Understanding Male Gaze: Visual Pleasure In The Male-Dominated Industry

Cinema is voyeuristic; and so are movies that portray women through a heterosexual-male gaze.

Today, I would like to tell you about how we perceive female characters in cinema and how the movie industry dehumanizes and objectifies female body. And believe me, once you learn about male gaze, there is no turning back.

Let's first learn what the male gaze is and break down our argument into pieces.

Male gaze basically refers to the visual pleasure that a heterosexual male gets from creating and looking at the women character that he has portrayed or has observed. This pleasure may stem from various female archetypes depending on the choice of the writer and director.

When we dive deeper into the society that we live in and explore the dynamics of gender relations based on industries and companies, we will see the structures that shape the visual codes of the characters. Movie industry, or industries in general, is male-dominated and influenced by patriarchal structures. It consequently revolves around the narcissistic and inequality-promoting values of patriarchal norms.

What I mean is that patriarchy, as you know from basically every aspect in your daily life, places women in a lower position than men and perpetuates inequality of the sexes. And in the movie industry, this aspect is studied through gaze theories and the act of character writing and development.

Ever since the 'dawn' of movie industry, there have been hundreds and thousands of movies where we have been introduced to women with different body images, different styles, backgrounds and ethnicities. Yet, there was always something common in movies that portrayed women from male gaze, and it was the objectification of women through male gaze.

The term male gaze was first coined in an essay by Laura Muller, titled 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' where she explained the patriarchal society and its way of organizing the passive and active roles played by the sexes. She studied the gaze theory that structured Hollywood and declared that men either sexualize the submissive woman or the dangerous femme fatale.

There are a lot of archetypes that show women through the eyes of a male, yet the common thing is the distinctively created power dynamics of sexes. This power dynamic demonstrates men as active, strong providers and women as erotic objects that might either cause trouble for the man, or submissively serve for his good.

Regardless the 'drastic' changes happening in contemporary cinema, male gaze is still present even in the most recent movies that are considered 'feminist'. For instance, imagine a female final girl that emerges alive as the last survivor of this catastrophic story. That final girl most probably has her nipples visible, her t-shirt is transparent, and she still looks too sexy to be considered as a genuine survivor.

Well, once you realize the truth, you will see that you have seen those movies that moved you with different eyes. Instead of worshipping and celebrating the scene, you will begin to see it from another perspective and watch the film critically as a spectator who understands the dynamics of the movie. By recognizing these patterns, you will see that cinema is literally both narcissistic and voyeuristic; relying on the visual pleasure that arives from looking at the beauty on screen.