The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey - The Male Gaze Theory

Even the cover art of many films only allows the
audience to see the women in a sexual way- the
only part of them visible here are their legs

The male gaze is a theory made popular by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in 1975 that explains the way that films, literature, and other media often present women. 

Mulvey talked about how the audience is predominantly put into the mindset of a heterosexual male by the camera, and are therefore forced to view women from that perspective which usually means that the women are seen stereotypically or as objects of sexual desire. The male gaze consists of 3 perspectives: how men look at women, how women look at themselves, and how women look at each other. 


The theory also suggests that the male gaze denies women their own identity as they only exist in relation to how men see them, meaning that women can only really watch these films from a secondary (man's) perspective. Because of this, the man ends up being the dominant power both within the film and in the audience, as it is predominantly their desired view being presented, further enforcing patriarchal statuses between men and women. Due to the fact that women are usually displayed on two different levels- as an erotic object for the (male) characters within the film, and the audience- it furthers this idea of hegemony by having the woman in a passive position receiving the gaze and the man in the active role giving it.

The Bond films include many
examples of the male gaze,
especially due to the inclusion of
'Bond girls' who exist only to be looked
at or to further his character/story

Featuring characteristics

It is clear that the male gaze is prominent in a piece of media if:

• The camera lingers on the curves of a woman's body
• The events which the woman is involved in are presented in the context of a man reacting to them (therefore enforcing the idea that a man needs to approve of how a woman does something for it to count for anything)
• Use of editing techniques such as slow motion or cut-aways to the man's reaction

Scopophilia

Mulvey's theory also incorporates ideas based on Freud's concept of scopophilia (meaning "love of watching") in order to show how women have been forced to view film through the male gaze for as long as film has been around. Freud described scopophilia as: "pleasure that is linked to sexual attraction (voyeurism) and scopophilic pleasure that is linked to narcissistic identification (ego)", and the way that it occurs in cinema reinforces gender roles. This is because it furthers the objectification that women face by denying them human identity and putting them in the position of only appearing as objects to be admired physically or for male sexual desires/fantasies.

The theory suggests that the frequent use and normalisation of the male gaze in the media often results in women taking on the same gaze and objectifying/judging women based on appearance just as the male gaze forces them to when watching films and looking at adverts.