The male gaze theory

The Gaze

The gaze is a theory by Laura Mulvey who is a British feminist film theorist who was born  on August 15th 1941. She studied history at St. Hilda's, Oxford University but came to prominence in the late 1970's as a film theorist where she wrote theories for journals like ''Spare ribs and seven days'' but her must distinguished essay was a ''Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'' which put her into the public eye and helped her establish the gaze theory.

The male gaze is the theory that in all films where women play a part they are seen in the view of heterosexual males which means all the women there are to be looked at and admired they are not there to offer anything in terms of the main storyline, they are seen to be the possessions of the main character who is stereotypically male not the possessors. For example in all the James Bond films Bond always finds a ''Bond Girl'' which he has sex with then the girl normally the dies or we never see them again, Bond girls are an extension to the main character who is James Bond they offer no purpose to the film other than to be admired by the audience. 

 In many music videos there is the male gaze used and because of this many people can't answer these questions:

What colour top was she wearing?

What earrings did she wear?

What colour shoes did she wear?

What colour eyes did she have?

This is because the director of the film sexualises the video so that it appeals to the male audience and usually the female audience is not thought of. The way the director does this is by the camera lingers on the curves of the female body and parts of the face like lips if the camera doesn't linger then the singer wearing something or doing something to attract your attention to them (e.g. red lipstick) so this means that many people can't answer simple questions because there's no focus on them. This degrades these women to objects because the directors main aim is for them to be admired.