Laura Mulvey was a famous feminist theorist whose main work on the ‘Male Gaze’ theory was conducted in the 1970s.
In basic terms Mulvey suggested that Hollywood films are made from a male perspective for a largely male audience. As a result, she theorised, these films tend to reinforce patriarchal ideology (the social structure where men have all the power).
The ‘Male Gaze’ is a term to describe the empowerment experienced by the male audience when they look upon female characters in the film. The male audience is empowered because the female character is objectified in either a voyeuristic or fetishistic way – in other words the audience is in the position of looking at the female character as an object of beauty or virtue, or as an object of sexual desire. Either way, the ‘gaze’ gives the audience power over the character primarily because the subject – it is assumed – does not know she is being looked upon, in the way a prey animal has less power than the predator watching them.
Terminology:
Identification – when the audience recognises an aspect of themselves in a character. This can be manipulated, for example through the use of POV or over the shoulder shots which force the audience to witness events from the perspective of a certain character.
Scopophilia – the pleasure of watching. The term suggests a certain sexual pleasure in watching something with social taboo, such as pornography, but also includes taking pleasure in watching horror films.
The spectator gaze – updating the theory to incorporate a wider demographic of audience than the heterosexual male assumed by the theory to begin with.
Intra-diegetic gaze – when one character looks at another character. Usually the audience is positioned to identify with the character who is in possession of the gaze. An example is this scene from Psycho: http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_315426&list=PL04F34CE35556C984&src_vid=I9mJ2oBONug&v=ghew-s2zPjE&feature=iv
Extra-diegetic gaze – when a character within the text looks out of the media text at the viewing audience.
How to apply this to your work:
- Don’t over-simplify the theory. Ask yourself:
- What is the power-relationship between audience and characters?
- Are the audience given power over the characters through ‘the gaze’? (Male gaze, spectator gaze etc)
- Are any of the characters objectified in any way?
- Are there any instances of the ‘intra-diegetic gaze’? What is the representational result?
- Are there any instances of the ‘extra-diegetic gaze’? Again – what is the result?
- Does the power-play between the characters and the audience have anything to do with gender?
