Filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey first invented the term “the male gaze” in her paper Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in 1973. Laura explored how mainstream films appealed to a “male gaze” because the industry is dominated by men who, inevitably, construct representations of women from a masculine point of view.
A classic example would be that type of plot that we are all very familiar with, in which a female character gets into trouble then waits for her destined hero to come and rescue her. Two popular examples would be the Disney princess series and the Marvel and DC superhero movies. We have a massive amount of this type of work in the film industry in which female characters are illustrated as relatively much weaker in their abilities compared to the male characters. The scriptwriters are repeatedly planting the idea of women are unquestionably dependent on men through their works.
Laura also mentioned in her paper how the female characters’ bodies are often “stylised and fragmented by close-ups” (1973), so the audience sees more of their curves than of their character. Laura states that “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure… with (her) appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact.”(1973) “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the (cinema) auditorium.” (1973) Below is a clip from the movie The River of No Return. We can see in the scene the female character’s legs immediately become the dominant signifier of the shot. The director “fragmented” the actress for a scene that is pleasing to his, the male characters’ and the male audiences’ eyes.
Whether it’s denying realistic representation of women or objectizing women’s body in a scene, such contents are so commonly seen in films that many of us are conditioned to adopted the male gaze subtly without even knowing it. What we consume will gradually become part of us if we don’t pay attention; it is important to keep a clear mind and develop critical thinking skills to detect the point of view held by the creators of the products we’re watching, and decide for ourselves whether it’s acceptable or not.
