The Male Gaze

For me to understand why women are portrayed in the media as they are, I have learnt about the male gaze.

 

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist, who currently is professor of Film and Media Studies and Birkbeck, University of London. She is best known for her essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' which was published in 1975.  This, as I have learnt, was during a peek of second wave feminism. I have just read her essay, and although it has left me a little confused, I understand the general concepts she was trying to grasp.

'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Woman displayed as sexual object is the leit-motif of erotic spectacle.'
(Mulvey, L. 1975)

Mulvey introduced us to the term 'male gaze'. In her essay, she uses psychoanalysis to explore our fascination with the human form, the pleasure of looking and how women are represented as image vs. men as 'bearer of the look'. Gaze refers to how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. Mulvey references Freud in her essay, mentioning his three essays on sexuality. From this she states how as soon as we pass the mirror stage as a baby (the first time we recognise our reflection as ourselves in that moment, not someone else) we start to develop identification with ourselves and others. We rapidly learn an 'ego ideal'. From this stage, we interpret our surrounding media as taking other people as objects and subjecting them into a curious and controlling gaze.
Scopophillia is a term that Mulvey uses. I needed to look up the definition as I did not recognise this word.
(the obtaining of sexual pleasure by looking at nude bodies, erotic photographs, etc.'
(The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary)

Mulvey talks about two different types of scopophillia. One in which looking itself is a source of pleasure and, in reverse, there is a pleasure in being looked at. I don't believe that everyone is necessarily aware of a sense of pleasure both actively and passively, but I understand what she means. It reminds me of Berger's well known quote 'Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at', which I have already quoted in this blog. I don't like to criticise what Berger said, as I do feel that some women do enjoy being looked at. Everyone is different, but women should receive the choice of whether or not they feel comfortable being the object of someones gaze. Unfortunately, in our post-patriarchal society, this is not always the case. Mulvey believed that to watch a film, the audience must view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. I understand she explored this idea within cinema, but I feel the male gaze is moulded to control most other areas of the mass media; television, advertisements, magazines etc.

I do believe that not all gaze is sexual. Gaze can be a comparison of body image, or admiration, whether this is the conscious mind or not. This kind of gaze shapes our self-worth and is how it does the most damage, I feel.