Throughout the decades, it is clear that media-based careers are male dominated, as is almost every other industry. Be it movies, television, books, art or even music, most people would agree that most of the media consumed is produced by men. Because from the beginning media was made by the 'cis' man for the 'cis' man so certain systems became central to how the media was produced and how it depicted men, women, trans people, etc. Filmmaker Laura Mulvey in her groundbreaking essay, “Visual pleasure in narrative cinema” (1975) coined the term 'Male gaze' and she defined it as “The perspective of a notionally typically heterosexual man considered as embodied in the audience or intended audience for films and other visual media, characterized by a tendency to sexualize women.”
Well, what is a gaze, really? [1] According to the psychoanalytic theory of French philosopher Lacan, “the gaze is the anxious state of mind that comes with the self awareness that one can be seen and looked at.”[1] Basically, to be looked at is anxiety producing as to be seen is to be vulnerable. It means the loss of autonomy. On the other hand, Sartre defined the gaze as “..the consciousness of being looked at.”[2] So Sartre and Lacan theorized the “gaze”- the anxious realization that you are being looked at by others- as the universal human condition, but Mulvey adapted it as a concept to describe a particular condition experienced by women under patriarchy.[1]
Here comes the idea of the female gaze as a sort of opposition to the male gaze but still not quite. Anybody can look, doesn’t matter whether it is male, female etc. but for a 'look' to be defined as 'gaze' it needs to reflect larger structures of power. With the gaze comes a clear power structure. The oppressive looks at the oppressed in such a way that the oppressed feels the anxiety of being looked at (and hence objectified) within this power structure.[1] Male gaze is about the political and ideological system, particularly the dominant patriarchal order in which it projects its sexual fantasy onto the female figure by assessing its to-be-looked-at-ness. Women tend to internalize the male gaze and perpetuate it too. This is called “double consciousness” where the oppressed internalizes the world view of the oppressor. This is also termed as “empty headed seduction” in the art world.[3] A quote by John Berger explains this point of double consciousness- “ Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at… Thus she turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision". [4]
The term “female gaze” was coined by filmmaker Joey Solloway in 2016. According to them, the female gaze is a way of “seeing feelings”. It allows viewers to not only see art, but to feel what the subject is feeling, whether the subject is male or female. The female gaze also shows the viewer how it feels to be the object of the gaze; being aware of 'our' place in the world, and how 'we' are perceived. However, it is interesting to note that according to Solloway, the female gaze does not exist in the media yet. There might be four possible definitions of the “female gaze”. Visual and narrative strategies for depicting men as sexual objects for consumption by heterosexual female spectators which is termed as the “reverse hypothesis”, visual and narrative strategies that represent the visual dimensions of female desire, visual and narrative strategies that are unique to female filmmakers (directors, cinematographers, screenwriters) or any combinations of the three.[1] Regarding the first definition of the female gaze, it is based on the ideology of binary gender which is the idea that women are the opposite of men. But we are all moving forward from that notion as a culture.[3] According to me, genders are not opposites. Cisgender people need to acknowledge the existence of trans, non-binary and intersex people. So I think we need a concept more nuanced than just the antithesis of the male gaze. A better understanding of what we are searching is “a visual language to resistance to gendered oppression”.[3] This accounts for a more inclusive reading of the female gaze which will be liberating for men, women, trans and non-binary folk alike.
Iris Brey in her book “le regard féminin” (2020) states that “this female gaze exists. It is a gaze that allows us to share the lived experience of a female body onscreen” and “The female gaze proposes a way of desiring that is no longer based on asymmetrical power relations but instead on equality and reciprocity”. The pieces of media, according to me, break the pattern of storytelling through the “male gaze”, humanizes the characters and tells us stories through the “female gaze”: Lipstick under my Burkha (2016), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Birds of Prey (2019), Fleabag (2016-2019), Bridgerton (2020-), Lady Bird (2017), Pride and Prejudice (the book, the series and the movie), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and Little Women (2019).
For me, the “female gaze” just blurs the line between what is appropriately masculine and appropriately feminine. It looks at people as they are. It is not afraid of demolishing the practice of justification of unnecessary sexualization of the female or male body by “othering” it. It takes into account the feelings of the object being gazed at and is respectful of them. I also believe that it’s immensely important for more and more films to explore the female gaze with respect to camera work, directing and screenwriting because it introduces more diverse vices that are often overlooked in the entertainment sector.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkHAGJIoKHI
2. ‘Being and Nothingness”, Jean-Paul Sartre
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QVi1yfs8N8&t=3370s
4. Ways of Seeing, John Berger(1972)
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