Male Gaze Essay

393 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Examples of feminism in the film industry

In 1975, a feminist filmmaker Laura Mulvey coined the concept ‘male gaze’, as we see ‘the gaze’ at work in both these films, Some Like It Hot and My Week With Marilyn (Helford, 2015). There are many significant qualifications made in such a universalization of ‘male’ and ‘female,’ as well as carefully considering with differences, of race, class, social, era and culture components (Helford, 2015). Heterosexual men who engage in the privileges of the male gaze, including, have been historically tied to this gaze factor (Helford, 2015). Similarly, women who do not conform to social norms of appearance; from size to ability to race and class deems unworthy of being objectified (Helford, 2015). However, the male gaze is always incomplete solution …show more content…

(Helfield, 2017). Evidently, the camera in drawn on her dress as well as she looks half-naked revealing her breasts, but it is the additional lighting that does this effect as if we think it seems to look as of a strip tease (Helfield, 2017). Marylin is captivating; her whole body parts suggests she is a sex object icon. For example, the parade and the two nude photos, her pictures were pin-ups by fans; the gentleman wanted her through her looks and beauty, as she commits to her sexual energy and she becomes a cultural feminist icon (Helfield, 2017). My Week with Marilyn, Michelle Williams performance, as Marilyn, help us see and understand Marilyn from the movie’s perspective on her emotions, her struggles and issues of keeping up with the ‘star’ per sauna (Helfield, 2017). In these two films, it is evident crossroads between different forms of entertainment and between the various cultures with spears of influence among the different performer's traditions, entertainment conventions that populate (Helfield,

Show More
Related

  • 1950s Beauty Pageants

    551 Words  | 2 Pages

    While beauty pageants, Barbie, and icons such as Marilyn Monroe present a more provocative and sexual image than standard 1950s sitcoms, such as Leave It to Beaver or I Love Lucy, they do still fit into a prescribed gender stereotype. Most significantly, do not challenge the overarching notion that women are to be feminine and aim to sexually please males (Meyerowitz 16). Rather, they present and support the culturally-defined understanding of the ideal woman, physically. 1950s beauty pageant contestants, Barbie, and Marilyn Monroe all embodied the ‘perfect women.’ These women, icons, and toys were voluptuous, but petite. They were small in frame, had larger breasts, full hips, and a tiny waist. Their hair was done in a very feminine style

    Read More

  • Vertigo and Citizen Kane Are Products of their Mysogenistic Generation

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    Today’s culture sees a gap between the male and female gender. This is evident in everything from the films we watch, music we listen to, and even in our everyday lives. Historically, this issue has seen an even larger gap, and can be observed in the films that were made during that time. Vertigo and Citizen Kane both show the objectification of women by controlling them, writing them in supportive roles, and placing their value in the way that they look.

    Read More

  • The Revolution of The Young People: John Updike

    1191 Words  | 3 Pages

    It seems that today, women are seen only as objects of pleasure for men. Such as when the butcher looks at the girls in the store, and was “patting his mouth and looking after them sizing up their joints” (Updike 143) This description of him is aptly put as he is a butcher. Other men, however, look at women, as Greg W. Bentley says, “as if they are...

    Read More

  • Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

    236 Words  | 1 Pages

    An example of the media degrading and objectifying women is Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory. In Laura Mulvey’s essay ‘visual pleasure and narrative cinema’; she discusses the term ‘Male gaze’. In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man, for example, a scene may focus with specific conventions such as slow motion or deliberate camera movements on a sexual aspect of a woman’s body, forcibly putting you as the viewer in the eyes of a male. This theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, manipulating them to the standard of manifest objects to be appreciated solely for their physical appearance. The theory implies women can more often than not only watch a film from

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: The Thomas Crown Affair

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the past few years, advertisement has changed significantly, and with it bringing many changes to our current society. Susan Bordo, a modern feminist philosopher, discussed in her article “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body” how current society has changed starting with Calvin Klein’s advertising campaign that showed men wearing nothing but underwear. Bordo argues how men are becoming the subject of the gaze, just as women were for centuries. This argument of the gaze is especially pronounced in John McTiernan’s film The Thomas Crown Affair, which focuses on two main characters, a man named Thomas Crown, who is a billionaire Manhattan financier, and a woman named Catherine Banning, and insurance investigator who is investigating Crown’s robbery of the 100-million-dollar painting, the “San Giorgio Maggiore Soleil Couchant”. The film addresses Bordo’s modern feminine and masculine gaze to target a wide range of adult audience.

    Read More

  • The Male Gaze: A Feminist Analysis

    376 Words  | 1 Pages

    By focusing on the production of Absent through the lens of a feminist spectator it is possible to clarify the effect of immersive spectatorship on the male gaze. Feminist spectatorship entails readership of a performance against the dominant ideology to exhibit how a performance address the ideal white, straight male spectator. Typically, performances will “employ culturally determined gender codes that reinforce cultural conditioning.” These representations encourage the male spectator to identify with a male hero, while both women in the production and as spectators are passive. For example, the Duchess has no agency in her story. Every news articles refers to her not as her own person, but as an ex-wife. Every aspect of her narrative is

    Read More

  • Male Gaze

    1329 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...e writers whom have different thought processes on this male gaze. Laura discusses the psychoanalysis view and Mary discussed the scholarly view, therefore commenting on today’s society.

    Read More

  • Male Gaze

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    The idea of male gaze in cinema is best addressed by Laura Mulvey in her article “Visual Pleasures and the Narrative Cinema”. One idea she looks at is the notion that women are related to the image, and men assume the role as bearer of the look. She quotes “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” The traditional exhibition role is what Sarah Polley must overcome in order to express female and national identity in a position of strength. In order to do this she must alter some the traditional constructions associated with the gaze in cinema to bring in order to critique the gaze that is male.

    Read More

  • The Female Gaze Analysis

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    What exactly is the Female Gaze? The Female Gaze can easily be defined by three statements. Firstly, women have control of the viewpoint (in other words “Do the looking”). Secondly, the women control and enjoy their bodies and sexuality. Thirdly, the female body emphasizes maternal function, strength, and power. However, while discussing Real Women Have Curves (for the selected scene) I would only like to use the first two.

    Read More

  • Essay On Berger's Concept Of A Male Gaze

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over the years, the world has seen dramatic changes in the way both men and women are categorized and pushed into man made constructs of what it means to be masculine or feminine. But to what extent have these changes impacted the world today? With 3rd wave feminism in the midst, Berger’s concept of a male gaze is challenged to a whole new degree through ideas such as the reclaiming of the kitchen, which will later be explored in this essay. Through the two chosen media texts, I will analyze these changes and contrast how men and women’s roles were depicted in the 50’s as opposed to now.

    Read More

  • Medical Gaze

    2119 Words  | 5 Pages

    It was made popular by feminist and film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975 in her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Mulvey a Professor of film and media at the University of London introduced the ‘second wave feminist’ which is a concept that focused and studied the “Male gaze”. The concept features a gender power that is located within the film, media and the art world. Even though earlier studies of the gaze could be found within other academics works, Mulvey has been acknowledged for bringing this theory to the forefront of both academia and feminist movements. Mulvey believed that women were being objectified within and by the use of film due to the fact that the cameras were being controlled by ‘heterosexual men’, this meant that Hollywood films were playing at being voyeuristic. Later, this concept became an influential theory within feminist films and media studies as well as

    Read More

  • Laura Mulvey's Narcissism Paper

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Woman…[are] bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning not maker of meaning” (Mulvey 1). Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist who wrote a psychoanalysis paper called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, believes that the gendered gaze, a symbolic theory that holds that men drive society while woman act as mere “provoking” objects to men, is beginning to take hold of society and everyday life. John Berger, who interestingly enough wrote his book, Ways of Seeing, two years before Mulvey’s paper, explains how “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at… thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 47).

    Read More

  • The Male Gaze

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    The main male character, Christian Grey, displays this instinct of scopophilia in the opening scene of the movie (3:07-9:00). Freud described this instinct as, “taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze,” (Mulvey 59). In this scene, the audience gets its first look into the deep scopophilic gaze of Christian Grey.

    Read More

  • Gender Stereotyping: The Negative Impacts Of Gender Stereotypes

    1497 Words  | 3 Pages

    Men and women were not seen as equal human beings; instead it has been obvious that men were more likely to be on the upper hand. In 1987, it has been recorded that 2/3 of the people who were presented in the media were male. However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence, especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable, perfect physical standards (Gill 2015).

    Read More

  • Eye Tracking Essay

    1626 Words  | 4 Pages

    A technique of recording eye position and movements is called oculography. There are four methods to track the motion of the eyes.

    Read More

More about Male Gaze Essay

Open Document