Post: #1

Huh. A different explanation of what objectification is:

Quote:What I finally figured out a few years ago was that the word “objectification” doesn’t come from the word “object” as-opposed-to-person: it comes from the word “object” as-opposed-to-subject.

Here’s what it means: Say I’m telling a story. It can be a book, a movie, a video game, even the implicit “story” in a billboard, doesn’t matter. A character has a “subject perspective” if we see the story through their eyes: we get a sense of what they’re thinking, what the problems in the story mean to them, what choices they feel that they have and how they pick between them. A character has “object perspective” if they’re simply the thing that’s acted upon: we only really see them as they affect our main, subject, characters.

The author then admits:

Quote:Every story is going to have plenty of characters in object perspective: if you tried to tell a story where the reader ended up knowing the detailed thoughts of every single person, down to the guy who sells the protagonist a bottle of water and whose only line is “One fifty, please,” or the mook whose job it is to get gunned down on the way to the enemy base and whose only line is “urk!,” the story would be a total mess. Object perspective just means that the character isn’t ultimately important except as an obstacle: it’s not a bad thing.

(source)

So that's all? By this standard, Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice is objectified, a mere footnote to Elizabeth Bennet. As is Mr. Big objectified in Sex and the City, a footnote to main character Carrie Bradshaw, or Christian Grey the object that Ana Steele uses chapter by chapter. Every male in every romance novel is just an object for the female lead to manipulate and pursue. Most every male soldier in every film and video game is objectified, a million mooks who say "urk!" then disappear.

It also seems under this definition that objectification can only happen in a fictional story setting. In real life, we all have complex back stories. They're just not shared at mundane interactions like buying a sandwich for lunch. While I think I'm fascinating interesting, from the clerk's perspective I'm just a background object, "Guy who buys sandwich #27", in her personal daily movie that stars herself.

Hell, I've read entire books where every character was objectified, both men and women, all cardboard thin footnotes to "The Plot".

The author uses the example of women in "To Russia With Love" being objectified; unformed characters that act as MacGuffins to move the plot along. But what of James Bond? Do we really "get a sense of what he's thinking, what the problems in the story mean to him, what choices he feels that he has and how he picks between them."? Fuck no. There's more backstory to the gadgets Q introduces each movie than to poor old James. He just runs from one stunt scene to another, impeccably dressed because that's what men in spy movies do, and each of Q's magic gadgets ends up being the thing that saves the day and advances the plot. James is just the pack mule that carries them in.