The document discusses the male gaze theory and how it is exemplified in the opening title sequence of the James Bond film GoldenEye. It explains that the male gaze theory postulates that in films, the audience views the action from the perspective of the heterosexual male gaze. The opening of GoldenEye contains symbols like naked women, guns, and cigars that appeal to stereotypical male interests. The document considers how inverting the male gaze to a female gaze would change the interpretation of the title sequence symbols and the audience's perspective. It explores how the male gaze theory aims to raise political awareness of gendered perspectives in film viewing.

1. The Male Gaze Theory In The
Title Sequences Of Films.

2. What Is The Male Gaze Theory?
• The state that comes with the awareness that
one can be viewed.
• The concept was started by the “Mirror Stage” in
which a child encountering a mirror realizes that
he or she has an external appearance. (Jacques
Lacan)
• Lacan suggested that “awareness of any object
can induce awareness of also being an object”
This was then developed by Laura Mulvey.

3. The Theory Continued…
• “Woman is a symptom of man.”
• Femininity is a social construct and that the
feminine object is what constitutes the male
lack and thus his positive identity.
• “Men look and women are looked at.”

4. Examples of the Male Gaze Theory
The opening of James Bond GoldenEye (Martin
Campbell, 1995) is a perfect example of the use
of the Male Gaze theory.
When watching films, Mulvey suggests we as
the audience view them from the perspective of
the heterosexual male. When watching
GoldenEye’s opening it is apparent that this is
true…

5. • Guns shown and used throughout the
opening.
• Naked women.
• Said women dancing sexually.
• Cigars
• Soviet Russian connotations.
All of these symbols represent the stereotypical
interests of the male and thus we as the
audience view the opening in a male gaze.

6. But what if we inverted this theory and applied
it to GoldenEye’s opening?
Would all previous symbols (women, guns,
cigars ect) still fit with the new Female Gaze? Or
would the entire title sequence need to contain
new mise en scene symbolic of women?

8. Is the image below still accurate of the Male Gaze theory?

9. Sending A Message
When Mulvey set out, she intended to use the
theories of Lacan as political weapons with her
newly developed Male Gaze theory. Can the
remodeled shots of GoldenEye be used to send
a message or be used as a political weapon in
order to open the eyes of those around us to the
female gaze?

10. Would audience feel more inclined to view texts
in the female gaze rather than the male gaze?
In some ways yes, in the sense of becoming
more aware of what gender we are
inadvertantly viewing films. But on the other
hand audiences have viewed films from the
perspective of the heterosexual male since the
dawn of cinema, surely it feels normal to view
texts in such a way that text nor its motives are
questioned seriously enough.

11. In Conclusion
Through writing about the male gaze theory in
my essay I have challenged how we as the
audience perceive texts and whether or not the
usual way we observe them is a positive or
negative thing, also I have looked at the impact
this theory can have on a text if it has been
inverted to create the female gaze and how the
audiences opinions may change depending on in
what way each text is perceived as.