The document discusses the concept of the "gaze" and how it relates to objectification, especially of women. It defines the gaze as a mode of viewing that reflects a gendered code of desire, implying a power dynamic between the gazer and the object of the gaze. The gaze has been used to study how women are objectified as objects to be looked at in visual texts. This objectification through the gaze can lead women to internalize being viewed as objects for male pleasure and desire. Psychoanalytic film theory explores how films reflect and reinforce the patriarchal view of women as the "Other".

1. The Gaze
Humanities Division
Ateneo de Davao University
Bong S. Eliab

2. Look vs Gaze
▪ Look: a perceptual
mode open to all
▪ Gaze: a mode of
viewing reflecting a
gendered code of
desire.

3. 3
The Gaze
▪ an act of looking
▪ began as the study
of the
objectification of
women in visual
texts

4. 4
The Gaze
▪ Objectification of
women - women as
objects
▪ the commonality of
female nudity
▪ Nudity: implies
insubordination

5. 5
The Gaze: Implication
▪ internalization of
the gaze
▪ changes women’s
perception of
themselves
▪ makes them think of
themselves as
objects to be desired

6. 6
The Gaze: Shift
▪ shift to
objectification
▪ woman: as a
source of pleasure
(both for the
looker and the
looked-at)
▪ Men as dominant

7. 7
Use of Psychoanalysis in Film
▪ Film reflects the
language of
patriarchy by being
bound up in the
same story of sexual
difference that all
patriarchy is
founded on

8. 8
Women in Film
▪ Women seen as Other,
as an object not a
subject
▪ represents the
unconscious of the male
because she is always
the object he is looking
at
▪ never is able to speak

9. 9
Phallocentrism
▪ a world view which
sees the penis
(symbolic and
otherwise) as the
defining center of
meaning

10. 10
Phallocentrism
▪ In other words--
there is a central,
stable meaning to
things; that meaning
is defined largely by
men who associate
their power to name
and define and
control reality with
their masculinity.

11. 11
Scopophilia
▪ the pleasure we get
from looking, in
seeing other people
as objects. We get a
sense of power from
being able to do
this. With John
Berger she believes
the one who looks
has the power

12. 12
Voyeuristic Scopophilia
▪ looking at other
people as seeing
them as surrogates
for yourself
▪ We identify with
people in movies.

13. 13
Voyeuristic Scopophilia
▪ tension between the
sense of power we
get from observing
others as separate
from ourselves and
the pleasure we get in
imagining that we are
the people we are
looking at

14. What is a Gaze?
▪ Viewing recorded images:
viewer’s gaze a voyeuristic
dimension
▪ to gaze: more than to look at
▪ Carries a psychological
relationship of power.
▪ The gazer is superior to the
object of gaze.

15. Forms of Gaze:
“who is doing the looking”
▪ Spectator’s Gaze
▪ Intra-diegetic Gaze
▪ Direct (or extra-
diegetic) Gaze
▪ Look of the Camera

16. Other Forms of Gaze
▪ Gaze of the Bystander
▪ Averted Gaze
▪ Gaze of an audience
within the text
▪ Editorial Gaze

17. Direction of Gaze
▪ How a depicted person
gazes out of the frame
▪ Forms of attention
directed:
▪ towards other people
▪ To an object
▪ To oneself
▪ To the reader/ camera
▪ To middle distance (state of
reverie)

18. Intensity of Gaze
▪ Sharp: focusing on the
other person’s eyes
▪ Clear: focusing about
the other person’s head
and face
▪ Peripheral: having the
other person within the
field of vision

19. Proximity of Gaze
▪ Long Shot
▪ Extreme Long Shot
▪ Medium Long Shot
▪ Mid-Shot
▪ Medium Close Shot
▪ Close-Up
▪ Medium Close-Up
▪ Big Close-Up

20. Ranges of Formality
▪ Intimate: up to 18
inches
▪ Personal: 18 inches to
4 feet
▪ Social: 4 to 12 feet
▪ Public: 12 to 25 feet

21. 21
Hollywood Film
▪ reflects the dominant
ideology of their culture.
▪ We get our pleasure from
films from this
presentation of the erotic.
▪ If we learn to make films
which do not encode
these ideologies, a lot of
people will lose their
pleasure in looking at
film

22. 22
Pleasure in Film
▪ Film satisfies this
primal pleasure we
all get from looking
at other people.

23. 23