Media Studies Male Gaze

1. The Male Gaze – Laura Mulvey

2. What is Gaze?
• The concept of gaze is one
that deals with how audience
views the people presented.
For feminists it can be thought
of in three ways:
1. How men look at women
2. How women look at
themselves
3. How women look at other
women

3. Gaze and feminist theory
• Laura Mulvey coined the term ‘Male
Gaze’ in 1975. She believes that in
film audiences have to ‘view’
characters from the perspective of a
heterosexual male.
• Laura Mulvey is a British feminist
film theorist

4. Theory
• The theory suggests that the
male gaze denies women human
identity, relegating them to the
status of objects to be admired
for physical appearance
• The theory suggests women can
more often than not only watch
a film from a secondary
perspective and only view
themselves from a mans
perspective

5. Features of the Male Gaze
• The camera lingers on the
curves of the female body, and
events which occur to women
are presented largely in context
of a man’s reaction to these
events
• Refers women to the status of
objects to be admired for
physical appearance

6. Female characters
• Often a female character has no real
importance herself, it is how she
makes the ,male feel or act that is the
importance
• The female only exist in relation to the
male
• Mulvey states that the role of a female
character in a narrative has two
functions:
1. As an erotic object for a characters
within the narrative to view
2. As an erotic object for the
spectators within the cinema to view

7. Socophilia
• ‘Love of Watching’
• Movie-making and movie-viewing have long
been analysed as socophilic practices