are so many KIDS movies that have these kinds of scenes is sickening. The normalization is built into us from such a young age.
This is a minor point, but it always struck me as ridiculous how the women being peeped on in these scenes are always wearing sexy underwear. In reality you're lucky if my bra matches my panties. Women aren't all Victoria's Secret models all the time.
Quite disturbing how you were able to find a seemingly endless amount of clips for the video. Made me realize how often it’s used and how desensitized I’ve become to seeing it over and over. Great analysis as always can’t wait for the next video.
on the bright side at least most were pre 2012, hopefully that means the trend is dying in popular media
I can even think of more that weren't included! its crazy how prevalent this trope is
It's really sad that women are groomed to expect this kind of stuff. I've known a lot of young women that live in constant anxiety because of the thought of not looking good publicly (Normal stuff when it's the only thing you're rewarded for). Imagine having those reparations even in the privacy of your home. I remember Jane Birkin saying she slept with an eye pencil under her pillow so she could apply it before her husband woke up. Truly horrible.
Maybe groomed to look good at all times, but despite all the examples given of how peeping toms are treated in entertainment... the real thing is nothing but terrifying. I caught not one, but three different guys peeping into my house one summer. I thought I was relatively safe because I lived with all guys, but it didn't matter... I couldn't sleep in my own bedroom after the first guy, particularly because he didn't know I was in my friend's car and he was looking right in my bedroom. Our reaction was pretty weird, too... you think you know how you'll react, but both of us froze while she made sure the door was locked. He walked away while we were petrified and couldn't move. I didn't even call the police until the next day. While sleeping on the couch the rest of that summer until the lease was up, two other guys were caught trying to peep in.... it's incredibly scary, because you have no idea what their intentions are, and if any of them were making plans to do worse.
Many women in the 40’s, 50’s, or 60’s would sleep with makeup. Dolly Parton has also said she does that in case she needs to wake up in the middle of the night and needs to look presentable. She’s also said that she dresses like she’ll be seen at all times so that nobody has a reason to say she doesn’t look great at all times. Love her and all her philanthropy but just wanted to mention that
As a teenager I was worried about being undressed in my own room without the blinds tightly drawn or my back turned from the window for fear of someone nextdoor looking in because of scenes like this. Now I'm a 20-something who is often read as a woman living in an apartment and while I have no one directly across the street from me and I know it's hard for someone to look into my window, I still worry about "putting on a show." Hanging around in one's underwear is just a casual thing when male characters do it, but it's an intentionally sexual act when female characters do it. That sticks with you.
I think the worst part about it is like, in the "Don't Peak" scenes, the man involved is usually the protagonist right? And he's a friend/acquaintance/peer of the woman. He's supposed to be the good guy, a FRIEND, and yet he still peaks. It honestly just makes me feel like, who can you trust to not peak? To not invade your privacy?
I like how PCD's video is like: "Here's a problem." and public might say: "Nah you are exaggerating." and he'll show a enormous montage replying: "I'm not."
One thing that I appreciate about this channel is that it doesn't really feel the need to be funny. Don't get me wrong, I love funny video essays that can use gallows humor when covering heavy topics. But I also appreciate that Pop Culture Detective can hold your attention without jokes and just say, "This is important and we're gonna break down why." Direct and well done, as always.
I appreciate that. Thanks
I also think it's interesting how you never see someone actually getting dressed like you do in everyday life. Usually the dressing up/down scenes are performed like a sort of strip tease.
„Women‘s bodies must always be available to men, to be evaluated…“
I think what really adds insult to injury in these scenes for me is: Real women and girls, we‘re gross. We‘re just as gross as any other gender. Because we’re human. Humans are gross. We‘re not robots or dolls that always smell and look pretty. And obviously, we‘re especially gross when we‘re feeling comfortable alone in our homes, for once not being watched.
But in these scenes, the women are always moving and undressing in the most sensual and pretty way possible, when they‘re supposed to be at their ‚most private‘.
Stuff like this can really mess with your head. Like we’re not even allowed to be ‚not pretty‘ when we‘re alone. I feel ashamed of myself sometimes for simply being comfortable at home and not pretty and prepared for any potential or imaginary onlooker. The thought of being watched at my most private seriously makes me feel more ashamed of myself than creeped out or enraged by the person looking.
Peeking can come in so many forms. Like when Megan Fox was delivering her first speech in Transformers and later found out that her face wasn't even shown, camera went straight to her body. She was shown only from the main hero view, not as an individual person. Even though she wasn't naked, it's still very disturbing
Yeah the way Megan Fox was treated by Michael Bay is a travesty. Folding Ideas did a great video about how the script painted her as smart, accomplished and someone with agency who is actively involved in the plot. The camera treats her like a dumb sex object, to be looked at and mocked.
Glad u showed the new Batman - the juxtaposition of the riddler spying on the mayor in the first shot of the movie and Batman spying on catwoman felt so odd!
I don't think you're supposed to see Batman as a good guy during that moment, he's a very awkward person throughout most of the movie.
Probably because the riddler was a legitimate creep throughout the film so I could see why he was portrayed that way
Lots of juxtaposition of Batman and the riddler in that one I think overall. Kinda shows batman in that version is a PoS really, regardless of intent (at least in the first half). Just a less murderous one.
I thought that that was intentional, to reinforce the idea of them being eerily similar, and showing how Batman needs to change. But yeah it was kinda weird, though that's what I think is the point.
Agreed. I know they were trying to parallel batman and riddler and show how "you and I are not so different" but I think they over did it at times. Still liked the movie but that scene was definitely pretty weird.
There's definitely a reason you get horror films/psychological thrillers made out of the female POV of these scenes
"It does cause harm. It chips away to your victims until they crumble to nothing. It dehumanizes. It steals away their rights to days free from worry."
-Witch Hat Atelier.
This brought me back to a moment in high school I totally forgot about! I was in a band with two guys (I'm a girl and my bandmates knew I dated girls) and one of my bandmates showed us a video he took of his naked girlfriend and I was like "eww wtf why would you show us that??" and he looked so confused about why I wasn't into it. I totally forgot about it, but now I see that he was trying to win social points. Guess he thought I counted as one of the dudes since I like chicks.
Now I wish I had indicted him harder about the lack of consent instead of just saying that it's weird to show people pics/vids of your naked girlfriend lol.
It’s horrifying how men seem to be incapable of knowing what consent is
@@DeathnoteBB When we have movies and TV shows normalizing these kinds of invasions of privacy, it's easy for men to develop confused ideas about what consent and boundaries. After all, women and girls are shown being at most mildly annoyed about voyeurism in popular culture; that's what makes analyzing media messages so important.
I wish one of the dudes with you had spoken up at all. I can count on the nails of one finger how many guys I know who would always shut stuff like that down amongst other guys, and he really struggles finding and keeping dude friends.
@@astrinymris9953 Agreed. This kind of media is so so important because it's so prevalent in changing the way we see what consent is. Young teens pick up on this and what they see, they will do. If we want them to do better, our films need to be better.
@@astrinymris9953 We need more sex ed just to get everyone to understand consent.
The term "teen sex comedy" explains a lot about our culture
FR
Even in girl‘s locker rooms we look away when someone else undresses/turns around to undress. The lesbians don’t look either so what businesses do men think they have to be sexual predators?
I hated how Jonathan's photos of Nancy was just looked over in stranger things and Steve was painted as the bad guy for calling him out. Like Jonathan is a creep and Nancy should never have given him a chance romantically
I would like to once again shout out Megamind, where the one character doing this is the villain, and very much portrayed as being a creep, and the camera doesnt actually show the female character in any compromizing way.
The "I've got my eye on one currently" line/scene always makes me gag. SO creepy, as it should be portrayed.
Again, quality! The frustrating thing is, as a woman when pointing out things in this vein, we are labelled as b***** or told we have no sense of humour, or that we read too much into something, or are nazi feminists.
The last one is particularly funny, like suddenly being against surveillance on other people makes you a nazi... As opposed to the real nazi regimes, which did not spy on its people at all!
the objectification runs so deep- in every scene the women are always undressing slowly and with care to be attractive to the viewing audience. even if it isn't directly stated that the woman wants people to look at her, it is indirectly implied by the fact she's undressing so performatively. when every example of women's secret inner lives is shown this way, it enforces the narrative that women are expected to be attractive always. I know for sure it's not hot when I'm tugging off my bra after an 8 hour shift.
The fact that you featured *so many* examples of the "Harmless" Peeping Tom just goes to show how normalized it is! 👀
It would be so easy to make the changing scenes consensual too.
Character A needs to change. Character B looks away. Character A says "it's ok you can look" .
Now the scene plays out exactly the same but it's not creepy and invasive anymore
That's exactly what they did in Stranger Things with Nancy and Steve. But Steve was a "bad guy" in that season so....
I've always found that whole "Turn around!" subtrope especially odd. You'd think someone in that situation would sooner say "Hey, could you leave the room for a bit?"
I mean, I get _why_ they do it that way; these scenes only exist as an excuse for some peeping action, and having the peeper-to-be leave the room would make that more difficult. Still, it's an odd contrivance.
Right. It happens all the time in movies, do people really ever say that in real life? Similarly are there that many people who get naked in slow mo directly in front of open windows? I now hate this trope
I mean I’ve had it happen in real life where body shy friends asked me to and I did. Don’t know why movies think it’s so hard to stare ahead, chat, or check your phone for less than a minute.
Your point, Robo Train, fits neatly into the segment about how the whole scene is set up to cause the peeking and titilation. A lot of them seem very unrealistic, which just highlights how in real life, men go to much greater lengths to see women's bodies than simply turning around or opening their eyes. The films make it seem like women are parading themselves, and it's more difficult to not see than to see, but in reality, men violate your privacy intentionally, taking upskirt photos on the train, forgetting to knock before entering the room, or leaving a camera running in the bathroom.
the most telling thing about this entire video is that there are *so many* examples of this in pop culture that you were able to fill almost 30 minutes of them
A former girlfriend once found a man looking at her through her open bathroom window and she was incredibly traumatized. Ever since then, I get very uncomfortable and tense when "peeping tom" scenes come up in movies and TV shows, despite what the creators of those works want me to feel.
'Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else.' - Margaret Atwood
I've often wondered if the male gaze style of camera work, combined with this trope being so relentlessly common in media, really messed up entire generations of people exposed to it.
I don't know if young boys growing up felt pressured to normalize it, being shown so often that it was apparently both harmless and expected of them, and I'd love to hear if any men watching have any personal anecdotes relating to this;
But as a girl growing up, even in the middle of the countryside with no other houses around, and my curtain drawn, I felt like I was being conditioned to expect being watched, and it still messes me up sometimes today
we're always shown how peeping is important for boys' coming of age, but never how it's damaging to girls. of course, boys "having fun" is much more important than girls being treated with respect. 🙄 that's a perfect example of the film industry being a male dominated field, and them presenting the world from their point of view - how they wish events would play out.
Wow, as a female watcher these scenes made me so uncomfortable. The thing is, a lot of these movies you mentioned came out when I was a child and a teen so sitting in a full cinema or with Male people at someone's house, you feel kind of helpless. Because "it's a compliment" when a man peeps, and "women like to be stared at". As you said, it gives off a false image of entitlement to a woman's body and I think it might be the cause why catcalling on the street is occuring so often without any great consequences. It's so refreshing to see that it's starting to change and that voyeurism is being pointed out as something negative. Thanks for your research and time!
I was only around 6 or 7 years old when I first learned of peeping, because my male friends spied on me changing at a pool party. I was mortified and they begged me not to tell anyone so I didn't. Bringing it up a few years later when we were teenagers those same boys denied ever doing it despite how clearly it had stuck with and affected me. I have no idea why 7yo boys already had the idea to do that.
It's also hugely popular in anime. If there's an episode where characters go to a public bath or hot springs, there's a very good chance there will be a scene of one or more "good" male characters doing their best to peep on the girls and it's just used as a comic relief moment.
The overly exaggerated creepiness of Fez is definitely tied to racism by the way. I think it's important to mention that as well.
Do you mean because it's "othering" him as a person by giving him weird personality quirks that are supposed to be tied to his race / ethnicity (similar to Raj in Big Bang Theory?)
I feel like Indian/South Asian people are one of the only groups it's still considered "okay" to be racist against.
15:29 "...she left herself unguarded a few times..."
It's messed up that women even have to put up a guard.
It's like the woman's body is seen as a castle to be sieged, seized, and raided.
I had a friend (now acquaintance) once show me a nude photo of his wife on his phone and I was horrified. He even asked if I had pictures of my wife to show him. I made it clear that this was not going to happen, and that I was uncomfortable with the suggestion. I have no doubt he's shown those pics to other people and that his wife does not know.
in highschool, my least favorite place was the women's locker room. ive always known i was a lesbian, but i struggled (and still struggle) with a gut feeling that my existence is inherently predetory to other women. in the locker room, i would go out of my way to make sure i never looked at anyone else in the room, but i felt that me standing in the room was a violation of everyone's privacy. i never once had the urge or the desire to see other girls half-naked. if i ever accidently saw someone, i would immediately look away and curse myself for the rest of the day. movies where the protagonist peeps on a woman are both extremely uncomfortable and baffling to me. in no possible circumstance would i actively choose to do something like that, so i cant even understand why anyone would. and scenes and plot points like that open the wound again for me, as i feel inherently predetory for even watching the scene. i really hope that, at some point in my lifetime, that those scenes and plots die out and become reworked.
I’ve been rewatching the Suite Life of Zack and Cody and there’s an episode where the boys accidentally make a hole in the hotel wall that looks into a room occupied by a bunch of young women, and the boys use it to spy, and end up making more holes inviting their friends to spy too. The girls in the room do catch on and end up poking them in the eye, and their mom does give them a lecture on why it’s wrong, but the punishment is still very light and it really plays as “silly boys being boys”
Yep. Almost included that scene in this video but couldn't find any hi-res footage.
I always close my laptop, flip my phone over, and tightly shut the curtains whenever I'm changing out of a sincere fear that someone might be watching - certainly not for any vain issues nor the belief anyone would "want" to see me, but from how much media has perpetuated the idea of people spying. In the same way, I always check around a hotel room for hidden cameras. I don't want to call it paranoia since it doesn't rule my life in the same way, but there's always that small seed of doubt that someone might see something.
These kinds of scenes always made me feel so angry, disgusted and violated from the time I was a child. The sheer number of examples that he was able to show in this video just speaks volumes about how this has yet to really be seen as a problem. Thank you for calling out the bullshit and showing me that I'm not "over-reacting."
I was waiting for Cabin in the Woods. It's the only time I've ever seen a character clearly tempted to peep but decides not to, and then realises the temptation is too great to resist so they remove the temptation by telling the other person and fixing the situation. It made me really like his character, which says a lot because in real life his behaviour was baseline human decency, not something special.
Respectfully I still think it’s a pretty awful example. It’s better then the usual scene of this trope BUT the “”temptation””” is not too great and the man is completely capable of looking away. It’s not too great to resist and using that rhetoric only excuses this behavior - he looks because he wants to and doesn’t care enough to just not look. Instead of taking ownership he gets the innocent woman to change her behavior. It’s not a noble or good scene at all and still places the blame on the woman to change her behavior because the man “can’t help himself”
@@ebonyobrien5895 in this case, the woman should have the opportunity change her behavior based on new information. She's in a room with at least one one-way mirror, which he just discovered, and immediately tells her about. She has a right to know that the room she's about to change in isn't as private as she thought. Not saying it couldn't have been written differently, but immediately informing the affected party was the right move here.
@@appended1 Plus, the movie's a meta commentary on horror movies. So considering how the scene normally goes, it's also calling out the genre
@@ebonyobrien5895 It's a very realistic scene. Two people interested in each other & then both choose to not peep. I don't see what's wrong with it.
Your point about the trope of “well, men just can’t help themselves” is so important. It so closely connects to the “what was she wearing?” question around rape and sexual assault as if men find it physically impossible to resist their urges if they find a woman attractive. It does such a disservice to men as well as women to have them seen that way
funny how you mention it being an 'assumed part of a young man's sexual awakening', because it made me realise that I'd seen this trope so many times growing up as a girl, from a young age, that it was completely ingrained in me. I assumed that was just.. true. I assumed I'd be spied on, watched, and that every man/boy did it, and enjoys it.
As a young woman, I feel awkward watching sex scenes, and the "harmless peeping Tom" just makes me want to punch him :/
happy to have you back! gotta say it's disturbing how common this trope is, and how it's painted as harmless. notable how the women who supposedly don't know they're being watched are directed to move and act in a very "sexy" way too.
Crazy how some parents and men are saying Turning Red in inappropriate for children or have too specific of an audience just because it addresses periods or crushes, when these movies aimed at boys show these kind of creepy behavior towards women. I grew up having to see these types of moments because they appear so often in media despite it feeling wrong, and I also felt bad for not looking like those women. scary stuff
Agreed! And I also wanted to especially point out the complaints about Turning Red -- if some people thought *that* movie was inappropriate (even though it dealt with normal topics), what do they have to say about all of these coming-of-age movies directed more towards boys? Or do they find those ones perfectly fine?
Your point on how the women are directed to move and act is a great one. I certainly know that when I'm undressing alone in my bedroom my movements are far from sensual. Yes, I might occasionally pull a playful pose in front of a mirror, but my actions are generally purposeful and utilitarian. And if I'm stripping slowly it's generally because I'm tired, so I'm also clumsy and slumped on the edge of the bed in a far from seductive manner!
@@coriander1521 exactly! it seems clear people tend to excuse some questionable behavior as normal for boys while then demonizing normal experiences for young girls, which is very frustrating to see
@@JutaStokes agreed, a lot of these scenes seem to forget women are human, we don't exist in the world to perform for others all the time
@@silentsaturn7604 it's the older generations that are fucking us over.
As a woman in her mid-20s, I'm still shaking the feeling of putting on a "hot girl performance," even alone. I've realized I've got an audience of men in my mind that I'm always subconsciously trying to please. Sickening! Thank you for your beautiful videos!
SAME
It's so insane. I'm not even attracted to men, but it's infected my entire being as a woman.
The vast majority of the work on this channel should really be included in sex ed curriculum. It's just so well done and if I ever have kids, I'm going to be so relieved to have such an effective tool to give them when they reach the age where questions of sex and consent start crossing their minds.
I was spied on as a kid by and older boy across the street. The guy’s dad found out and went to tell my dad about it, told him he caught his kid looking at me and I need to close my blinds, change with the light off, stand away from the windows so his son wouldn’t be able to look anymore, etc. My dad told the guy to fuck off and that his son was the problem and not me, so I didn’t need to change anything about my behavior. He didn’t tell me till about ten years later.
When I tell people this story, a lot of times people question my dad’s decision - Why didn’t he tell you so you could change in a way that was private? the guy across the street could have been - and probably was - still watching, so in many people’s eyes, my dad didn’t “protect me.”
I’m so glad that my dad made the choice he did. If he had told me, and told me to change my actions, yes, maybe my body wouldn’t have been looked at anymore, but the implications that my body is up for grabs and free to be seen unless I take precautions to protect it at EIGHT YEARS OLD would have fucked me up for a long time. The knowledge that someone was watching me like that as a child is still troubling, but at least I was never told I needed to change anything about my behavior to keep men from taking advantage of me. It’s never the victim’s responsibility.
Feel like there’s so much misogyny and sexism EVERYWHERE that it’s impossible to enjoy anything if you as a woman keep thinking about it so a lot of us have ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ sexism when consuming media. Peeping toms are so common in shows and movies therefore it’s a part of the ‘acceptable’ side of things. I wish it wasn’t this way and I wish I could genuinely watch something and not have to see sexism in it but that does not happen so ://
It's not just a problem for women. I'm a man, and I am disgusted by this kind of atrocious behaviour in media, which seriously taints my enjoyment of such works.
i genuinely believe that women who dislike feminism (aka 'im not a feminist, i want equality') do so because of how viscerally painful it is looking at everyday media through a feminist lens. the depth of objectification, dehumanisation, and commodification of women is so common and insidious it can easily make one go mad 😔 i cannot fault any woman for wanting to shut her eyes and ignore it in an attempt to protect her sanity
especially in anime 😅
Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss, and I wasn't so aware of these things, but I'd rather not enjoy a few films and live in a better society than the alternative.
@@devononair As WTNV put it: "Ignorance may not actually be bliss, but it is certainly less work".
I was recorded during a sex act without my consent while I was in high school. It is until this day one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to me, and even though it has been years since then, I cannot think about it without getting anxious and wanting to cry.
It's nice to see people talking about it.
Let's speak about how fucking shitty this attitudes are.
Violating privacy is not victimless.
"thats either the creepiest or sweetest thing ive ever heard" after dude spies on her for 2 weeks?
this shit's fucking insane, how do female actresses even go through with this bullshit?
I felt disgusted and disturbed watching all these clips. "To perform sexy when there is a chance that male is looking" is kinda have been engrained in my brain until I watched video on similar topic and started to realise that I subconsciously do that sometimes. It's an important issue to talk about, so thank you for bringing this up.
It's definitely one of those weird tropes that flies under the radar. Rarely have I seen media address the difference between accidentally seeing someone nude or in a vulnerable manner and then making an active effort to look away and respect their privacy, versus what is usually displayed as discussed in this video. Really good video.
Also it never occurred to me how the media makes us complicit as viewers as they make sure we're seeing it as well, when, as he pointed out, it could easily designed by the director to not have the audience see what the character is looking at.
I'm wracking my brain, and the only one I can think of is Scott Pilgrim vs The World, where Scott's immediate reaction to accidentally walking in on a shirtless Ramona, who he has a crush on, is to cover his eyes and awkwardly apologize. Then Ramona is the one who approaches and makes out with him. And when she stops and says she's "Not feeling it" his response is just "Aw, okay then." Which is funny because the rest of the film frames him as kind of a jerk.
I can think of another one, in Atonement when Keira Knightley character gets out of the fountain James McAvoy's character is looking at her at first but as soon as he realized that when her clothes got wet they got really see through he turns his head away while she dresses.
I'm so glad you mentioned the whole "rite of passage" thing because I've always been uncomfortable with stories that include this, especially the ones where they make the actress consensually flash a boy. There's a scene in a show called Impastor where the main character convinces a woman to show her breasts (and also touch them? I don't remember, I ended up timeskipping that part) to a small boy as a favor and that shit has always made me so uncomfortable and grossed out since I was a kid.
This channel is so good for unpacking the weird and conflicting messages sent to young men. I remember watching similar scenes as a young boy and thinking "am I supposed to want that?" as if a grown woman flashing an eight-year-old boy is anything besides gross.
Dude, this recent film Licorice Pizza features a _nearly 30 year old woman_ flashing a _teenage boy_ (in addition to carrying on a romantic and sexual relationship with him!!!), and it's being praised as this great film and a great "romantic comedy" and "coming of age movie."
And I'm over here pulling my hair out over everyone just being fine with an _adult coming onto a child, wtf._
Yes! This happens in the Good Doctor as well and it’s so weird! A female doctor flashes an underage boy because it’s his last chance to see breasts before he goes blind. Just because he asks for it and it’s his “last chance” doesn’t make it any less weird that she is an adult (and his DOCTOR) and he’s underage! They could’ve done so many different things with that episode but for some reason they chose that
@@alexschofield8085 I mean it’s definitely weird but if you’re going to die or lose one of your main senses permanently I think it would be fine as long as it’s not too fucked up, sorta like a final wish type deal
@@GoddoDoggo damn, I wanted to see that movie the hell
I always felt like the peeping Tom trope was just a way to validate men's fantasy that women WANT to be looked at. But it's even more disturbing when it's broken down further 😬
I was wondering if I was the only male who found this trope kinda repulsive.. I'll never be endeared to an invasive action like that no matter how harmless the perpetrator is. It's nasty and totally inconsiderate at best. I hate that it's so common too. Yes I know it's fiction, but I still feel uncomfortable as a movie shows someone being seen without consent. I can't imagine how a woman would feel seeing this as such a commonly shown thing.
Basically: sorry women
You’re right on the nose with this one!
Another thought I had regarding this trope is the way it contributes to woman’s internalization of the male gaze, which is then redirected towards our own bodies. Atwood described this phenomenon really well when she said “you are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.” I think this media trope especially totally contributes to this - it teaches woman that even our private moments are for the male gaze, and creates the sub conscious need to always perform male fantasies.
Oof that one hurts--way to hit the internalized male gaze on the head, Atwood! >~
Now that I think about it, that might be why I subconsciously try to never be fully exposed, or when I’m undressing I try and do it in the most “presentable” way. I always thought it was my own weird paranoia but looking at these kinds of movies it’s pretty obvious why I do that now.
I must be lucky then. I’ve never had such issues. Just like watching more muscles show up XD
….Yeah this helped me realize a lot about some of my anxieties, too. 😥
This! It's one of the reasons why heterosexual women fake orgasms - they've internalized that performing for their male partner is more important than their own pleasure. Lesbians are much, _much_ less likely to do this. I've even read an article which pointed out that this internalized male gaze can even lead to women being unable to orgasm when they're masturbating, because even when the situation should be literally all about them and nobody else is there, their subconscious is still too busy _looking_ good for a non-existent dude to actually let _feeling_ good happen. It was quite a disturbing read, really.
“The young boys gain confidence through the act of non-consensual looking” I feel like it’s important to emphasize something here: they don’t gain confidence in themselves. Real confidence in yourself is something that comes regardless of whether you have or don’t have power over other people. What they’re gaining is a sense of power, because they have learned to reduce the woman to an object whose boundaries don’t matter. They’re not gaining the ability to see themselves as worthy and equal, they’re gaining the ability to view women as lesser. It seems important to note that the object of this voyeurism is often a female character who has been portrayed as overly independent, bossy, a feminist, or prudish, (Jackie from that 70s show is bossy and prudish, Donna is overly independent, for example) and the looking is viewed as bringing them down a peg. It’s a literal “the empress has no clothes” moment.
I think this really reflects the way coming of age is viewed for men in real life. Girls go from something to be afraid of to something that’s been defeated, and many men perceive that as a change in self-confidence. In actuality, their confidence is as unstable as ever, subject to change the second a woman asserts some form of dominance over them, or even when they PERCEIVE a woman as having asserted some dominance over them, regardless of whether that was her intention. This leads to a shameful rage that engenders a need to retaliate so they can put the woman back in her place. The mark of toxic masculinity as opposed to healthy masculinity or self-confidence is that its only foundations are built on the subjugation of women or “lesser” men and it collapses as soon as those foundations are challenged.
Sorry for writing a whole tangent in response to one sentence, I’m sure OP knew all this already but didn’t have time to fit everything in. Tl;dr: coming of age stories having non-consensual looking is a harbinger of screwed-up self-image.
You made a great point about nude photos in media. It is so uncomfortable when you watch a show and a character's nude photos are leaked and they show the explicit graphic image. It's so unnecessary and makes you the viewer complicit in the Peeping Tom act.
Something weird about this trope too is that most of the time the image shared is of a "teen" character
My brother once caught a peeping Tom when he was in his late twenties,he was absolutely mortified.He moved to another apartment that same week.
Something not touched on is that irl, these types of behaviors (namely peeping, flashing and groping) are often indicative of people who violate boundaries and in some extreme cases, rapists and murderers, who often start their careers with these sorts of “harmless” activities that society gives them a pass for (“boys will be boys”). These things are NOT normal behavior and can be a glaring sign of lack of empathy, poor impulse control, inflated sense of entitlement etc. and they may escalate to more serious crimes.
It's appalling the media normalizes sex offender behaviour like this. Law enforcement knows peeping is the first step in escalating sex offenses. It's a huge red flag for sociopathic personality disorders.
You brought up the paintings in passing, but that's where the male gaze was born. Women have always - *always* - been depicted by the gaze of men since the beginning of artwork that they're featured in. It's no question that a sexualized perception of women found it's way into modern media, since art has long shown women in compromising, nude, or outright sexual situations. Look at Venus and Adonis, Cupid and Psyche, etc etc - most paintings of them showcase the women naked and the man clothed. It's not until the reality of the male gaze is brought up so starkly that you notice it.
It's why I love your channel so much - you work hard to make videos that starkly bring up these issues and shine a light on them. Huge respect for using your platform to dismantle and discuss these tropes, themes, and tactics. Another great video!!
Okay so Ways of Seeing by John Berger was actually adapted into a book from the television series and I loved loved LOVED reading it in college. I was in the middle of typing this out while watching the video when I realized ITS THE SAME AUTHOR lol. He says in chapter three, page 46:
"To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men... But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself... And so she comes to consider the *surveyor* and the *surveyed* within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman."
This is due to the male gaze's constant and historical presence in our lives. This obviously includes more than just women as depicted in the video and how real life just *is,* but it's speaking to the truth of the matter: men is the primary lens in which we (all of us) are viewed. Therefore, a patriarchal view is dominant and typical. If tropes like the "harmless peeping Tom" is what is ingrained in society and accepted, it's no wonder it's then adapted into media we consume (thus further pushing normalcy).
This book changed so much of my perception on media and art. I highly recommend reading it (or watching the series) especially if you're interested more on this topic.
A lot of directors have also lied to female actors about what would be shown to to be able to get the ‘shot’ they want without consent. (Sharon Stone one of the most famous examples of that). Or the actor is in a position where they don’t feel they can set boundaries without repercussions either with the current role or their future career. Forced consent.
Thank you so much for these videos.
This trope really added to my anxiety growing up, actually. I remember being a tween and finding that a window in the guestroom at my grandma's didn't have blinds, just white curtains that billowed in the breeze, and I ended up always changing on the ground behind the bed so nobody could see me if they wanted to. That's a weird thing for a kid to be doing, and it's an unfortunate thing for a kid to be afraid of.
My favorite part about your video essays is that you reframe the examples with the same cinematic language that originally attempted to normalize them, and the result is that we cringe at scenes while laugh tracks fall flatly in the background, utterly stripped of efficacy. It's brilliant.
Men "just can't control themselves". That's the excuse my 35 year old ex-friend gave after cheating on his wife with a 15 year old girl he had been grooming for 2 years. 🤬
This discussion just jogged a memory for me. When on a camping (in cabins) trip in high school, a friend and I were late getting to the main lodge for a meeting of the whole camp. While rushing to get there fast, we cut past the male teacher cabin and accidentally came across one of the teachers coming out of the bathroom stark naked, passing in front of the open window. Since it was pitch dark outside, he couldn't see us. We both immediately shut our eyes and fumbled to get the hell out of there as fast as possible, and made an agreement to never, ever mention it to each other or anyone else. We were both female teens. The teacher was a fit, attractive man in his 20s, but not for one moment were we tempted to peep. However, had the genders been reversed, society would have expected, and even encouraged, us to continue peeping and to share the story with others.
There was a time when a friend wanted to show me a nude of a girl he'd been with. He showed my other friend, they discussed it. And i was curious, but shy. He offered to show me and i initially declined but with some convincing i joined in on the "fun".
Whats troubling upon retrospect, especially upon watching this video wasnt that i made that obvious mistake. It was that i was reluctant to invade someone elses privacy becuase I HAD A GIRLFRIEND. The woman i was with and respected was the deciding factor of whether or not i was going to respect another woman.
It wasnt that i wasnt willing to see its thay i didnt want to make someone else mad. And Thats a fucking problem. You arent a feminist unless you respect ALL women. Including those you arent interested in, or are dating.
I always hate peeping Tom characters as some boys in school managed to find a way to do it. When we complained, the teachers only said "boys will be boys". When we asked if we could at the very least swap changing rooms so they couldn't do it anymore, the teachers refused...
I hate the saying "boys will be boys" because it is literally used to excuse bad behavior that we should be teaching boys not to do.
But when ,in the same school ,a girl is wearing a tank top or a dress, she should be sent home for not distracting guy.
I want to said there is a double standard, but this situation lack any standard.
@@mikaelste-marie1275 Indeed it's messed up. Girls are treated as at fault for it and boys are excused of the behavior.
They didn't even stop the spying? That's so fucked up
@@mikaelste-marie1275 well... It was in a mostly warm desert area so they didn't mind the girls wearing tank tops for better or worse. However! 2 friends of mine and 2 early developed girls in their class were allowed to take a part-time job where they made mini pizzas and sold to other students. So my friends worked hard, while the other 2 girls were using it as an excuse to get out of the heat...
So a teacher comes and cuts the line, and gets angry when my friends doesn't prioritize him and says they have to work harder. So the girls who sat back in the room until then, comes up to the window and starts flirting with him. THEY WERE THIRTEEN. So he praises them for "working hard", steals a student's mini pizza without paying while the other teachers in the area start laughing... The pizza shop was closed 2 weeks later despite being really busy because apparently it was my friends who didn't work hard enough...
13:32 “All of the actors involved in these productions have presumably agreed to be represented in the ways we see onscreen. *But fictional representations still help normalize nonconsensual behavior* “
For me, this has always been such a bizarre trend in film and TV. Particularly the idea of the guy sharing nude photos of a partner with his friends and it being some weird "bonding" experience. Outside of consensual situations (which I fully acknowledge do exist), I simply cannot fathom one of my friends sharing, or even describing, their partner's nude body (or really just their body in general) with me...if that ever happened, I would be seriously put off. Even when I was still in high school (Early 2000's), this wasn't a thing in any circle I hung out with. At *most* someone I know may just mention that they hooked up or got to whatever base with a girl, but there was never explicit details shared and definitely not pics/video.
On another note, it was interesting that the one Seinfeld clip you included here was the one from The Contest where they saw a naked woman across the street. As bad as that is, there's another moment - that nearly makes me want to forget the whole show - where Jerry and George are meeting with the NBC executive for their pilot, and his 15-year old daughter (which they specifically call out as that being her age) comes in wearing a low-cut top while the exec is in another room. She leans over for like 30 seconds for no reason and is clearly showing a ton of cleavage, Jerry catches a glimpse and nudges George who literally just gawks at her until being caught by the exec. The cherry on top is that it nearly costs them their whole deal, but they hatch a scheme to have Elaine (an ADULT WOMAN) wear a top with a lot of cleavage and get the exec to leer at her later, which I guess makes him forgive these two ADULT MEN for staring at his TEENAGE DAUGHTER.
A lot of the show has nonsensical and dicey plotlines but this one moment is just so weird and offputting... and overall it's one of my favorite TV shows of all time, so it's a shame that it decided to use something like this as a plot device.
Remember when Jerry Seinfeld dated an actual teenager? I wonder if that scene was related to this fetish of Jerry's or not.
As a teen girl who has experienced this TWICE w the camera from two different boys who were supposed to be friends i couldnt help but cry about this video bcos its SOOOOOOO violating
18:55 I’m glad someone pointed this out! The amount of men I’ve seen excuse cat calling by claiming ‘some women like it!’ Or ‘it probably makes their day!’ Is sickening
It's because many men are in the opposite situation where they feel practically invisible and thus struggle to relate. How many times have you seen "guys after they receive one compliment" types of memes?
Doesn't inherently excuse anything of course, but just felt like pointing that out.
I was once standing at the window in underwear kissing with my boyfriend and we looked out the window to see five (5!!!) people in the same apartment across the street staring at us! We hurried to roll down the curtain, and my bf still have some paranoia about going near the window with little clothes on.
It was fucking creepy, and I felt this was also an instance of the "omg gay guys are so cute!!"-objectification that I've tried before, where some people basically get heart eyes if they see my me and my bf standing together. It's weird and uncomfortable.
Def like this video…I was a victim of a peeping tom, a close male friend that I look up to because they were older…i’m still disturbed by the act to this day…
I was just thinking about this trope! Because of all the backlash from paranoid parents at Turning Red for being "inappropriate", I couldn't help but think "aren't you the same generation that fawn over Back To The Future which actually has inappropriate behavior like peeping and molesting???"
I would like to add to the video what could be called the "boyfriend perspective" : when a man __ brother, father or most times boyfriend of the victim __ finds out she's being watched and goes after the peeping Tom. Very often this character is meant to be a rival or an obstacle for the protagonist. While when the boyfriend IS the protagonist, the peeping Tom is presented as creepy and dangerous and is the antagonist in many thrillers or horror movies. Men and boys in movies seem to all have that mentality of « I can spy on every girl i want but you better not spy on MY girl/sister/daughter ». The exceptions to that is when men deliberately share pictures or invite other men to spy along with them : this trope is used in many media, like 13 Reasons Why and Euphoria, to demonstrate to the viewer that the guy doesn't personally care about the girl or have feelings for her specifically. To him she's just one hot girl among many others. When a guy has a crush on the girl he's spying on, he usually doesn't allow other guys to spy along.
In conclusion, women are again depicted in movies like the property, gratification, goal or purpose of one man, or several men competing to get her.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk, i hope it was understandable, English is not my native language.
In high school a guy friend told me in passing about a group chat he was in where all the boys in class would share nsfw photos of their (UNDERAGE!) female classmates and he literally didn't see the problem with it until I grilled him for more information and questioned the whole situation. He even casually showed me some of the pictures to prove that they weren't THAT racey even though they were clearly still mostly topless photos. Luckily he agreed with me that it was fucked up and left them a message about how fucked up it was before leaving the group chat, but I still look back at that moment and curse myself because I should've done more. The laws in my state are frequently abused and I didn't want the girls to get in trouble for producing child porn when they were victims in the situation, so that's why I didn't report it to the police. But looking back, I should have.
This was in like 2017ish and the group chat was made up of several hundred boys in the class. It wasn't even the only one that my friend decided to leave. I was so horrified at how normal he made it seem before I convinced him. Later the next year or so, I heard a rumor that an ex boyfriend of mine sent a video of a girl going down on him to a similar group chat and got in trouble for it because she was still a minor and he wasn't. When he was dating me, I found out later that he was saying all sorts of stuff about our sexual encounters. I was really depressed and not really interested in him but I was desperate to be able to say I had a boyfriend and I thought I'd be safe because I was so into feminism and sexual liberation. But it didn't protect me. He had violated my wishes several times and pressured me into a bunch of stuff I didn't want to do, so I got a panic attack when I heard of this because I wondered if he had ever secretly filmed and shared any of those things without my permission. I think I'm probably safe because it was usually in low lighting, but still, it's fucked up and it shouldn't happen to anybody. I never heard any updates about him being held accountable. I hope the girl in the video turned out okay but I mean I'm not and I only dated him for a month like 5 years ago so I don't know.
Sorry for the trauma dump. I have a whole well of trauma that can explain my issues now, but there are still some pretty direct scars from this stuff that can last well into adulthood. I have a great boyfriend now who's actually respectful of my boundaries but my issues still lead to problems sometimes during sex because I'm afraid of hearing myself say no. The thought of not knowing what I want and wanting to say no but having trouble getting the word out because I don't want to ruin the moment has made me burst into sudden tears multiple times in the past. I still haven't been able to work it through just yet, but I'm lucky to be with someone who actually wants me to say it if it's on my mind. Everyone deserves that in a partner, but not everyone gets that.
15:05 "and it's through their peeping that they're able to gain self confidence"
Because if a women has placed herself in an opportunity to be peeped on (her own bedroom, behind a door, sitting in a chair), it means she has wanted it all along. She should know better so if it happens it's because it was purposeful that she wanted someone to look, which gives the peeper the confidence to act on his creepy behavior. This, combined with writers who make these victims excuse the peeping as 'goofy dude antics' contribute to rape culture and it's normalization in real life relations.