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1. How was the male gaze relevant in movie posters and is it still present now?
Most of the movie posters that involved involved the male gaze is James Bond. They made
him look strong and confident; this is seen in the old posters and the most recent ones too.
However, the women in the posters don’t really seemto have a reason to be there,
especially the old posters. The women on the old posters are all sexualised, being shown in
their bikinis and being shown as weak. So not only they’re being sexualised they’re being
belittled because of the male gaze. The male gaze is a way to sell products to men, it was a
lot more popular back then as women couldn’t really call them out as they were seen as
weak because of the sexist view at the time. The old James Bond movie posters are a good
way to show how the male gaze was used in the movie industry back then.
One of the bond illustrators I will be discussing is Frank McCarthy. Frank is known for his
bond movie posters: Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
McCarthy began his art career as a commercial illustrator, opening his own studio in 1948.
He did illustrations for most of the paperback book publishers, magazines,
including Colliers, Argosy, and True, movie companies, and advertisements. McCarthy left
the commercial art world in 1968 in order to concentrate on Western paintings. In 1975 he
was invited to join the Cowboy Artists of America.His 1972 painting "The Last Crossing" was
used by The Marshall Tucker Band in 1976 for the cover of their fifth studio album, Long
Hard Ride. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1997. His work on
his Bond movie postersis full of women who are half naked and don’t really have any power.
They’re just there for pleasure. The Bond posters aren’t the only times he’s done this, on
The Dirty Dozen poster, there’s a section at the top that says “Train them! Excite them! Arm
them!” And on the section that says, “Excite them!” There are soldiers seducing women and
the term “Excite them!” is giving the idea that women are just there for the man’s pleasure.
In the middle of the poster there’s a woman being held hostage who’s in a fancy dress and
she’s showing a lot of cleavage. This also shows the male gaze by showing that the woman
needs to be rescued by a strong man.
Another poster I would like to look at is the “The Venetian Affair” movie poster.The text at
the bottom says “Murder! Spies! Women!”, what does women have to do with a spy film. In
the middle of the poster it has a woman in a dress looking like the damsel in distress which
adds to the male gaze. This makes women look like something men can save and makes
women seempathetic and can’t do anything for themselves or women need a strong man in
their life so they can actually control their life. At the bottom of the poster we have a line of
images where most of the images are women looking sexy or being submissive to a man.
This once again adds into the theory that women are just there for men’s pleasure. In
comparison to the man in the middle of the poster he’s holding a gun and being aware of his
surroundings like he’s protecting himself and looking strong. This is the complete opposite
of the woman in the middle of the poster. The woman in the middle is also sat in a very
submissive position and is being grabbed by the arm of the man with the gun. The man
could b protecting the woman as she could be important but by the images at the bottom of
women being sexualised I doubt the woman is that important.
Movie poster’s sexualisation of women back then was always a thing and it was mostly to
grab men’s attention to go watch a film, it might’ve caused a bigger box office but it still

2. caused damage on men’s views of women as it worked in a propaganda kind of way. The
biggest influences were the James Bond films as they are the most popular.
“I believe both the male gaze and the drip drip theory can be seen heavily in this James
Bond poster as there is an image of a female character in her underwear standing next to a
fully clothed James Bond. We are forced to see this image from a male perspective and
encouraged to find the female attractive, see her as a sexual object and made to see her as
less important as she is standing slightly behind James. The drip drip theory implies that the
more we see something, the less we are affected by it. I think, because movie posters have
been sexually objectifying women through the male gaze for decades, we as the audience
are not as impacted by it and have come to expect and even accept it rather than find it
shocking anymore. It has now become the ‘norm’ for a film poster to contain a half naked
woman. “In truth, early Bond films were considered problematic long before the #MeToo
and Time’s Up campaigns – and not just for their celebration of sexist attitudes” (Child, B.
(n.d.). Time's up for James Bond: is 007 too toxic for the #MeToo era?. [online] the
Guardian.”
Emilieshoots. (). How Women Are Represented Through Movie Posters. Available:
https://emilieshoots.com/blog/how-women-are-represented-through- movie-postersblog.
Last accessed 11th Dec 2021.
The male gaze theory not only affects women but it affects men’s way of thinking causing a
step back on society instead of moving forward. However, because of sexualisation of
women in the past, women did eventually fight back which was mostly done in the feminist
community but men fought back “The challenging of the dominant ideological
representations of femininity and the negative images of women as objects of the male gaze
and desire in the visual conventions of both high art and popular culture was a cornerstone
of second wave feminist theory and remains so in the age of post-feminism. Therefore, in
feminist filmtheories, feminists criticised and continue to criticise the role of women in the
film industry where they are reduced to being packaged as trivial images such as the victim,
whore or housewife. These trivial and traditional female stereotypes enable men to oppress
women and to perpetuate patriarchal ideology. As a consequence of these grievances,
feminists as well as feminist film theorists declare the ideological struggle against patriarchal
representation of women to be continuingly important for women's liberation, since the
female dilemma lies in the powerful and confining relationship between idealised or
denigrating filmic images of women and the internalisation of these by female consumers”
Fol, I (2006). The Dominance Of The Male Gaze In Hollywood Films. anon: Diplom.de.
p5.
Films where the main lead is a woman get constantly bashed often for being a “Femminist”
film which is directly caused by the male gaze and its long lasting effects. For years the male
gaze propaganda and the patriarchy impacted society where men should take the dominant
role in society and women take the more submissive role which lead to them being
sexualised, manipulated or abused. Nowadays it’s a lot less than it was before but in some
parts of the world it’s still a problem. However I am talking about the impacts of the male
gaze in the movie industry. The male gaze is still a problem in the filmindustry but it’s
shown less subtle. The marvel posters make a good example of that. “Many movie posters
feature a sexualised image of a women, often cutting off their heads further dehumanising
females. This usually tries to emphasize the sex appeal to the primary male target
demographic, enticing them to watch the film.

3. “Thor The Dark World film posters are a great example of how women are portrayed as the
damsel in distress. The main female character is connoted in the poster to be weak, in need
to protection and Thor’s love interest as in one poster she has her hands placed on him in a
romantic way suggesting she may be in love with him. I think Laura Mulvey’s The Male Gaze
theory can be seen within these posters as we are encouraged to look at it through a male
perspective as Thor, the main male character, is depicted as the bigger, more important and
dominant role. The representation of ‘Woman’ as a spectacle to be looked at pervades
visual culture. In such representation ‘Woman’ is defined solely in terms of sexuality, as an
object of desire, in relation to, or as a foil for, ‘Man.’” (Shohini Chaudhuri. Feminist Film
Theories 2006 Book) Because of this, we see the female character as less important and
even a passive character.”
Emilieshoots. (). How Women Are Represented Through Movie Posters. Available:
https://emilieshoots.com/blog/how-women-are-represented-through- movie-postersblog.
Last accessed 11th Dec 2021.
This is still a problem nowadays but it’s shown as less subtle. However the difference to how
it was vs to how it is now has improved a lot since before it was practically propaganda and
it was shown in your face. This made several step backs to society’s progression to men and
women being equal, but like I said before it’s still a problem now especially in countries
where women don’t have many rights. In the western part of the world it’s a lot better but
it’s still slightly present in which the filmindustry loves doing subtlety in their movie posters
and anyone who makes a female lead will get bashed on the internet for it and cause the
film not to do well because of sexist people.