By Lilli Pert
We have all once watched a movie and wondered why the camera seems far too focused on a woman’s legs, or why female characters always just seem to exist to make male leads more powerful and dominant. This is something we call ‘the male gaze’. This is a term that has been around since the late 20th century, and something in which we see in all aspects of entertainment. Films, ads, social media, music videos and even every day conversation in this day and age all include some aspect of male gaze.
It’s a fairly straightforward and simple idea, most of the media that we consume has been created through the eyes of a male patriarch. This is often someone that is out of touch with modern society and assumes the classic attraction of straight men to ‘stereotypically attractive’ females. This means that women are often not showing as full, complicated people but as something beautiful and desirable or supportive to a male story. Remembering every film I watched growing up, I always remember ‘ the hot girl’ who barely gets any lines in the film, but still casts a star striking image and everybody either wanted her or wanted to be her. This created fantasy I’m sure near that everybody can remember consuming at some point. Like what film was really ever a success without a girl doing a hair flip?
It doesn’t just stop in the movies, advertising was laced with this kind of misogyny. Women draped over cars, women selling perfume simply by being seductive to close looking desirable because they are modelled on society’s idea of an attractive woman. The news has also fell victim to the male gays as women in public life often get commentary on their outfits or make up long before anybody talks about their ideas are substance. Even social media creates its own pressures for female content creators to look a certain way in order to gain traction to their content and engagement.
It becomes quite a sickening topic to think about as it has been so deep rooted in our daily lives for so long yet so many would be able to highlight this issue due to it being standard practice. When the media constantly treat women as objects it affects how society sees women and further how women see themselves. A ripple effect this can have on womens confidence and further how they may be treated in a relationship due to men having a stereotype on what women should be. The male gaze is like the background noise that slowly shapes the room.
However, we can start to see progression and be hopeful that things are changing. More women of different backgrounds, ethnicities, sexualities and body types are all starting to put themselves at the forefront of media. The results of this feel refreshing, real and often far more interesting. I believe that consumers are beginning to see what real women look like and therefore starting to treat the everyday woman more like a human being rather than a half defective model that doesn’t fit the metric of what they have been taught a woman looks like through traditional media. Audiences demanded better and are receiving better.
Despite this , changing male gaze isn’t just about pointing fingers it’s about paying attention. We need to ask why a story being told a certain way and imagine what it would look like if everybody got to be fully seen. When media stops reducing people to objects, more honest stories will be seen and this will benefit everyone.
The more we question how we have been taught to look at the world, the more room we make for people to simply be themselves, unfiltered, objectified and fully human.
