Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze Theory Essay

Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze Theory

Laura Mulvey: Representation of women as sexual objects
The Male Gaze Theory:

Laura Mulvey’s theory focuses on “Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Her studies are based on how women are viewed as sexual objects initially in Hollywood films.

The concept of women as sexual objects is also evident in media texts today.

The male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may focus on the curves of a woman’s body, putting you in the eyes of a male.

The theory suggests the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating women to the status of objects.

The male gaze (in the eyes of feminists) is seen in three ways, these include:

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

How men look at women is linked with things such as:

• Focus on the woman’s curves
• Focus on sexual features
• They look at women as sexual objects
• They don’t always value women as a valid role

How women look at themselves is linked with things such as:

• They are negative about themselves
• They pick faults with their own appearance
• They give themselves low self esteem
• They feel inferior
• They compare themselves to an unrealistic role

How women look at other women is linked with things such as:

• They look at other women to shape their identity
• They look at what they like from other women and try to construct an identity based on that
• They compare themselves to other women to create and  ideal version of themselves

These three ways can be linked to the way in which Megan Fox is portrayed in the first Transformers movie. In a certain scene with Shia La Bouf, she is getting out of a car which has broken down and opens the bonnet of the car looking at the engine the cinematography and camera angles show her body in a way which is attracting to men and showing off her sexual features such as her waist, her bottom, her breasts and her face. This is linking to how men look at women but not only will men look at this women will see this and look at themselves to pick out their negative faults and feel inferior. This scene also links to the last point which is how women look at other women because women who look at her will try to construct their identity to look like her thinking that is what men want and they would like to be wanted in that way as well.

Mulvey’s theory can also be linked with the music video ‘scouting for girls: Isn’t she lovely’. In this music video it begins with a woman’s legs with red shoes. Everyone knows that a woman’s legs have always been shown in movies or music videos in order to link a woman with being attractive however the red shoes are also there in order to draw male attention. We know this because shoe designer Christian Louboutin created the sole of his shoes too be bright red because as he says "Men are like bulls. They cannot resist the red sole" therefore completely linking the way men look at women in a sexual way to the beginning of this video being a girl in bright red shoes. 

The Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

•a website homepage for the band;

•a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

•a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).