Blinding the Male Gaze
"You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur."
- Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride.
Ever since its inception, the film industry has been dominated by the male gaze.
The term was first coined by the art critic John Berger and was adapted by British feminist and filmmaker Laura Mulvey in her 1973 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" to apply specifically to film theory.
The act of depicting women as sexual objects for the delight of the cis heterosexual male observer in the visual arts and literature is known as the Male Gaze.
The cinema, the advertising industry, social networks, television and the fashion industry, all contribute to the eroticization of women's bodies as objects for corporate profit.
This concept is not just about how women (and their bodies) are depicted as overtly sexualized objects of male desire, but also how this gaze, whether it's directed at them or others, makes women feel about themselves and other women.
These issues just end up lying dormant in some dark regions of the minds of the masses. However, that doesn't mean that these issues aren't at play - be it consciously or subconsciously.
Hyper sexualising female characters is a common practice across the global film industry.
Picture this: The camera pushes in. The lens slowly pans up the actress's body starting from her long, slender legs, pausing slightly at her hips before finally showing her face. This fragmented framing of women's body parts sexualizes women and paints them as objects to increase the media appeal.
One thing that most high grossing bollywood movies have in common are the ‘Item number'.
(‘Item’ here means an object - used to refer to an objectified female.) These are not part of the narrative, and usually have no relevance to the movie plot.
Having a gang of men staring lasciviously at the woman appears to suggest that such predatory behaviour of men is acceptable. And while the decision of whether these are liberating or derogatory, is best left to the performer, the problem lies in the term 'item' diminishing their value to a mere object in the name of entertainment.
Time and again, we come across female film characters whose main purpose in driving the plot seems to be to feed the sexual interest of the male characters. Even police detectives are shown wearing heels and tight dresses, even though they might have to chase a suspect, and while they may be shown in a variety of contexts, their primary motivation rests on being the helper, eye candy, or romantic interest.
Sexualised advertising has become a particularly potent method of disseminating the reach of the male gaze. Think of the many irrelevant fragrance (or just about any other product) advertisements with scantily-clad women drooling over men applying the perfume. These advertisements display gratuitous nudity despite being utterly irrelevant to the product being advertised.
As revolutions go, it’s not that women are not being objectified as much today, now it’s just objectification for all.
Discussion about male gaze begs the question: What about the female gaze? Does it not exist? What about the close-ups of ripped pecs and washboard abs?
One would be remiss to deny the presence of a (heterosexual) female gaze.
However, the parallel assumption would be that the heterosexual female gaze objectifies the male body. Granted, the heterosexual female gaze can become problematic with the rise of male sexual objectification, but owing to the majority of male directors in the film industry, the male gaze is more prevalent. The female gaze is a concept in its infancy and is not detrimental in the same way as the male gaze.
In contemporary usage, female gaze refers to the perspective of a female filmmaker and spectator that sees women as subjects and not objects. It sees people as people. The female gaze does not aim to forbid desire and sex but to show that these can be portrayed without objectification. It seeks free movement of men and women between the position of subject and object, and not to objectify men just as women have been.
With change in women's role in the society, the media representation has also changed. While gender discrimination and harmful stereotypes still dominate on screen, nonetheless, women are more often shown as career driven and empowered.
The once ubiquitous male gaze is becoming less prevalent with time and even though it's still not a perfect world, we're getting there.
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