Am I a Prude?

[Hej]

Thanks, pfstrikes, for the info.

I didn't mean by my post that I thought directors or camera people were ogling the performers. I was pointing more to the possibility that some fitness videos might be structured by an assumed male gaze, much as Mulvey has argued happens in traditional Hollywood narrative film. What is meant by the "male gaze" is that the way the visual images are set up structurally channels the viewing in a certain, gendered way. It does not mean that that the people working on the set are behaving unprofessionally or thinking sexual thoughts. Those are two different things.

When a participant is in a live class, it's relatively rare, if ever, that they see a completely disembodied body part the way you see one in a video closeup. In video, whether or not closeups are warranted in order to "allow the viewer to see the move" they are always objectifying in the sense that the body part is separated from the body and the person it is a part of. It is a part, a thing, rather than a person. And often it's not even helpful for someone trying to mirror the move, because body parts always move in relation to the whole.

That's true whether the disembodied part in the video is a highly sexualized one in our culture (e.g. the female breasts or buttocks) or relatively unsexualized (e.g. the feet). For example, I find the choreography in one of the TLT Yorktowns extremely difficult to follow even though it's extremely basic choreography because there are so many closeups of body parts and relatively few of the whole body doing the move. I can't recreate step choreography if the only body parts I can see are the feet, even though I'm mostly pretty good at complex choreography. I remember thinking to myself, "Who thought this was a good idea? Where's Greg Twombly when you need him?"

When it's a "sexualized part" that's diisembodied and hard to recreate, I really start to wonder, "Why are you showing me this? Why do you think I want to see this? Do you (video makers) want to see this? It's not helping me to do the move, so what's going on..."

What you say about inexperienced camera people and directors makes sense. As I've said I always appreciate how easy CIA productions or others Twombly produces are to follow. I guess that's because he knows what the viewer needs to see to be able to follow and is experienced enough to know how to shoot and edit for that.
The only one I can think of that's really confusing is Heather Ryder's and that was because one of her background exercisers made so many mistakes and spoiled the clearest shots.

On the other hand, sometimes the sexualization is deliberate, and it reflects and reinforces the way the structuring male gaze in media images of women teach everyday women to view themselves. One reason the classic Firm leads were so highly sexualized wasn't because Anna was a lesbian (I don't know anything about her sexuality) or marketing to a male audience, it was simply because at that time sexy, feminine women did not lift weights. Jane Fonda was the "fit" female ideal.

Women, especially overweight women, were told to avoid weights or risk "becoming mannish" or "bulking up". The legwarmers, leotards, chains, pancake makeup, and extreme thinness (paired with strength) and the pouty lips, sultry voices, flirty glances and all the rest of it were designed to counteract this-- to convince women that AWT would make them sexy. As time went on, and cultural images of women and fitness for women slowly evolved, the Firms became decidedly less over-the-top sexy.

Still, when you look at the titles and styling of a lot of workout DVDs it's undeniable that they're being deliberately marketed as ways to increase "sexiness". There's always an implied promise with workout videos: "Do as I do and you'll look like I do." Many people come right out and say they find an instructor's physique inspiring even when they know she didn't get that way from the workout and they themselves can't reasonably expect such "results".

And the particular ideal being sold-- its degree of "sexiness", femininity, functionality, health, beauty, whatever--is deliberately built right into the images shown on the cover art and in the video content.