Jordan Catalano, the Female Gaze, and the Importance of Being Beautiful in My So-Called Life 

In seventh grade I started talking less and leaning more. It was 1994-95, the year of My So-Called Life's only season, and the girls in my school were enthralled with Jordan Catalano. Jordan was beautiful, with soft features, blue eyes, and cheek-length chestnut hair. A cross between bad boy and himbo, Jordan was admired more for his good looks and his captivating lean than for anything that came out of his mouth during the show's seventeen episodes. "He leans great!" MSCL's main protagonist, Angela Chase, gushed to her friend, Rayanne, delivering one of the show's most iconic lines. Watching the show as a thirteen-year-old boy, I did not understand that Jordan's character was wrought to achieve a particular aim in the show's overall feminist objective—replacing patriarchal media's standard passive female sex object with a male one. Instead, I saw Jordan as a role model. With his cool alternative rock style and, most importantly, his appeal to women, I wanted to be Jordan Catalano. Because Jordan did not excel in socially desirable qualities like intelligence, sense of humor, kindness, or even athleticism, I reasoned that cultivating and demonstrating such qualities could only hinder my objective of being attractive to the girls at school. I wore my hair like Jordan's and contemplated getting blue contact lenses. I became less animated with my friends, lest too much personality undermine the image of quiet desirability I was trying to project. I started tweezing my eyebrows and wearing coverup. I developed an obsession with being attractive, and Jordan Catalano was my totem. 

Academic and public discourses on visual media's perpetuation of unrealistic beauty standards and sexual objectification have tended to focus on their social and psychological impacts on women. However, media scholars have begun discussing the increasing prevalence of male erotic objectification in media, particularly on television.1 In this essay I examine Jordan Catalano and the impact this character had on me as a young heterosexual male viewer in the context of these scholarly discussions. I begin by reviewing Laura Mulvey's highly influential 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," which introduced the concept of the male gaze to argue that traditional films present women as passive objects for men's erotic visual consumption. I then review the work of television scholars who argue that the unidirectionality of erotic gazing — that men gaze at women but not vice versa—is inaccurate to television, where the female gaze is highly prevalent in certain genres. I use this scholarship as a framework for analyzing Jordan Catalano, arguing that MSCL's show makers wrought Jordan primarily to function as an object of the female gaze. I demonstrate that Jordan's value—to Angela, other female characters, and the show's audience—is based almost exclusively on his physical beauty. In fact, when Jordan strays from the role of desired object and acts as a desiring subject, he becomes less attractive for it. By featuring a pretty and — when at his best — mute character as the archetype of male desirability, MSCL had a similar influence on me that the mainstream cinema criticized by Mulvey likely had on generations of young women.     

In her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Laura Mulvey argues that mainstream cinema, particularly during Hollywood's Golden Age from the 1930s through the 1950s, perpetuated patriarchal norms by showing men as agentic subjects and women as passive objects. Mulvey roots her analysis in psychoanalytic theory, particularly Sigmund Freud's writing on scopophilia, or erotic pleasure derived from looking at others. "The magic of the Hollywood style," Mulvey writes, arose largely from "its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure."2 Mulvey distinguishes between two types of scopophilic pleasure provided by film — libidinal and egoic. Film provides libidinal pleasure by presenting women as objects to be looked at, desired, and possessed by men. And it provides egoic pleasure by presenting men looking at, desiring, and possessing these women. Onscreen women have no importance of their own; their value comes from being passive objects that motivate the hero, and onto which the hero and audience project their erotic fantasies. By contrast, pleasure in gazing at men lays in identifying with their subjective agency and abilities. Mulvey writes, "A male movie star's glamorous characteristics are . . . not those of the erotic object, but those of the more perfect, more complete, more powerful ego ideal [who] can make things happen and control events better than the ... spectator."3 Mulvey identifies multiple devices, including camera techniques and mise-en-scène, used to encourage spectators to see male characters as agentic subjects and female characters as passive objects. The concept of the male gaze denotes this scopophilic ethos that permeates film, by which women are objectified and dominated by men's desire. 

While film theorists have argued that Mulvey exaggerated the homogeneity of gendered looking in film,4 television scholars note that TV is even more heterogenous in this regard. In her work attempting to adapt Mulvey's analysis to television, Helen Wheatley posits that "the notion of the (implicitly heterosexual) male gaze is less useful in this context."5 Soap operas, for example, have always played to women's — not men's — erotic desires. Wheatly points out that in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, "queer sexualities and subject positions"6 are increasingly visible on TV, and quotes fellow TV scholar Jane Juffer that "the focus on women as sexual agents, especially on the premium channels, usually overwhelms any attention given to men."7 In a paper discussing the 1995 British miniseries adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which featured Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, Lisa Hopkins writes that, "Pride and Prejudice is unashamed about appealing to women—and in particular about fetishizing and framing Darcy and offering him up to the female gaze."8 Hopkins chronicles how the camera returns again and again to dwell admiringly on Mr. Darcy's face, and points out several scenes not in the novel that were seemingly added to showcase Darcy's body, including a famous scene where Darcy is shown with a wet tunic clinging to his body. Hopkins argues that the massive appeal of the miniseries lay in its emulation of the romance novel's tradition of "creating male characters who crave the love of the heroines with an intensity which, [women] may fear, real men never experience."9 It must be noted, however, that Darcy's attractiveness does not stem exclusively from his faithful longing for the female protagonist; he also — as the camera repeatedly reminds us — has a remarkably handsome face and a body that could win a wet tunic contest. 

While positing the prevalence of the (heterosexual) female gaze on TV, Wheatley follows other theorists in arguing that this female gaze differs in significant respects from its male counterpart. While there is no theoretical consensus on the exact nature of the female gaze, it is generally agreed that the female gaze is drawn to relationships rather than simply ogling the male form.10 And unlike Mulvey's male gaze — which freezes and silences its object—the female gaze is attracted to the love interest's personality, often leading to emotional identification with the erotic object. While Mulvey's male gaze expressly functions to suppress and control its objects, the female gaze described by Wheatley and others seeks to do no such violence.

However, if the female gaze in MSCL does not rise to the level of violence, it is, vis-à-vis Jordan, at least unintentionally dominating. Jordan's character is defined, distorted, and restricted by the well-meaning gaze of other characters, particularly heterosexual female ones. Presenting Jordan as the object of a potent female gaze is a component of the MSCL makers' project of creating a show that centered female desire and toyed with gender norms. The show centered the perspective of a teenage girl, Angela Chase, featured Angela's mother, Patty, as the family's primary breadwinner, and figured a young man, Jordan Catalano, as its primary erotic object. Rather than the agentic male driver of action described by Mulvey, Jordan functions primarily as an object to motivate the hero, Angela, and to be gazed at by women onscreen and the audience at home. Angela's desire for Jordan is not aimed at sexual possession, but emotional intimacy. When Angela's friend Rayanne confronts Angela, "You want to have sex with him," Angela responds, "Well either sex or a conversation; ideally both." And though the scriptwriters never allow Jordan to become much of a conversationalist, the camera permits him to escape his initial function as mere object of the erotic gaze.  

Jordan is introduced, eight minutes into the pilot episode, as a straightforward object of Angela's desiring gaze. We are shown Angela surreptitiously admiring Jordan while he leans against a wall of lockers applying eyedrops. As the camera cuts between Angela looking at Jordan and Jordan (as seen through Angela's eyes), Angela's voiceover explicates her desire:  

This early scene introduces Angela's penchant for projecting her romantic ideals onto Jordan, fancifully interpreting his dry eyes — likely an innuendo that Jordan is a stoner — as windows into an emotionally sensitive soul.  

When we next meet Jordan, midway through the pilot, he is again presented as the object of Angela's gaze. Angela enters an enclosed porch at a house party to find Jordan alone, sitting on a couch watching television. The camera cuts between Angela gazing at Jordan and Jordan gazing at the television, and then to the television screen. On the television a music video featuring a provocatively dressed female singer cuts from a shot of the singer laying supine while raising and caressing her exposed leg to a high-angle shot down the singer's cleavage.11 The show makers' choice of this particular shot sequence seems intended to comment on the difference between the traditional male gaze and the female gaze that MSCL is cultivating. That is, while Angela gazes at her fully dressed classmate with whom she craves an emotionally intimate relationship, Jordan gazes at the sexualized body parts of a stranger that have been put on television for male erotic consumption. 

While the pilot establishes Angela as gazing subject and Jordan as gazed at object, the dynamics of the gaze shift in later episodes as Angela and Jordan's relationship develops. When, in Episode 11, Jordan begins to reciprocate Angela's desire for him, he likewise begins to return her gaze. In the show's final episodes, in which Jordan is pining for Angela, we are shown him gazing at her more often than the reverse. We are often shown Angela's neighbor and classmate, Brian, gazing desirously at Angela, and learn that Angela's childhood friend, Sharon, gets aroused watching Brad Pitt movies. In MSCL, characters' gazes are used to demonstrate desire that is frequently shifting and not uniquely delegated to any one gender.  

But while the camera allows Jordan to grow out of the role of gazed at object, the show's diegesis and dialogue continue to send a message to the audience that Jordan's value comes primarily from his good looks. That Jordan is so good looking is not a mere function of mainstream media's tendency to cast conventionally attractive people in its productions; Jordan's beautifulness is baked into the show's dialogue. Interestingly, it is not Angela and her teenaged friends, but rather their mothers and other adult women, who comment most often on Jordan's appearance. In Episode 3: "Guns & Gossip," Rayanne's mother effuses to Patty, "Rayanne showed me [Jordan's] picture in the yearbook. If I were Angela running around with him, I wouldn't give a damn about guns in the school either." In Episode 7, when Angela's parents are expecting to meet Jordan for the first time, Patty warns Angela's father, Graham, "I think you'd better prepare yourself. I get the definite feeling that this kid is very good looking." When Patty asks Graham's female business partner, Hallie, to tell her what Jordan is like, Hallie responds: 

While Hallie is not the only onscreen character who describes Jordan as "not unintelligent," the bulk of onscreen evidence suggests the opposite. We learn in the pilot that Jordan stayed back twice, and in Episode 6 that he is semi-illiterate. And he is not merely behind in school learning; Jordan making airheaded remarks while wearing a vacant expression is a leitmotif that rises to the level of comic relief. Jordan's very first lines in the pilot introduce this theme: 

In Episode 5, Jordan asks Brian about their English reading assignment, Franz Kafka's short story, "The Metamorphosis," in which the main character is transformed into an insect: "It's made up, right?" In Episode 13, Graham, Hallie, and her fiancé, Brad, attempt to make small talk with the conversationally challenged Jordan: 

Based on this conversation, which portrays Jordan as painfully inarticulate and comically ditzy, Hallie somehow draws the conclusion that Jordan is "not unintelligent." In Episode 5, the substitute English teacher, Mr. Racine, forms a similar impression, lamenting, "You know that kid who just left here? That extremely smart kid? Well, it seems nobody ever bothered to notice that he never quite learned how to read."  

How are these characters arriving at impressions inconsistent with the onscreen evidence? One possibility is that Jordan is saying and doing intelligent things offscreen that the audience is not privy to; perhaps we are given the ditzy comic relief while Jordan's more cerebral moments were relegated to the script waste basket or the cutting room floor. Another possibility is that these characters believe Jordan is just "playing dumb." Mr. Racine explicitly accuses him of as much. Though marijuana use is never shown or discussed in MSCL, these characters may be intuiting that Jordan's intelligence is hindered by certain eyedrop-warranting habits. Or are these characters, like Angela, projecting onto Jordan qualities that they want or expect to see? For example, Mr. Racine—who despises traditional high school curricula—may be influenced by this conviction to see Jordan not as a poor student but one who has been failed by the system. Angela, longing for a boyfriend with emotional depth, misinterprets Jordan's behaviors as evidence of this quality. In general, Jordan may be a beneficiary of a phenomenon that psychologists call the attractiveness halo effect, a cognitive bias whereby physically attractive people are perceived as possessing other desirable qualities such as trustworthiness, warmth, and intelligence. But whether the show makers conceal Jordan's moments of intelligence, he conceals his own intelligence, or he serves as a tabula rasa onto which other characters paint their desires and worldviews, in Jordan Catalano we are surely not dealing with Mulvey's self-possessed male subject. 

To the extent that Jordan does demonstrate desire and agency, he becomes less desirable for it. In Episode 2, when Jordan tries to make out with Angela in his car, she pushes him away. When, in Episode 12, Jordan asks Angela to keep their budding physical relationship a secret, we, the spectators, are appalled by his cruel and selfish behavior. And when, in Episode 13: "Pressure," Jordan tries to manipulate Angela into sleeping with him, we are disgusted by his crude and callous desire. When Rayanne wants to join Jordan's band, in Episode 14, he is rudely dismissive. As a mute object of erotic gaze, Jordan is beautiful; as a desiring and agentic subject, he is repulsive.  

As I have argued above, Jordan Catalano is neither intelligent nor kind, aside from a couple moments where he is protective and empathetic toward Angela's gay friend, Rickie. He is also not especially funny, athletic, or possessive of any of the personality traits generally considered attractive. He can play guitar and sing, but we are not led to believe that these abilities play much of a role in Angela's attraction to him. The primary if not exclusive characteristic that qualifies Jordan to be MSCL's main erotic object is his good looks. At the same time, MSCL sets itself to the sociopolitical objective of challenging patriarchal culture's fixation on women's physical beauty. This mission, which permeates the entire show, is made most explicit in Episode 5: "The Zit." The episode features three interweaving plot lines: Angela is self-conscious about a large pimple on her face, Patty pressures Angela to participate in a mother-daughter beauty pageant, and boys at school distribute a poll rating girls on their physical and sexual characteristics. Angela feels inadequate because she is not on the list. Sharon, by contrast, is humiliated because she is on the list as "Most Globally Endowed." Patty, whom we learn was considered extremely pretty in youth, mourns her fading beauty. "You think there's anybody in this world who really believes that they're beautiful?" Patty asks Graham pensively. This rhetorical question seems intended to prompt the viewer to answer in the negative, that no one benefits from a social order that adjudicates people's value based primarily on the extent to which they embody norms of conventional attractiveness. And yet MSCL gives us Jordan, who possesses little other than a beautiful face, as exemplary of a desirable male. 

Jordan is never developed into a well-rounded character whose intelligence and passions are allowed to flourish. While the audience is sometimes invited to empathize with Jordan's suffering, we are more frequently encouraged to disapprove of his selfish and callous desires. In support of its sociopolitical objective to subvert patriarchal norms by featuring an agentic and desiring young woman, MSCL offers up a male love interest who mirrors the conventional female erotic object identified by Mulvey. Whether this putting the shoe on the other foot was necessary to accomplish the show's mission is a matter I am not qualified to adjudicate. What the show makers were attempting to communicate by directing the female protagonist's hard-won desire onto such a problematic object is a topic for another essay. Instead, I will conclude by speaking on my own experience: Watching MSCL as a thirteen-year-old, the show makers' decision to figure a character like Jordan Catalano as the desired male influenced my sensibility about the kind of young man I ought to be. I was and remain a fan of the show and I do not blame MSCL for engendering my excessive desire to be physically attractive to women, only for fueling it. However, I must point out that in pursuing its mission to have the opposite effect on young women, MSCL encouraged me to conceptualize myself as an object whose value was rooted primarily in my physical attractiveness to others. That and my ability to lean.        

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Steven T. Gravatt lives in Baltimore, MD and holds an MA in History & Theory of Psychology from York University in Toronto. Steven is interested in the impact of media on psychology and sexuality. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan University in the early aughts, Steven's friend quipped that his fashion sense was, "Guy in Jordan Catalano's band."

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