Male Gaze Theory: What are you looking at?

 

Male Gaze Theory 

It was introduced by Laura Mulvey on 1973 in her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". It was based on how the audience view the subject (people) being presented. It further explained that Male Gaze has three main points: how men look at women, how women look at another women, and how women look at themselves.

The theory suggested that women are an object of desire and that viewers are forced to view the subject in a heterosexual man's perspective regardless of the gender. Audience may view the medium in two ways: voyeuristically and fetishistically. Viewers become the "voyeurs" of the film as they become the onlookers of the people on-screen or in print. This can lead to two effects: objectification and narcissistic identification. On the other hand, fetish occurs due to voyeurism. 

Male Gaze can be represented in so many ways. In cinema, the director or cameraman's interest in women imanifests in his shots which leads to a focus on the woman's breasts, legs, asses and other female body parts that can result to seduction on the viewer's part. Often times, hip hop music videos and advertisements (beer, perfume, etc.) use the Male Gaze. Historically, it has been contended Alfred Hitchcock, a film maker, objectified his female subjects, positioning them to merely arouse the audience.

Here are some videos that have applied the Male Gaze:

1. Hip Hop music video and the justification on how men look at women

 R. Kelly - I'm A Flirt

2. Pamela Anderson's sexiness and how it can make other women look at her body

Baywatch

Philippine Cinema: The Power of Sex and Women

Scorpio Nights (1985)

SEX - a three letter word that catches everyone’s attention in just a second. Sex and nudity may look “green” to the norms of the society, but it undeniably one of the fast selling and most trending theme in films. To some, sex films may be immoral and unethical, but to others such films are more than just for pleasure and entertainment. This blog is not going to discuss about sexuality, but rather trace the history and further discuss topics on sex melodramas on Philippine cinema.

Sex melodrama is a film genre that goes beyond Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze” theory. It emphasizes nudism as a way for women to express their sexuality and to celebrate their beautiful bodies through the act of giving pleasure. Contrary to Mulvey, women aren’t just sex objects and totally powerless but are seen as the active movers of the story. Women are often seen as victims, but sex melodramas go beyond this concept. Instead, women use circumstances to become better and to withstand the circumstance. Sex melodrama therefore is dissimilar to mainstream Filipino films which often see women only as sex workers, pathetic and disgusted with themselves.

Philippine sex films developed in the late 60’s to early 70’s. With the influence of sexual revolution from United States and Europe in the late 1960’s, Hollywood played a huge role on leaving an impact in Filipino films. Historically, 1970’s was the year when Martial Law took over the Philippine government. With that being said, Marcos signed Letter of Instruction No. 13 on September 29, 1972, approving censorship and banning of violent or pornographic films. This began the death of sex melodramas in the Philippine scene. However, it was revived on the year 2000 after American singer Tom Jones released his hit song “Sex Bomb”.

Viewing women as the protagonists, the sex melodrama studied how female sex workers used Michel Foucault’s perspective that “the body becomes a metaphor for individual freedom” (History of Sexuality). “Technologies of the self” is used by women to survive their situations. With their body as their capital for living, it is their protocol to take care or their health especially their bodies.

Morally speaking, sexual workers are out of the society’s norms, which is why the Philippine society agreed to the banning of sex melodramas. However, it would be a lot better if the authorities approve of not censoring or banning such films. As films could bridge the gap between the powerful and the powerless, social awareness would take effect among the people regardless of social status.

Thus, Philippine sex melodramas aim to go outside of the box. It breaks the conventional analysis on female protagonists portraying the role of a sex worker. Instead of seeing weakness among women, it sees women self-empowerment through their bodies and sexuality.

Examples of Philippine Sex Melodramas:

1. Uhaw (1970) 
2. Scorpio Nights (1985)
3. Burlesk Queen, Ngayon (1999)
4. Tikim (2000)

Perspectives on Apparatus Theory

A New Kind Of Mirror...

Paula Murphy's "Psychoanalysis and Film Theory Part 1: A New Kind Of Mirror" discussed on a specific topic on Apparatus Theory. It explained the role of Karl Marx and Louis Althusser, the contributions of semiotics, the debates surrounding apparatus theory and the gaze, and finally the input of feminism.   

This blog will emphasize more on Apparatus Theory and the views of Karl Marx, Apparatus theorists such as Jacques Lacan and Christian Metz, and Semiotics

WHAT IS APPARATUS THEORY?

Before further discussing on the different theorist's point of views, one must understand what Apparatus Theory is. According to Wikipedia, Apparatus Theory is derived partly from Marxist film theory, semiotics, and psychoanalysis. It was a dominant theory within cinema studies during the 1970s. It maintains that cinema is by nature ideological because its mechanics of representation are ideological. Its mechanics of representation include the camera and editing. The central position of the spectator within the perspective of the composition is also ideological. Apparatus theory also argues that cinema maintains the dominant ideology of the culture within the viewer. Ideology is not imposed on cinema, but is part of its nature. Apparatus theory follows an institutional model of spectatorship.

MARXIST FILM THEORY

Marxist film criticism is based on Karl Marx's theoretical ideas. Marxism argues that society is capatilist and that majority of people work for the rich. Simply, it is a conflict theory where the poor is powerless from the rich or elite. Hence, Marxist critics are wary of how cinema support dominant ideology. Cinema, as a new kind of mirror, attack ideology by discussing political subject, operate 'against-the-grain' subvert message through form, set out to attack but end up endorsing ideology, and appear to endorse ideology but show critique thru fissures and cracks.

PSYCHOANALYTIC FILM THEORY

Psychoanalysis influenced cinema during 1970's and 1980's. The theory analyzes films from the perspective of psychoanalysis, generally the works of Jacques Lacan. Lacanian film theory understands the gaze as it appears in the mirror stage and as it fucntions in the process of ideological interpellation. Interpellation takes place through ideological state apparatuses (ISA’s): family, religion, education, media, etc. That is, the gaze represents a point of identification, an ideological operation in which the spectator invests her/himself in the filmic image. Film is an imaginary deception, a lure blinding us to an underlying symbolic structure. The gaze is a fucntion of the imaginary, the key to  the imaginary deception that takes place in the cinema.

CHRISTIAN METZ AND SEMIOTICS

Metz is best known for pioneering the application of Ferdinand de Saussure's theories of semiology to film. He proposed that the reason film is popular as an art form lies in its ability to be both an imperfect reflection of reality and a method to delve into the unconscious dream state. Cinema, despite not being a langue if based in the Saussurian sense, is still considered a language. Metz defends that cinema can be viewed in a lingustic point of view. He emphasized that cinema is a duplication of reality. Though intercommunication does not take place in cinema, Metz explained that natural language could be likened to narrative syntax of cinema. His analysis has further made an clearer view upon understanding a film's construction.

“The study of the cinema as an art – the study of cinematographic expressiveness – can therefore be conducted according to methods derived from linguistics...through its procedures of denotation, the cinema is a specific language” - Metz, Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema (1974)

We watch film and the way we perceive everyday reality are fundamentally similar, in that both are determined by conventions or codes. Reality is itself a complex system of signs interpreted by members of the culture in exactly the same way as cinema. According to semiotic theory, signs are everywhere and everything is a sign - words, images, sounds, and absence of them - in short, anything from which some meaning may be generated. 

Structuralism and Semiotics

STRUCTURALISM: Defined.

1.  a theoretical paradigm in sociology, anthropology and linguistics positing that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. - (Wikipedia) 
2. the name that is given to a wide range of discourses that study underlying structures of signification. Signification occurs wherever there is a meaningful event or in the practice of some meaningful action. Hence the phrase, "signifying practices." A meaningful event might include any of following: writing or reading a text... - (John William Philips) 
3. the doctrine that structure is more important than function

STRUCTURALIST FILM THEORY 

Basically, it emphasizes how films convey meaning through the use of codes and conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication. Structuralism looks at a film or any other "text" as a signifying system, a set of patterns or relationships within the work. The meaning of a work (or a body of work) comes not so much from inherent meanings of its individual elements, as from how they interrelate within a "formal system."

Ferdinand de Saussure & his contribution

 Structuralism first comes to prominence as a specific discourse with the work of a Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed a branch of linguistics called "Structural Linguistics." There Saussure sought to provide the foundations for a modern linguistics, but he also proposed that the conceptual framework he developed might be applied to a general science of signs—"semiology." According to Saussure, Structuralist Film Theory refers to how films convery meanung through the use of codes & conventions not dissimilar to the way languages are used to construct meaning in communication.

SEMIOTICS: Definition, Origin, Proponent

 According to French literary critic and semiologist Roland Barthes, semiotics isn't a theory, a discipline, a school, nor a science but an "adventure". It is all about deciphering and interpreting both verbal and non-verbal signs. Semiotics (or Semiology) is defined as the study of social production of meaning from sign systems and it is the analysis that can stand for something else.

Barthes described the Semiotic Theory as the explanation of myth. He said that myth is the connotative meaning that signs carry whenever they go. Myth makes what is cultural seem natural. Furthermore, Barthes said that social meanings could be classified through clothes, lifestyle choices, and advertisement.

SEMIOTICS as a form of Structuralism

Semiology uses the concept of codes to discuss conventional ways that things are done in texts. Codes are cultural phenomena because they are learned.

There are various categories of codes:

1. Cultural codes include the way that texts signify, for example, beliefs about gender, social class, and authority. 
2. Technical codes, in film, describe the ways we have learned to "read" visual information, include such things as continuity editing, point of view and reaction shots, cross-shooting and over-shoulder shooting, dissolves, and montage. Technical codes involve both techniques of making movies and, for viewers, learned ways of seeing them. Technical codes have thematic implications as well: for example, a dissolve suggests a connection between two otherwise-unrelated images; a tilted composition suggests undertainty or danger.

Genre, Plot, Film Techniques: Relevance to Structuralist Film Theory

Genre, considered as a set of conventional patterns within a basic formula, is a particular focus of structural criticism. Plot structures (storylines such as the thriller, the falsely-accused man, young lovers overcoming obstacles to marriage, or the search for hidden treasure) are recurring story patterns and are often a defining characteristic of a genre. Structuralist theorists have also analyzed plot patterns found in fairy tales and other traditional narratives (such as the heroic quest or the sleeping beauty) as these appear in contemporary narratives. Film techniques such as subjective (point-of-view) shooting can also be analyzed as structural elements.

 

Cinema: The Ultimate Pervert Art

"I know it's a fake, but nonetheless I allow myself to be emotionally affected."
- Slavoj Žižek

Everyone enjoys watching a movie, but Zizek wants us to take a closer look when watching films and how it directly manipulate the emotions of the audience. In The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, Zizek main focus were desire and appearance.

He explains that cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It will never give us what we desire, but will only tell us how to desire. Zizek emphasized that desires are learned. We learn them from watching which is why films give an emotional impact to the audience. Also, what people don't realize is they continue to watch films and see the things they can’t possibly have.

With the help of Freud's Theory of id, ego, and super ego, Zizek was able to incorporate it to his description of films and their connection to desires. The audience, like every individual, has their super ego and their ego attempting to correct their behaviors and avoid the id as much as possible. Say for an instance you're watching a horror or thriller film. You are exactly aware of what will happen and yet still get shock by it.

Appearances, on the other hand, deal with a complicated relationship between reality and illusion. There should be a reality within the illusion. Film is all appearance and what the audience sees. Fantastical types of scenes create a deep emotional response from the audience.

The mystery of films is that even if we know that it's only it fictional, it still fascinates us. And that's what makes films magical. You get to see a certain adventurous scene, then you get to learn that it's only a stage machinery behind, but you are still fascinated by it. Illusion is persistent. There is something real in the illusion, more real than in the reality behind it.