Veils and sunglasses

Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and their relationship with his system of hot and cool media. The attractive eyes of the veiled woman invite the gaze to further scrutiny. A general but relatively profound attraction is effectuated first, which will then create the desire to discover the rest of the face. The perceptual mechanics of dark glasses works the other way. Here the official part of the face is freely exposed, but it loses a part of its attractiveness because the deeper or “real” meaning of the features cannot be fully construed and, in many cases, is not supposed to be construed at all. By hiding in an apparently “cool” way one's official facial expressions, the resulting play with desire and attraction makes the veil rather hot in the McLuhanian sense. Further, the article examines if the veiling of women prevents or fosters fetishisation and compares the veil to the technique of cropping.