MALE GAZE THEORY

SOPHIE EJAIFE

WHAT IS THE ‘MALE GAZE’?• ‘Male gaze’ is a term coined by Laura Mulvey in

1975.• She wrote a very influential essay ‘Visual

Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’• In this, she stated that women are used for

visual pleasure, that they are made to seem like sexual objects.

MALE GAZE THEORY• The theory suggests that the audience are

positioned in a way to view characters in media from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

• The concept of gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented.

• Scenes will focus on the female attributes such as their beauty and their curves.

• However, it can only be considered to be the male gaze theory if there have been specific measures to highlight the female body in the music video.

FEMINISTS HAVE DIVIDED THIS CONCEPT INTO 3 WAYS:

How men look at women

How women look at themselves

How women look at other women

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EXAMPLES;• There are common conventions to use when

focusing on the female body.• This may include: Slow motion The camera lingering on the curves of the female• This can often distract the audience from other

factors in the video, making their sole attention be on the female.

• Therefore, this lowers women to the status of objects

MILEY CYRUS – ‘WRECKING BALL’

ROBIN THICKE – ‘BLURRED LINES’

NICKI MINAJ – ‘ANACONDA’