Original editor: Wang Hanyu

Original editor: Wang Hanyu

At the beginning of writing this article, I was troubled by a thorny question and couldn’t write: Does being a man make my writing about women inherently biased? This is perhaps the question all writers who try to talk about identity have to face. Later, I discovered that the author's position does not matter whether he is qualified or not, because writing is an inquiry from outside the matter, an unresolved judgment. So before I start my topic, I hope readers of this article can experience this outsider’s worry with me with critical thinking, and when thinking about this controversial topic, I hope everyone can always be vigilant about male identity Stand, try to broaden the perspective to discover the ambiguity of things.

First of all, it may be necessary to point out the fact that whether it is the traditional technology industry or the emerging encryption field, the female group in a subordinate position in society has always lacked visible representation. Business journalist Sohini Bagchi has pointed out that BitMEX research found that globally, women make up only about 5 percent of crypto investors, compared to about 24 percent of traditional stock investors. According to the 2021 State of Cryptocurrency in America report, 75% of cryptocurrency holders to date are male despite the fact that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were created to encourage financial fairness. In terms of data ratio, the "absence" of women's discourse undoubtedly exposes the status quo of the industry dominated by male leaders. Needless to say, we can also find this kind of gender injustice and the suppression of women's discourse in many other industries after a little investigation; and in the NFT market in the encrypted field, which has been hot recently, we seem to have seen some kind of female use of art. Possibility of regaining representation.

In 2021, the NFT PFP culture that is popular around the world has inspired an exciting and cohesive visual effect. Their digital virtuality and unique personal ownership value have the potential to rewrite the discourse status of the power center, and women in the encryption field The "aphasia" experience of "Aphasia" provided a realistic context for the establishment of female-themed encrypted art in the NFT market. Therefore, a large number of female investors, project owners and a large number of artists have entered the encrypted world, working together to build a fertile ground for female-themed encrypted art. This wave of turmoil has led to the influx of authors with different identities and affiliations in the encryption field, and the words are everywhere for a while, which is spectacular.

In terms of standpoint and value, the current female-themed NFT PFP can be divided into two categories: one is feminist NFT PFP, and the other is female NFT PFP in the true sense. The reason why such seemingly contradictory categories are divided is because the feminist NFT PFP has approached the mainstream of the current NFT market, which inevitably makes its value impact doubted by groups with different political positions.The accompanying effect of political symbols on feminism often does more harm than good, and I insist that only by de-symbolization practice can it be possible to explore the real path of de-centralization in the context of Web3.0, and to reach the real female NFT PFP. Therefore, the essence of this article is to explain some hidden dangers of the current feminist NFT project from the perspective of psychoanalytic film theory, female gaze and market aesthetic trends, in order to answer what kind of female NFT we need in the Web3.0 era project.

If the Azuki series constructs a post-national imaginary body of Japanese animation culture, and mfers expresses the symptoms of the global post-modern era, then the emergence of feminist NFT series with traceability (from the real world) , whose role is a self-projection of a female image. Moved by a series of narratives such as "women's empowerment" and a cluster of cultural symbols, this kind of self-projection has made feminist NTF weave a seemingly revolutionary dream. If the psychoanalytic theory of the cinematic apparatus is introduced for analysis, this actually satisfies the basic conditions for all texts to establish a relationship with the audience.

For example, the series of WoW, The Crypto Chick, and Boss Beauties, which are currently promoted by the mainstream forces of female-themed NFT projects, have female role models and corresponding narratives full of clichés, and the loss of freshness is fundamentally nothing more than a negative The surrender of political correctness has reduced their seemingly inspiring narratives to ridiculous "wealth codes". The fatal symbols full of capital charm that can be seen everywhere turn these feminist NFT PFP works into a dazzling array of commodities decorated with a sense of consumption, and even use consumption to exploit the voice of women who are already disadvantaged. The vision of social change provided by the so-called feminist narrative is actually more like a castle in the air.

Professor Yan Jingjuan pointed out that men in the consumer society, like women, will also become objects of gaze. Obviously, when a market shift occurs that must satisfy the needs of women who occupy a dominant position in consumption, men must become the objects of gaze. When the male gaze occurred in the past, an idealized female image was often simulated, and men projected their own desires on the women they saw, so the commercial attributes of women served the male gaze. The occurrence of women's gaze is no different, and behind it is the secret manipulation of capital. The fundamental purpose of capital is to stimulate women's consumption, "turning men into objects produced in the consumer society and symbolic commodities that cater to women's consumption aesthetics."

In today's NFT market, the feminist NFT PFP practice is such a female gaze in the context of consumerism, packaging itself with an eye-catching female appearance and a declaration calling for value recognition, and the core is nothing but what will be gazed at Males are nakedly replaced by females. The self-declaration of the feminist NFT PFP perfectly fits the subconscious desires of those who hope to transform the fate of women. In their imagination, women who are in a subordinate position and need to be rescued are the protagonists to be developed, and the feminist NFT PFP wants to They demonstrate a certain dazzling possibility of conferring ideal status.

In psychoanalytic theory, film theorist Jean-Louis Baudry believes that there are three ways in which the film machine constructs the subject of the audience:

1. Regression mechanism (regression);

2. primary identification;

3. Conceal the 'marks of enunciation' that stamp the film with authorship.

The regression mechanism means that the film as a dream machine stimulates an overall viewing situation, which allows the audience to experience a return to the womb-like effect, and the degradation of the mental level enables their unconscious desires to be fully activated; the film tries to make the audience Back to the early state of spiritual development before the ego is formed, "I" and others, internal and external have not yet been differentiated. When female investors have not found an NFT PFP that can indicate their Web3.0 identity, it can be said that their cyber "self" has not yet formed, and the chaotic state of this subject is like a baby that has not yet experienced the mirror image stage. , unable to define the real boundary between the self and the world.

French film theorist Christian Metz pointed out that psychoanalytic film theory distinguishes the movie audience from the human subject in the real objective world, and the movie audience subject needs to be established and expressed through an unconscious operating mechanism. Psychoanalytic film theory believes that the subject position of the movie audience is constructed by the film machine, and the film machine does not construct the subject of objective reality, but activates a subject position in an unconscious dream, which is occupied and formed by the movie audience. Therefore, in the view of psychoanalytic film theory, the audience (the subject) is not only a "productive" (productive, fantasy-producing) space (space), but also an "empty" (empty, occupyable) space. "space".

Using psychoanalytic film theory to investigate feminist NFT PFP culture, we will find that its operating mechanism is actually isomorphic with the film machine. In the context of Web3.0, perhaps everyone needs PFP (profile picture) to achieve a bridge with the virtual world, and the long-term aphasic female group needs such a connection even more. The assimilation of women by feminist NFT is similar to the assimilation of the audience by movies. The beautiful narratives they construct for women place women in unconscious dreams.In this way, female investors have become a kind of container-like existence with "space". In the slogan of feminist NFT PFP, there are general exquisite narratives such as "women's empowerment" and "women's voice". In terms of models, It is also mixed with various "feminist" symbolic features. Like moviegoers in a darkroom, oppressed women in reality can only passively accept the beautiful "myth" written by this symbolic system, and have entered a belief regime in Web3.0; Choose to believe that the feminist NFT PFP and its value system are real and work.

image description

Boss Beauties #5867 #3091 #7546 #3423

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The Crypto Chicks #653 #2585 #4566 #3419

However, these exquisite fantasies of female images are self-defeating before commercial logic. We have to notice that this type of PFP has a prominent tendency towards homogeneity and facial makeup. The facial features of women are bound by the deep-rooted European and American aesthetic concepts. Even if we only focus on the same plump and sexy lips, it is enough to realize this a little.image description

Boss Beauties #8310 #8500 #4108 #2012

It should also be pointed out that algorithmic random generation is also a double-edged sword. In the logic of algorithm generation, the most obvious racial skin color is used as the benchmark, and the deviation generated by this benchmark is randomly generated. The image of a female character has become a product of various racial deformities. Weirdly put together. For example, the four female characters in the picture above have different skin colors and ethnic identities, but without exception, they all apply a hairstyle called Karaba (Karaba is a hairstyle common in African women), which makes the difference in female identity It's unbelievably funny.

In the screening column, the project party provides five designs of face shape, sports active type, pear shape, egg shape, round shape and edge shape.This kind of inductive method is too rough, and all the appearance characteristics of women are full of staring eyes; at the same time, the "face shape" of women has become a statistical object here, not so much for creating a "diversified" image. Appearance, it is better to say that it is purely accumulating massive statistical data. Such a simple and rude approach of treating "concrete people" as nothing may eventually backfire on capital itself.

Different from the secondary identity process gradually established by the film machine, the feminist NFT PFP has the possibility of simultaneously establishing primary identity and secondary identity due to its cross-media presentation, which greatly speeds up the inclusion of female consumer identity. Ironically, the most eye-catching slogan of Boss Beauty is: "A Woman can be Everything she wants" (a woman can be what she wants to be).

Scholar Sandy Flitterman-Lewis pointed out that movie audiences have synchronized regression, primary and secondary identification steps, they will have the impression that these images appearing on the screen are their own imaginations, but forget that these are false fabrications. product of dreams. And this also achieves the purpose of the film author, making his "label" slowly disappear and making the audience forget that this is a fantasy that does not belong to them, but a presentation of the audience's own desires.

Let us reiterate that the process of movie subject construction, that is, the process of movie audiences establishing self-identity and subject identity awareness through screen images, is reinterpreted in the Web3.0 virtual world. "Female investors" temporarily lose themselves in the face of NFT PFP, and at the same time strengthen themselves.In other words, at the moment of the first fictional identity and identity establishment, these women not only lost themselves, but also found their imagined "self" in the feminist NFT PFP.

Immersed in these PFP images, which are often "mixed with private goods" produced by the project party, women can't help but believe that these female characters share their fantasies with them and represent their repressed desires.Hidden under the so-called propaganda slogan of "enabling women to gain autonomy and become the image in their own minds" is the potential transformation and brutal regulation of the aesthetics of women's images. Women don't even realize that they are not only caught in a vortex of consumption, It is also a cage of words.

Secondary Identity Example (1)

"The Crypto Chicks is an NFT-first collection designed to celebrate the unique and diverse beauty of all women around the world."

Secondary Identity Examples (2)

"World of Women is a community that celebrates uniqueness, inclusivity, and equal opportunity for all. Collectively, a first-of-its-kind collection of 10,000 pieces of art representing diverse and powerful women."

The necessity of introducing psychoanalytic film theory to examine feminist NFT PFP projects lies in the fact that it can reveal the fundamental difference between the image projection of such projects and other NFT track projects.The uniqueness of feminist NFT PFP projects is that they have a rich and specific way of expressing the images of women in the real world. Moreover, because mainstream female NFT PFPs try their best to manipulate "feminist values" and female narratives (the two secondary identification examples shown in the figure), they have the dominant influence of film media in the audiovisual field, and they can unscrupulously play in the virtual world. Control women's identity and value recognition.

The reason for the need to "pick" this kind of playfulness role model is because the project team believes that they need to be taken seriously. If these logical loopholes and thinking manipulations are not allowed to get to the bottom of it, the serious political demands of "feminism" and "diversity" they advocate are invalid and hypocritical. Professor Yan Jingjuan then explained: "Once women return to the reality outside the simulated world, they will find that hidden sexism in society still exists. While women are lost and frustrated, they are almost addicted to the simulated world, weakening their Feminist awareness and resistance."

All in all, the female narrative of feminist NFT PFP is very crude and one-sided compared with feminist films;Moreover, the female identity politics constructed by these PFP role images are completely unable to generate realistic concerns about the social status and image of most women. On the other hand, these female NFT PFP characters have a certain degree of retrospectiveness, which means that they need to reflect the construction process of race, gender, and class in real society to some extent, so we must strongly appeal to these feminist NFT projects. They are responsible for the characters and feminist slogans they devise. After all, the Web 3.0 world cannot be fully established by just some whitewashed "time is quiet" gimmicks.

At present, the emerging NFT market is still in a period of barbaric growth. The value realization of many projects is dominated by the emotions of speculators, and the quality of projects has become an element that no one cares about. In the female-themed NFT PFP track, the mainstream aesthetic system is actually similar to the flash player makeup games that existed more than ten years ago. This is also an unbearable reality. If you continue to let this copper-smelling operation of feminism as a "wealth code" continue, it is time to face and solve real moral and aesthetic dilemmas.

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Titane. Dir. Julia Ducournau、The Worst Person In The World. Dir. Joachim Trier、Happening. Dir. Audrey Diwan

Professor Dai Jinhua once said: "The greatest significance of feminism lies not only in the equal rights of men and women, but also in the confrontation between the sexes, but in the use of women's overall life experience as a new cultural resource to provide imagination space for the world to create a new and more reasonable society. A different kind of future, this future is different from modern logic, masculine logic, and capital logic, and it is not a return to the patriarchal-dominated yesterday.”

Needless to say, the aesthetic concept and overall thinking of the NFT market today lag far behind the traditional entertainment industry, which of course has historical constraints of weak development foundations. But at the moment when everyone is proposing respect and publicity for women's experience, feminist NFT PFP is still obsessed with giving women political symbols in the framework. Such a way of handling is contemptible, and it will inevitably become a "retrograde" that runs counter to morality and a more decentralized and diversified market in the future.

I firmly believe that to turn actions into reality, we must encourage female artists’ rebellious practices and works based on their own experience. They must break the male gaze. The Feminine Gaze and Decentralized Thinking in Sense. The world of Web3.0 no longer needs the mechanical manufacture of abstract political slogans. Abandoning the outdated ideology of feminist NFT project parties is the top priority of the current Web3.0 mission.

References:

References:

Bagchi, S. (2022, February 18). Will crypto usher a new era of gender diversity and inclusiveness? CXOToday.com. Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://www.cxotoday.com/blockchain/will-crypto-usher-a-new-era-of-gender-diversity-and-inclusiveness/

Baudry, Jean-Louis. (1975). The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema.

Flitterman-Lewis, Sandy. (2010). Psychoanalysis, Film, and Television. In Channels of discourse, reassembled: Television and contemporary criticism. essay, The University of North Carolina Press.

Happening. Dir. Audrey Diwan. Perf. Anamaria Vartolomei. France 3 Cinéma, 2021. Film.

Metz, Christian. (2000). The imaginary signifier: Psychoanalysis and the cinema. Indiana Univ. Press.

Titane. Dir. Julia Ducournau. Perf. Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon. Arte France Cinema, 2021. Film.

The Worst Person In The World. Dir. Joachim Trier. Perf. Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum, Renate Reinsve. MK2 Productions, 2021. Film.

Yan Jingjuan, Guo Yifan: "On the Construction and Confrontation of Female Gender from the Perspective of Gaze", "Journal of Daqing Normal University", January 2021.

https://opensea.io/collection/bossbeauties

https://opensea.io/collection/the-crypto-chicks

https://opensea.io/collection/world-of-women-nft

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