Following Foucault's conception of subject and power, how do you account For changes in the representations of sexuality in the media?

For Sigmund Freud sexuality is a result of our psychopathology and he believes that we are born bisexual and sexualised in our early childhood development (Freud 1974). Foucault however is a strong advocate of a non-essentialist approach to sexuality believing that it is something constructed over our lifetimes “and within the context of our own particular historical epoch” (Stokes, J 1999: 266).

In his historical work Foucault saw discourses of sex being first brought to light by Christianity where discourse about sex was formed though the idea of confessing ones desires. From there sex as an inner truth spread through Western culture gaining social and political issue which is reincarnated in the media today. The changes in the representations of sexuality in the media often reflect the scale of resistance and the networks of struggle between discourses of sexuality. It may seem that new laws about equal rights for women and homosexuals were natural progression and the change that they brought about is duly represented in the media. This is unlikely and according to Foucault it is the inequality of certain power relations that has resulted in changes of representation in the media. In fact sex can be largely associated with identity “sex is at the heart of identity today” (Gauntlett, 2002: 122) and sexual identity is a discourse that is represented (or misrepresented) regularly in the media (in some media texts it is almost their sole language i.e. Loaded, FHM etc).  It would not be exaggerated to say that the media today believes that understanding your sexuality is of up most importance, or at least that it should be. The media circulate these ideas in accordance with what state law imposes and what has come to be acceptable in our society (although it can be argued that the media are responsible for what is deemed acceptable in the first place, a Marxist idea explored by Theodor Adorno among others), the bars are set at a certain level and until there is a unified resistant force they will remain.  

Foucault’s analysis of power relations takes for a starting point the forms of resistance against different forms of power. He saw using the resistance to bring to light power relations and locate their position in an economy of power relations. The opposition of power of men over women epistemologically can be used to find out some historical evidence for the power men have had over women and how this has changed. The “main objective of these struggles is to attack not so much an institution of power, or group, or elite or class, but rather a technique, a form of power” (Foucault, 1982: 212). This sets his analysis apart from both the traditional Marxist and Hegemonic views of power which work on a basis of patriarchal ideologies and apparatus’. In fact according to Foucault power actually reinforces the idea of individualism and identity in the respect that it imposes truths which must be recognised in order for others to recognise the individual, and attaching the identity. This form of power makes individuals into subjects, both in the sense of being someone else’s subject by control and dependence, but also being tied to our own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Foucault believes that state power is exercised through its individualizing and totalizing forms of power and this is often overlooked in favour of a solely totalizing theory of power. Pastoral power (salvation orientated form of power characterized by the church and Christianity) may have “lost its efficiency” (Foucault 1982: 214) but for Foucault it still exists in a new form outside the church, a new sophisticated form under the “modern state” and he refers to it as a “modern matrix of individualization” (Foucault 1982: 215). Ultimately Foucault believes that the only way be become liberated from this type of state individualization would be to “promote new forms of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality”. (Foucault 1982: 216) For us to explore how power has been exercised over the subject in media representations of sexuality it is this state individualization in the media that must be deconstructed. The structures and mechanisms for power in the media often follow closely that of patriarchal society and in many cases enforce a process of signification that we are subjects of. Power relations pass through the systems of communication in the media (although there is till room for objective media communication) and in terms of sexuality the structures of power can result in oppression of certain groups i.e. homosexuals in the 50’s. Changes have only come about from the struggle that is caused as a result of power and subjectivity on resistant bodies. This is also why Foucault believes that power is productive through the points of resistance that are created “where there is power there is resistance” (Foucault, 1998: 95), enough of these points of resistance organised in the correct fashion have the potential to form revolution but they are more likely to be dissipated in complicated networks of power relations. He believes that power struggle can result in both positive and negative consequences, it brings things into being “whether as a result of the original action, or the effects of resistance to it, or both” (Gauntlett, 2002: 121). For power to operate the relationship must be a mutual one, even if it results in an imbalance of power, both bodies must recognise the characteristics not only to exercise power but also to resist and act upon it. Identifying power in representations of sexuality in accordance to Foucault is a frightening concept because of the effect power has on our idealistic view of freedom. Freedom must exist for power to be exerted, however it disappears everywhere it is exercised. This would mean that power is a constant threat from above subjects stemming from the state and filtering through the media constraining our ideas of individualism with predefined concepts of who we are.

The problematisation of homosexuality (mentioned earlier) is a good example of how media representation has been forced to evolve with our increasingly liberalist views on sexuality. Changes in the representation of homosexuals in the media and the discourse presented by homosexuality have challenged the idea of masculinity. This has caused a huge threat to patriarchal roles and only recently have we seen controversy in the media over openly homosexual members of the church. It is the ascribing of different arbitrary meanings for masculine sexuality and feminine sexuality and the social construction of these meanings in the media that is confused with natural inherent characteristics of the male and female physical makeup. When you deconstruct the naturalised claims made by the powerful media to its audience of subjects you are left only with physical differences. “Masculine sexualities have also had a vocabulary and visibility that feminine sexualities have not” (Stokes, J 1999: 266) or in an inherently more extreme point of view, “male homosexuality places a powerful threat to patriarchal capitalism’s imperative for men to ‘always be a fucker and never a fucked’”. (Simpson 1996: 246). The very fact that homosexuality or equality for women has been repressed in history has served to give identity to behaviour associated with these forms of sexuality and bring them into the public eye.  The social controls exercised in all areas of homosexuality during the nineteenth century meant that “homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or ‘naturality’ be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.” (Foucault, 1998: 101) The repression produced the resistance which gave potency to the gay liberation movements in the twentieth century.

Conclusion

Many critics argued that "power" had been idealised and "subjectivised" by Foucault (arguments summarised in Bristow, 1997 : 189-199; Best and Kellner, 1991 : 68-75). In academic discussion of sex-gender, Foucauldian power certainly seems to have displaced the Lacanian "phallus" as the transcendental signifier. The wider understanding of subject and power offered by Foucault satisfies the vivid explanation given by both Marxists and Feminists. Power, however, tends to recount similar characteristics of those which were attributed to the phallus as origin of all, “immanent in all things, located simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, over determining all articulation and experience and yet in itself inarticulable.” (Graham P, 1997). Characteristic of Foucault’s work is that truth can often change as a result of the very discourse which it used as a premise, thus making it problematic to offer any solutions. His view of power and the mass media would lead us to believe that resistance is in fact a necessary condition for the outcome of power; however he offers us no revolutionary option. His work gives us insight into the conditions of subject and power struggles through the media and his views act as an important theoretical barrier to any belief that the Mass Media present us with a picture of our own reality. Domination by traditional axioms of sexuality is still at large, yet Foucault encourages us to look deeper and question the changes in representation that have moulded our society and defined our history.      

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Bibliography

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