Research: Mulvey's Male Gaze

Mulvey's Male Gaze

Introduction

Mulvey's Male Gaze is known as how an audience view the woman presented. For feminists it can be thought of in 3 ways: 

• How men look at women 
• How women look at themselves 
• How women look at other women 

This basically means that the male gaze theory can apply to both males and females and is not biased to one. 

'Mulvey's Male Gaze (1975)

Laura Mulvey is a theorist who came up with the theory that an audience tend to 'view' characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. She also believed that men looked at women for visual pleasure, thus making the male 'active' and the female 'passive'.

However, in terms of criticism, it is argued that this theory neglects females and sexual orientations such as: gays, lesbians and bisexuals. Thus meaning that a females opinion is not taken into any consideration and only the males which can be seen as degrading and sexist, which can be true.

Furthermore, there are plus sides and positive comments towards this theory such as some women actually enjoying being in the video and feel a sense of empowerment with what they are doing e.g. beauty pageants. This shows that being e.g. a candy girl is not a negative thing to do as long as it is what a female loves and has a passion for doing. 

Conclusion

Within my genre, I feel that Mulvey's Male Gaze will be evident, this is because there will be attractive females featured in the video and the camera will pay some focus onto their assets. Then allowing a male to 'gaze' at and proving this theory correct. I am playing to represent the women used as 'candy girls'. This means they will be dressed in a provocative way in order to gain a male's attraction and lust for. This is because it will correspond to the narrative of the video.