Lola, Spectatorship, And Cabaret In The Blue Angel Analysis

The treatment of Lola in terms of how the camera represents her further emphasizes the male discontent of the Weimar Republic in the way the mise en scene reduces her character to an image. Additionally, it is clear that the male gaze is the lens that Lola’s presence embodies as is articulated in Jennifer Williams’s article “Gazes In Conflict: Lola Lola, Spectatorship, and Cabaret in The Blue Angel” where she states: “capturing a gaze, the body becomes inscribed with the cultural anxieties that motivate the gaze”. In fact, Lola’s characterization as a cabaret performer codes the male gaze in that fact itself as her role is to perform for (mainly) male patrons, tempt their desires, and then act on said desires. Her “image” is built up throughout

She then is able to play off of their reactions in the next shot, which cuts back to her onstage and, now knowing the extent of the allure she has, uses it to further tease the audience members as she turns her backside towards them and reveals her bloomers. The control that Lola asserts in such shot-reverse-shot edits unravels the “primacy of the male perspective” and allows her to hijack the gaze. It is also rather interesting to note that Heinrich Mann’s 1905 novel, Professor Unrat, which the film bases itself on, is told entirely from the perspective of the male protagonist Rath. It would be remiss to ignore this significant change regarding which character occupies narrative control as it relates to the release dates of these two associated works. While the novel was published in 1905, pre World War I, the film was released in the years following the war and, thus, reflects certain historical realities and anxieties of the people. Therefore, it makes sense that the filmic reimagining of this pre-war text would give control to the female character in order to emphasize the prevailing anxiety regarding the upgraded status of women in Weimar society via the