The male gaze is a concept coined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey. It refers to the way visual arts are structured around a masculine viewer. It describes the tendency in visual culture to depict the world and women from a masculine point of view and in terms of men's attitudes.
The male gaze consists of three different gazes:
- that of the person behind the camera,
- that of the characters within the representation or film itself, and
- that of the spectator.
The concept was first developed by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay entitled "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Mulvey posits that the gender power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses. The concept has subsequently been prominent in feminist film theory, media studies, as well as communications and cultural studies.
The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man. It may linger over the curves of a woman's body, for instance. The woman is usually displayed on two different levels: as an erotic object for both the characters within the film and for the spectator who is watching the film. The man emerges as the dominant power within the created film fantasy. The woman is passive to the active gaze from the man. This adds an element of "patriarchal" order, and it is often seen in "illusionistic narrative film". Mulvey argues that, in mainstream cinema, the male gaze typically takes precedence over the female gaze, reflecting an underlying power asymmetry.
Mulvey' also states that the female gaze is the same as the male gaze because women look at themselves through the eyes of men. A feminist may see the male gaze as either a manifestation of unequal power between gazer and gazed, or as a conscious or subconscious attempt to develop that inequality. From this perspective, a woman who welcomes an objectifying gaze may be simply seeking to benefit men, welcoming such objectification may be viewed as akin to exhibitionism.
The Male Gaze typically focuses on:
- Emphasising curves of the female body
- Referring to women as objects rather than people
- The display of women is how men think they should be perceived
- Female viewers, view the content through the eyes of
a man
The Clip above is from 'Project X', which contains large amounts of sexualised images of Women.
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