Mulvey- The Male Gaze
Above are some notes that I have collected while researching into Laura Mulvey and her theory of the 'Male Gaze'. This theory explains how, on screen, female characters have their bodies fragmented by the camera because they are only cast to satisfy a heterosexual male audience. This means that women in film essentially have their identities stripped and are pushed down to the status of an object, it also means that women in audiences are unable to relate to film because it has been shot from a male perspective. Consequently women view themselves and other women from the perspective of a male.
Although a lot of Mulvey's theories can be applied to cinema today, there has been change in the way that women are portrayed in the media and men even seem to be getting some of the same objectifying treatment that has been placed upon female characters for decades. These changes are significant and women are being given stronger and more independent roles in a lot of cases, however the male gaze is still somewhat present in all forms of media.
"In Mulvey’s writing, it is always the character that is doing the looking who holds the power, as opposed to the character being looked at, and for Mulvey, the ensuing gender divide is clear. What is interesting to look at are films such as Magic Mike, in which the male characters are unapologetically objectified and are there to be looked at. However the men, most of whom are strippers, exude a confidence in their sexuality: there is a power in the portrayal that is not often seen in overt depictions of female sexuality and sexual attractiveness onscreen.
Mulvey argued that men are rarely placed in the blatantly objectified roles as is so often seen with women, which is becoming less true. Nowadays there are more and more examples of men onscreen in flagrant exhibitions of sexuality – turning to television, one only has to look at Aidan Turner’s role in Poldark that caused such a stir in 2015. His shirtless scything scene – which won the Radio Times poll of Best Television Moment of 2015 – has an edge that you do not often find with female characters. It almost feels like an inside joke: the show is aware of the effect Turner will have, and there is a power in the ownership of that. Yes, it is blatant objectification, but because the character is fully written and does not exist purely to be looked at, the power remains in his hands."
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