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
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