A2 Collective Identity - Representation of Gender

• The ‘Male Gaze’ is a term coined by Laura Mulvey in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). She believes that in film, audiences have to ‘view’ characters from a male perspective.

• Mulvey also argues that the male gaze takes precedence over the female gaze, reflecting an underlying power asymmetry.

• A pleasure of cinema is ‘scopophilia’ – looking voyeuristically at others.

• Cinema encourages this, partly because the audience sit in the dark, watching the film, and the film unwinds, indifferent to the presence of the audience.

• The second form of pleasure is narcissistic voyeurism – seeing oneself in a character and identifying with them.

• Female viewers must experience the narrative from the view of the male protagonist, and are therefore denied a viewpoint of their own.

• Women are looked at and displayed; they are said to connote ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’.

• The female character has no importance, except as a spectacle or to drive the hero to act.

• Male viewers can admire the male hero narcissistically, as an ideal version of themselves.

Features of the Male Gaze

• Camera lingering on the curves of the female body – even though this contributes nothing to the storyline.

• Anything that happens to a woman is presented largely in the man's reactions to this event.

• The film degrades the woman to the extent of making her an object or possession.

• The way in which the woman is represented is superfluous to the narrative.

Examples of the Male GazeThe following images are typical examples of the Male Gaze in both old and contemporary cinema:

1. Megan Fox - ‘Transformers’ (2007)

2. Ursula Andress - ‘Dr. No’ (1962)

3. Margot Robbie – ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)

4. Angelina Jolie – ‘Wanted’ (2008)

Issues with ‘The Male Gaze’ Nowadays:

• Denies the idea that women can enjoy films as much as men.

• The increasing economical/political power of women.

• The protagonists of Hollywood films were traditionally male – however, some films are now shifting away from this in order to emphasise strong female protagonists. Examples of these films include ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘Lucy’, ‘Black Swan’, etc.

• Even in the genre of action films, a woman’s role is now no longer to be saved by the man.

What About the Female Gaze?

• The ‘Female Gaze’ is a term that refers to the way a film is presented from a female perspective, or the way it reflects female attitudes. This is normally (but not exclusively) due to the director’s gender, or because the film is deliberately aimed at a female audience.

• Nowadays, there are some films that also celebrate/show physically attractive men, as opposed to just sexualising women. This allows a female audience to engage with the film, without having to experience it from an exclusively-male perspective.

• For example, films like ‘Magic Mike XXL’ (2015) and ‘The Twilight Saga’ (2012) feature male roles that are heavily represented through their body. Another example would be the ‘Ghostbusters’ (2016) reboot, in which the all-female cast fancy Chris Hemsworth’s character, a dumb but physically attractive secretary.

Conclusion

• In conclusion, both the Male Gaze and the Female Gaze are terms used to describe the way in which the visual arts depict gender from an idealistic/voyeuristic point of view.

• Traditionally, Hollywood films objectified women rather than men, and even in modern cinema, it seems that this is still the dominant viewpoint.