Male Gaze

Representations

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The Gaze
     - The Gaze is a technical term in film, which comes from the 1970's, and it refers to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium.
     - The 'Male Gaze' can be described as feminist reference to the voyeuristic way in which men look at women.

Forms of Gaze:
- Spectators (us)
- Intra-diegetic (extra-diegetic) (Within)
- Direct Address (looking out)
- Look of the camera (in place of the man)
- Bystander
- Audience within a text

The Fourth Wall:
- This is the direction in which the actor looks when trying to engaging with the audience. When the actor looks out to the audience, it breaks the fourth wall.

Direction of Gaze:
- Aimed towards others
- Aimed towards objects
- Aimed towards the reader or camera
- Aimed to the 'middle distance'

The Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey (Professor of Film & Media Studies)
- A quote from Laura Mulvey's book in 1975, "Visual pleasure & narrative cinema"
- Active male / passive female
- 'Woman as image' / Man as 'bearer of the look'
- Voyeuristic (takes pleasure from seeing someone (body))
- Fetishistic

Criticisms Laura's theory:
- Failure to account for a female spectator
- Looks at teh spectator as being a heterosexual male
- Since 1980's - increasing sexualisation of the male body