Laura Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory

Throughout both courses, I have found it beneficial to study how different social groups are presented through media. Therefore our work in Miss Brown's lesson on the study of social groups can cross over into our research because by featuring social groups we are also commenting on the whole group. Therefore we could wither follow or avoid generic conventions in order to change or follow the stereotypes of the groups we feature. Here I took a look at the theory of the 'male gaze'; a theory which comments on gender and how it's represented in film-making.

Laura Mulvey was a theorist who studied and compared how both genders (male/female) are represented in society. She argued that men often think of themselves as the more dominant and important of the two genders. Most importantly, Mulvey constructed the theory that men aim to create a society where women are of a lower dominance and males are supreme.

After looking at many film clips from various film genres it was made clear that this theory does have strong proof. Most films featuring women represent them as more of a love interest or possession. To achieve this, directors commonly focus on the curves and sexual features of a woman with little action or responsability in achieving the re-equilibrium.

Mulvey's theory confirms this as she stated a womans role in a film is to:

• To be an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view.
• As an erotic object for the audience to view.

However, in some films a female is cast as the main protagonist, such as Kill Bill, where Uma Thurman plays an extremely dominant role - breaking some stereotypes Therefore the audience see her as more of a masculine character through the use of various conventions. Despite this, her character is treated like an object throughout the film to create realism in our society; even though she is not a typical woman, men continue to view her as weak. In effect, this only emphasises the directors point that women should not be treated as weaker or less dominant and that women are often misjudged in society.