Male Gaze Research Articles

The Collapse of the Male Gaze in the Cinema of Bahram Beyzaie: The Crow and Maybe Some Other Time

Abstract This article explores the correlation between two of Bahram Beyzaie's films and Laura Mulvey's theories on the male gaze. The films in question are The Crow (Kalāgh, 1977) and Maybe Some Other Time (Shāyad Vaqti Digar, 1987). This article delves into the films’ narrative structures, revealing a subtle yet significant shift in the dynamics of power and gaze. Initially, both films appear to conform to conventional representations of male dominance, establishing a seemingly patriarchal landscape. However, as the narratives unfold, a gradual transformation occurs, subverting conventions of the male gaze. By employing Mulvey's framework, this article deciphers the interplay between Beyzaie's cinematic language and Mulvey's theoretical underpinnings, highlighting Beyzaie's role in deconstructing patriarchal structures and crafting a more nuanced portrayal of gender relations.

Legally Blonde Male Gaze and Gender Equality

Abstract: The male gaze and equality between men and women is a problem that society is improving but still not fully solved, and it is also a hot topic that many people are concerned about. In daily life, many women feel afraid and panic more or less because of the gaze of men, and often feel that they do not enjoy the same treatment and equal rights with men in daily life. Film is a medium of emotional expression. It will reflect many realistic problems through the way of deduction, causing the audience to think and give positive guidance. From the perspective of feminism, this paper interprets the issues of male gaze, stereotype and gender equality, as well as the reflection of these issues in the real society, from the dialogue, action and plot relationship of the characters in Legally Blonde and analyzes the method and process of the heroine Elle Woods' "counter-gaze" towards the male gaze. And the process of breaking stereotypes and growing up.

Steven Spielbergs The Color Purple and Realization of Female Characters

Abstract: This essay delves into the transformative power of female solidarity in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, with a focus on how the film uses the contrast between the male and female gaze to underscore the importance of Celies relationships with other women. The detailed exploration of cinematic techniques, such as camera angles and lighting, effectively highlights how Spielberg underscores the importance of these connections in Celies path to self-empowerment, which emphasizes these crucial connections and contributes to the narratives portrayal of Celies evolution from subjugation to self-empowerment. The essay argues that the male gaze in the film serves to objectify and diminish female characters, while the female gaze offers a path to empowerment, fostering empathy, mutual respect, and self-realization. Ultimately, the film is presented as a profound commentary on the strength of female solidarity in challenging and overcoming systemic oppression, with the bonds between women playing a pivotal role in Celies journey toward independence and liberation.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: Deconstruction of Female Identity

Abstract: Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a drama film directed by Cline Sciamma and starring Adle Haenel and Nomie Merlant. The film centers on the passionate love story between Heloise, a bride on the brink of marriage, and Marianne, the painter commissioned to create her portrait. This paper analyses the construction and deconstruction of female identity in Portrait of a Lady on Fire through the lenses of gaze theory and feminist identity theory. It begins by exploring Heloise's resistance to the objectifying male gaze, illustrated through her defiance against the passive model identity and her challenge to the myth of Orpheus, which traditionally casts women in powerlessness and rescue role. The paper then delves into the film's critique of the roles of wife and mother within the patriarchal, heteronormative family structure, drawing on Simone de Beauvoir's ideas in The Second Sex to further contextualize the film's feminist discourse. Through these analyses, the paper reveals how the film reimagines and challenges traditional female identities, offering a detailed and subtle portrayal of women's autonomy and identity.

A Voice of Liberty and Protest: Exploring Binodini’s Identity Crisis, Power and Self-discovery in Tagore’s Chokher Bali (A Grain of Sand)

The cultural icon and trail blazer of Bengali Renaissance Rabindranath Tagore has experimented successfully upon some great female protagonists in his fiction who have managed to curve a niche for themselves in world literature. A master artist, he has also depicted with his dexterously professional brushstrokes a host of highly progressive and brave female identities with a strong voice of protest against all prejudices of the contemporary backward and prejudiced Hindu communities as well as against all conservative forces of fate and society. Tagore has portrayed extremely meticulously some female voices, attributing them to the strength of motherhood, the beauty of the beloved, and the strong power of womanhood, allowing them to develop their own individual status and identity in a stereotypical, male dominated, and patriarchal Bengali society. This paper undertakes to explore Binodini, a finely crafted character in the Novel ‘Chokher Bali’ by Tagore, who battles over her identity breaks a fresh ground for her own, and emerges as an uncompromisingly assertive woman with a voice and brand of her own. It explores that she is not terrified by the severity of the male gaze or trodden down by the repression of the male centric society in her journey through liberty and blossoms an individual very sure of herself by breaking the image of the traditional Indian womanhood.

“I feel free and comfortable”: The Escape the Corset Movement in South Korea and the question of women's agency

Women's conformity to beauty standards are influenced not only by external pressures but also by internalized beliefs, creating some complex issues with regard to women's agency question. Considering the Escape the Corset Movement (ECM) in South Korea as a critical case, this study examines how female college students who loosely participated in the ECM articulate its impact on their daily lives, especially the extent to which they assess its role in their attainment of freedom, liberation, and independence from societal beauty standards. The findings suggest that young female students experienced heightened self-enlightenment and recognition of beauty ideals, as well as a sense of comfort and safety from societal expectations and the male gaze. However, the accounts of women's ambiguous and critical reflections on the perceived transformations also serve to indicate whether the movement has led to fundamental changes in the prevailing power dynamics of gender systems and social structures. We contend that a nuanced perspective on women's adherence to beauty standards should be integrated into scholarly discourse, as women's perceptions present a complex issue regarding their agency in conforming to or resisting societal beauty standards.

Negotiating Patriarchal Relationship: Representation of Subjectification in Doja Cat’s Woman (2021) Music Video

This study aims to illustrate the subjectification of women's bodies as one of the notions of postfeminist sensibility. Subjectification involves depicting women in a patriarchal setting as empowered individuals with agency, highlighting their reservoirs of strength and spheres of influence, challenging the perception of complete powerlessness. The object of investigation in this study is the music video by Doja Cat entitled "WOMAN" (2021), with a primary focus on examining the dynamic interaction among female talents within the context of the surrounding characters and environment. The author employs textual and visual analysis with qualitative methods and Fiske's Television Culture. In terms of theory, the analysis of the objects was supported by drawing upon Rosalind Gill's postfeminist sensibility. The study's analysis reveals that female talents, initially characterized by power and agency, faces a threat in the presence of patriarchy. This compels them to leverage their bodies and traditional roles as tools for negotiation. This study finds out that subjectification also can be an effort for women to negotiate patriarchal relationships as the bodies were used as tools to assert control and authority over the opposite sex without engaging as an object instead as a subject. This also counters the typical male gaze that makes women look passive or disempowered.

‘Shultsloze Ferpeynikte Neshomes’ – ‘Vulnerable, Tormented Souls’: Gendered Wounds, Sexualized Violence, and Jewish Masculinity in the Yiddish Testimonies of the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau

ABSTRACT This article focuses on an eyewitness account titled ‘Di 3000 Nakete’ – ‘The 3000 Naked Ones’ by Leyb Langfus, which is part of the Yiddish testimonies of the Sonderkommando. My case study aims to engage with the issues of gendered violence (sexualized, physical, psychological, and spiritual) and the male gaze. The article explores the dynamics between the male Sonderkommando members and the female prisoners, arguing that the men responded to the tormented women within the context of their Jewish masculinity. This response was ambiguous and contradictory, communicating their power as well as their despair and powerlessness. Narratives of Jewish masculinity during the Khurbm often neglect to evaluate the range of Jewish male victims’ responses and choices. In his text, Langfus aims to comprehend the mental and emotional conditions in which the Sonderkommando prisoners and the female prisoners found themselves, illustrating the interactions between the two groups. I argue that the Yiddish Sonderkommando testimonies exemplify the intricate and ambivalent nature of Jewish masculinity. They provide a complex example of how gender influences one’s understanding of acts of violence, including the roles of both perpetrators and victims. The responses of the Jewish male Sonderkommando challenge our current perceptions and assumptions about Jewish masculinity during the Khurbm.

Ain’t I a Woman? A Look at the Beauty of Blackness Amid the Internalized Body Politic of Genteel Whiteness

Ain’t I a Woman? This question was raised by activist and self-emancipated former slavewoman Sojourner Truth, who validly questioned the body politic of identity when contextualized to perceptions of female personhood. Essentially, what Truth challenged were presumptions about the standards set to revere female bodies through markers of genteel Whiteness, while the worth of embodied Blackness, precisely the beauty of Black women, is reviled. In this article, I seek to raise awareness about factors of patriarchy and societal ramifications. Patriarchy is a systematized phenomenology of norms privileging the male gaze. The White male gaze, particularly in strongholds of power, influences the body politic of communal identity. Black women tend to lean on their faith to embody strength, yet patriarchy also encumbers the gendered body politic in religious spheres. As a womanist scholar, my analysis considers the intricate roles that patriarchy holds in the cultural production of a genteel, pretty woman image, wherein the aura of Whiteness grounds a body politic that deems Blackness as other. Despite the influences of prevailing macrosystems, I propose a theoethic of self-love to push against negatively biased identity boundaries by affirming ways to embrace Black beauty with a subversive imperative to love oneself regardless.

Reimagining the Classics: Feminist Perspectives on Canonical Texts

This paper explores feminist perspectives on canonical texts, reimagining classical literature through the lens of gender, power, and voice. “Canonical works have traditionally reflected patriarchal norms, often marginalizing or silencing female characters. Feminist literary criticism challenges these interpretations, offering new ways to understand these texts by reclaiming the voices of women and exposing the gendered structures embedded within them. Through the examination of key themes such as the male gaze, intersectionality, and the subversion of patriarchal norms, this paper seeks to demonstrate how feminist reinterpretations transform the reader's understanding of classical works. Case studies of iconic texts highlight how female characters are redefined, shifting from passive figures to empowered agents of change. The paper also considers the intersection of race, class, and gender in feminist critiques and how modern adaptations and retellings of canonical texts continue to challenge traditional narratives. By critically engaging with feminist theory and literature, this paper argues that these reimagined readings not only provide a more inclusive understanding of classical texts but also reveal their contemporary relevance in addressing issues of gender equality, empowerment, and social justice. This study contributes to feminist literary scholarship by deepening the dialogue between classical literature and feminist thought.

Inne kobiety: lethal lesbians i lesbian chic – oblicza i ewolucje wizerunku homoseksualnych kobiet w hollywoodzkich thrillerach lat dziewięćdziesiątych

The article showcases different images and aspects of lesbian characters in 1990s, with special focus on the media landscapes and Hollywood neo-noir thrillers. Stereotypical themes like lethal lesbians and their impact in American cinema are tied with early 90s trends of media portrayal of lesbian chic. The author also highlights the various restrictions of lesbian characters in mainstream cinema, that allows only the visually attractive images of homosexual body to be shown on the screen. Whole article also depicts evolutions of homosexual’s images in 90s media and cinema, the role of male gaze and society fears after the previous homophobic decade in these cultural constructions.

HYSTERICAL FEMININITY IN NICK JOAQUIN’S THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS

In this essay, I read Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels through the lens of feminist scholarship on the history and social construction of female hysteria. I argue that a critical intertextual reading of this sort affirms the heteropatriarchal foundations of popular ideations of the Philippine nation. I use Sara Mills’ Feminist Stylistics to draw attention to Joaquin’s discourse on women, specifically, hysterical women such as Connie Escobar. I argue that the discourse of the novel—its reliance on the stereotype of the hysterical feminine woman, its focalization through a male gaze, and its employment of the schemata of “women asking for it”—explains why readers find Connie Escobar’s inconsistent behavior and characterization not only plausible, but even subversive. However, reading the novel from the lens of feminist stylistics also reveals instances where the novel reinscribes patriarchal ideology. Any reading that views Connie as a metaphor for the Philippine nation must therefore confront the patriarchal ideology that informs this vision of the nation.

Unlearning the Aesthetics of Malicious Joy

Bodies that are gendered and sexualized through the male gaze appear frequently in the study of classical Arabic poetry, but learned reading practices predetermine how these descriptions are interpreted. These reading practices, which students learn to this day, are connected to a reception tradition that emerged to suit the logics and investments of premodern Arabic anthologies. A critical intervention, this article begins by comparing the presentation of saliva metaphors in erotic poetry to other bodily and relational unmentioneds through a discussion of taste, tradition, and training. In the second half of the article, the reception of a famous teaching text by Bashshār b. Burd (d. 783) is juxtaposed with the pedagogically invested criticism of the Egyptian critic Mohamed al-Nowaihi (d. 1980), who confronted the poem on ethical and presentist terms.

Correlating Symbolisms of Womanhood and Marriage in the Libretti of Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen and Berg's Lulu

AbstractVon heute auf morgen and Lulu, the twelve-tone operas of Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg, respectively, can be interpreted as works that sought to uphold a traditional formalism of Germanic opera construction amidst the post-Expressionistic aesthetics that the newer Zeitoper style strove to abolish. This new style aimed to popularize opera by embracing a new simplicity of contemporary values that discouraged the perpetuation of prior operatic dispositions. This dichotomy of old vs. new is presented in an analysis of the Von heute and Lulu libretti that traces their symbolic representation of womanhood and marriage from the male gaze, whereby an overlapping depiction emerges in both operas in their similar but varying treatment of these themes as parodies of their composers' time and the ongoing cultural conflict between moralities rooted in the past and non-conforming values that embrace modernized change.

Women and the Male Gaze in Nollywood Films

Women and the Male Gaze in Nollywood Films

A Poetics of the Desert: Nina Bouraoui’s Emancipatory Geography in Garçon Manqué

Comprising roughly eighty percent of Algeria’s land mass, the Sahara is a significant part of its geography. As such, it often makes an appearance in Francophone Algerian literature in various ways, including at the level of personal and collective identity. The desert is often juxtaposed with the sea, and the Mediterranean Sea more specifically, with the latter’s liquid borders separating Algeria from its former colonizer, France. The ever-changing surfaces of sand and seawater are ideal for talking about fluid, hybrid identities that are the product of lingering friction between the two nations, as is the case in Nina Bouraoui’s first autobiographical text Garçon manqué (2000). In her poetics of the desert, the author envisions a feminist, emancipatory geography where her textual self can find refuge from the hostility and violence of the male gaze as well as from constrictive gender and sexuality norms. Movement through the different geographical spaces that reflect her identity forces her to constantly confront the contradictions within it to eventually be able to come to terms, at least temporarily, with a feminine, homosexual self. This could not be possible without a solitude, or desertedness, necessary to come into writing that is also a coming into herself.

Superman, superwoman, or superhero? A thematic analysis of Reddit user discussions of female superheroes

ABSTRACT The superhero film genre has both hypersexualized women and offered potentially empowering social and cultural narratives. Drawing on feminist media studies and critical discourse analysis, this study analyzes themes in online Reddit discussions surrounding female superheroes in Black Widow to better understand how conversations about media representations maintain and subvert dominant gendered discourses. Throughout her portrayal in multiple movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow’s transformation highlights the shift from a hypersexualized female superhero to a complex character that breaks away from gendered stereotypes. Mirroring an incrementalist approach to social change, Redditors discursively constructed and invoked “realism” as a heuristic for their evaluations of diversified media representations. First, Reddit users centered White, Western women’s experiences in their posts about the film, confronting the trope that women exist as objects to be saved and sexualized by men. However, as they assumed that White, Western women’s struggles are universal, they ignored the intersectional relationship to oppression. Second, Redditors engaged in the male gaze to understand, perpetuate, and disrupt Black Widow’s historic sexualization. The study supports the claims that gender is performative and seemingly mundane conversations can function politically. We conclude with implications for theorizing future post-feminist discourse and methodological implications for researchers using Reddit data.

Evolution of Female Desire and Fantasy in Bollywood Cinema: Perspectives from Male and Female Directors in the Post-Liberalization Era

The camaraderie between cinema and fantasy has a prolonged story, as one escalates the other. Since echoes of 'sexual fantasies’ and ‘gaze’ in cinema have been primarily celebrated and fantasized through patriarchal prisms, Bollywood and female desire have historically been fraught with challenges. However, Bollywood cinema has lately been undergoing significant landscape twists by featuring female fantasies in a bold and progressive manner at the forefront of narratives. In light of this, drawing from theoretical perspectives on the male gaze and psychoanalytic feminism, this paper will examine the evolving representations of female desire, fantasy and sexuality in contemporary Bollywood cinema. Through a nuanced analysis of nine key Bollywood films from 1996 to 2023, this paper will compare male and female directors' approaches to the male gaze when depicting female desire and sexuality on screen, examining how filmmakers' personal perspectives shape cinematic portrayals. It will also consider how economic liberalization affected the representation of female sexual desires and fantasies in Bollywood cinema, emphasizing the intersection of culture, economics, and gender in Indian popular culture. To conclude, this paper will illuminate how Bollywood cinema has become a powerful platform for the exploration of female desire and fantasy, serving as a catalyst for social change and challenging conventional gender norms in contemporary Indian society.

From Instagram to Society: The Impact of Social Media on Female Self-Sexualization

The proliferation of social media has facilitated extensive discussions on various social issues, with feminism being a particularly prominent topic of interest. Social platforms have not only provided individuals with the means to share their opinions on gender equality, but they have also, to some degree, fostered a greater comprehension and consciousness of feminism among the general population. Facilitated by internet communication, the evolution of societal perspectives has led to a transformation in our perception of gender roles, resulting in the increasing integration of feminism into mainstream discourse. This article examines the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of female self-sexualization in the context of social media in the United States. This study utilizes an extensive examination of existing literature to investigate the relationship between internalized gender discrimination, which is experienced through platforms like Instagram, and the male gaze. The investigation reveals that social media serves as a platform that mirrors and intensifies preexisting gender stereotypes, promoting women to conform to limited ideals of attractiveness and conduct.

Confronting the Gaze of the “Other”: A Feminist Interpretation of the Film Kim Ji-young: Born 1982

The film, Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 shows the survival predicament of the female groups under the context of the male gaze in South Korea and the persecution of females from the “other” in Korean society through the triggers of mental illness. It illustrates how females lose their voices under the Synopticon, adopting a strategy of internal focalization, which means the female groups may face a loss of power and be at a disadvantage in the social fields. The film tries to rationalize its narrative by constructing the image of one particular mental patient, and satirically highlighting the collective identity crisis among females caused by their low status, to starkly present a grand spectacle of the patriarchal siege on females in the Republic of Korea.