Scoptophilia

“It seems, then, that there are two tendencies which always or often determine the goal of the scoptophilic instinct: (a) the impulse to injure the object seen, and (b), the desire to share by means of empthathy in its experience.” (330)

From the paper “The Scoptophilic Instinct and Identification” by Otto Fenichel in Visual Culture: The Reader

Reading this paper, I immediately thought of the idea of Mean Girls and the importance of “the look.” Able to shoot daggers with one look, our stereotypical mean girl is able to convey any range of emotions with just one look. The look is one of the greatest powers that a mean girl has. She is able to assert her power over other girls through this look and in doing so, “injures the object seen.” This one action simultaneously imparts a sense of strength in the viewer/giver of the look and injures the object/receiver by creating a sense of degradation.

Here ‘ empathy’ is a complicated psychological process which cannot immediately be reduced to a short formula. But at any rate it has something to do with the mechanism of identification.

However, there is another look that is not given by the Queen Bee or Meanest of girls. This look often comes from the girl in the crowd that is on the fringe. Barely holding onto her position in the clique, this girl can view the receiver of the dirty look with empathy because she can identity with that girl and understand how easily she could be in that position. Therefore, with that empathy comes a sense of relief.