The male gaze. Lara Mulvey.

The male gaze. Lara Mulvey. "visual pleasure and narrative cinema."

What is the gaze?
This can be thought of in 3 ways.
-How men look at women
-How women look at themselves
-How women look at other women.

Gaze and feminist theory.
- Laura mulvey coined the term 'male gaze' in 1975. She believes that film audiences have to 'view' characters from the perspective of heterosexual male.

Features of the male gaze
- The camera liingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a mans's reaction to these events.
- Relates women to the status of objects. the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identificaion with the male.

Criticism of the Mulvey and gaze theory.
Some women enjoy being 'looked' at e.g beauty pagents.The gaze can also be directed towards members of the same gender for several reasons, not all of which are sexual, such as in comparison of body image or in clothing.there are flaws in the arqument.

Analysis and pictures will be added at a later date due to internet loss.