The document discusses Laura Mulvey's concept of the "Male Gaze" in film. Mulvey coined the term in 1975 to describe how audiences are meant to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. Key aspects of the Male Gaze include the camera lingering on female bodies and presenting women as objects to be admired physically. Female characters often have no real importance themselves and only exist in relation to male characters or as erotic objects for viewers to watch.

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. 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

5. Female charecters
• 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

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