The Male Gaze

According to wikipedia, "the male gaze" is a concept used for 'analysing visual culture.. that deals with how an audience views the person presented". The male gaze can be traced back to Laura Mulvey & her essay on "visual pleasure & narrative cinema" which was published in 1975. This concept is the key to feminist film theory & has had a great influence since the mid 70s.

Key Points of Mulvey's original article

• Mulvey believed that most most main stream Hollywood films adopts the position of the male gaze. E.g camera shots lingering over legs, lips but do not follow the same rule when focusing on men. men are often presented as active & women as passive.
• She argued that particularly in classic Hollywood films women are merely represented to provide a visual pleasure to men & the audience is constructed in a manner where they are all expected to be men.
• She also argued that the typical key protagonist in a classic Hollywood film was a male & the audience members were typically expected to be men.

However, critics of Mulvey argue that there are popularity of patriarchal texts with both gender; many women are not bothered or even conscious of any male bias in film because most women want to be entertained, and therefore have no need to be empowered while watching a film.

As women's role changes in society, it also changes in terms of media representation. Women are still objectified but also likely to be ambitious, confident, intelligent & empowered. So, there has been some changes in the modern representation e.g in 'Kill Bill' (2003) Uma Thurman is represented as being powerful, dominant & independent. She adopts male characteristics of aggression & seen in masculine role.

Our teaser trailer is the antithesis of the male gaze. In a classic Hollywood film, it is expected to have the male as the protagonist but in our project 'Hannah' our main character is the protagonist. after losing 'Gus' the main character has desexualised herself, almost rejecting the concept of the male gaze.