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Spectacular Spectators: Regendering the Male Gaze in Delariviere Manley's Julie Anderson continued . . .
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In both The Royal Mischief and Orra, the tragedy is centered on the power of the female objects' eyes. The female characters who are objectified by the gaze of male characters and the audience exchange places. When Mulvey discusses the purposes of gendering the cinematic gaze, she emphasizes the entertainment aspect that the spectators enjoy. Gazing on the female objects brings pleasure (usually of a sexual nature) to the male spectator. We are tempted to ask if as Manley and Baillie regender the gaze, do they change the entertainment potential of the stage, too? Interestingly, both plays contain didactic messages. Manley ends The Royal Mischief with a warning to all lovers—they should turn their thoughts to Heaven and shun the pleasures that brought such a tragedy. In the Introduction to the series of plays of which Orra is a part, Baillie also provides a didactic message. Baillie claims that "In examining others we know ourselves" (4): by watching the play, we are to learn our own weaknesses and strengths. However, in order to learn the lessons of these plays, they must be watched (either as performances or as images in the mind's eye). The didactic nature is a byproduct of viewing the plays—a viewing that provides entertainment and morality. The main difference between Mulvey's theory of the cinematic gaze and Manley's and Baillie's use of the gaze in these plays is that the gender of the spectator is feminized after the female protagonist is objectified. The power of the female gaze in both of these plays is detrimental to the women and their society (four characters die at the end of The Royal Mischief and two die at the end of Orra). Naturally, this is an aspect of these plays' genre, but it might also be an aspect of the refractiveness of the gaze. In both of these plays, the audience's ability to understand the didactic lesson rests on its watching the female protagonist and becoming the object of her gaze. However, the plays' purposes are not solely to teach the audience how to avoid death and insanity. The plays entertain the audience by allowing the audience to share the spectacular nature of the female protagonist. Ultimately, these plays create pleasure (sexual, didactic, or other) by creating a moment for the audience to be both spectator and spectacle: to allow the audience to participate in the gaze of the play. —Julie Anderson 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Works Cited
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