Hannah Gadsby on the male gaze in art: ‘Stop watching women having baths. Go away.’

“Just because it’s been around for centuries, doesn’t mean it’s cool to be a creepy old man. Stop watching women sleeping; stop watching women having baths. Go away.”

For Gadsby, the male gaze in art history is directly related to the male gaze in Hollywood, and society at large.

“We’re not seeing anything new,” she reiterates. “The art world doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Being an object, being objectified, [creates] a toxic culture, because we don’t have the same cultural influence as men do. They’ve written the story, they have the power.

When asked if Nakedy Nudes is about asserting a feminist, queer voice within art history, she says: “That’s been going on for a while – it’s just that no one’s been listening. What the Guerrilla Girls were saying in the 1980s is still what we’re battling today, and that’s just ridiculous to my mind. The new story is the same story.”

Nakedy Nudes premieres on the ABC on Tuesday 27 February.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/feb/19/hannah-gadsby-on-the-male-gaze-in-art-stop-watching-women-having-baths-go-away?

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