Feminist film theory

• The Male Gaze
• The Female Gaze
• The Oppositional Gaze
• The Matrixial Gaze

1st wave - 1800s/1900s - 'Universal Suffrage'

2nd wave - 1960s/1980s - 'The personal is political'

3rd wave - 1990s - 'Feminists against censorship'

Post-Feminism

• Gender-Feminists
• Equity-Feminists
• Anti-Feminists

"Male Gaze" (1975) - 2nd wave

Laura Mulvey argues that Freud's psychoanalytic theory is the key to understanding how film creates such a space for female sexual objectification and exploitation through the combination of the patriarchal order of society and looking in itself as a pleasurable act.

 

Women dressed in high heels, no man, image of infants, tight fitting dress, hand-span is bigger than her waist, domestic environment and the title of the advert is description of the product, the hoover but also describes the look of the female being portrayed as well.

Women in center of the cover, portrayed as looking younger by the hairstyle and innocence by the expression, very girly with pink, flowers and lace.

Dichotomy:

image of wife or image of "whore" - revealing clothes, makeup and curvy.

Mulvey identifies 3 "looks"

• the male character on screen - and how he perceives the female character.
• the spectator - as they see the female character on screen.
• the male audience member's - perspective of the male character in the film.