Laura Muvley Male Gaze Theory

Brief synopsis of Laura Mulvey
Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist born on august 15th 1941. She was educated at St Hilda's college, Oxford. She is currently a professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck University of London, but has previous experience working for the British film institute.

What is the Gaze?
The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how audience views the people presented.

Mulveys main theory is called 'the male gaze', this was to show that the female actresses in the 50s and 60s were to be looked at (to-be-looked-at-ness).
She suggests there are 2 modes of the male gaze of these era, 'voyeuristic', for example seeing women as 'whores' and 'fetishistic' seeing women as Madonnas.
The theory is to show that women were there to be seen and to entice men into the film.

For feminist it can be thought of in three ways:
How men look at women
How women look at themselves
How women look at other women

Laura Muvley coined the term `Male Gaze` in 1975. She believe that in film audiences have to `view` characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

Features of the Male Gaze
The camera lingers on the curves of the female body and events which occur to women are presented largely in the contents of a man’s reaction to these events.

Relegates women to status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.

For example I found this clip of a music video on a webpage referencing the Male Gaze Theory by Laura Mulvey.
Scouting for girls- she so lovely

“I love the way she fills her clothes
she looks just like them girls in vogue”


Also The 'male gaze' theory can be applied to contemporary music videos particularly in genres such as rap and pop. Here is an example of voyeuristic tactics used to entice men into watching the candy shop video by 50 cent:

Watch the clip and identify how many references are made towards the Male Gaze?

Use of the Male Gaze Theory in everyday life
Some theorist have also noted the sexualizing of the female body even in the situations where female sexiness has nothing to do has doing to do with the product being analysis.

Criticism of Mulvey and the Gaze theory
Some women enjoyed being `looked` at e.g. beauty pageants.
The gaze can also be directed towards members of the same gender for sexual reasons, not all of which are sexual, such as in comparison of body image or in clothing.

Key theorist beliefs
Jonathan Schroeder (1998) “to gaze implies more than to look at- it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze.”