Yes, there’s such a thing as a ‘female gaze.’ But it’s not what you think.
The camera hungrily lingers on Megan Fox’s bare midriff in Transformers. You remember that scene? (Of course you do). There’s an establishing shot of an unnamed, topless stripper in [insert mob movie, buddy comedy or heist flick here]. Like clockwork. That jiggly blonde holding a cold one in the light-beer commercial? Every single time.
You don’t have to be a women’s studies major to be familiar with “the male gaze” — a concept coined by British film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975 to explain the objectification of women in Western media — you just have to have eyes.
The male gaze is so ubiquitous it’s taken for granted and once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see it. But there’s a new media buzzword emerging — “the female gaze” — and it’s much trickier to define. That’s a good thing. Here’s why.
Women only account for 2 percent of producers, 19 percent of executive producers, 16 percent of editors, 11 percent of writers, 11 percent of directors, and 4 percent of cinematographers. Last year, just 24 percent of protagonists in the 100 highest grossing films were women.
The overrepresentation of men in the industry means most characters on screen are male, and they’re usually surrounded by elements that appeal to, well, male audiences.
Even when filmmakers try to avoid presenting female characters as “mere” sexual objects by giving them complex backstories, a male gaze is still the norm. When Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson, was first introduced in Iron Man 2, she was nothing more than a femme fatale (“I want one,” Tony says after meeting her) before her character was (finally) explored in the subsequent Avengers movie. We were spoon-fed a shallow, sexy depiction. Never mind Romanoff already had a fascinating, built-in backstory from the comic books. Yes, it’s true in later films she became a fully-fleshed out character. But this happened by accident, because the mostly-male Marvel writers recognized audiences were intrigued by Romanoff’s character and could capitalize on that—not because turning her into a real, human woman had been their clever plan from the start.
The worst of the worst is Meghan Fox’s character Mikaela in Transformers. In the script, she clearly has a backstory. We learn her dad is in jail for stealing cars (she has a criminal record herself), and she’s not taken seriously by any of the men in her life, despite her mechanical skills. Nonetheless, she’s able to use her bravery and know-how to prove people wrong and even get her record expunged. As YouTuber Lindsay Ellis explains, she should have been in the main protagonist — at least, on paper. Sadly, on film, Michael Bay spends so much time ogling her with his camera that we forget she’s a human being.
There’s the knee-jerk argument that insists both men and women are objectified on screen. Fine. But this doesn’t consider how consistently women are presented as sexual objects. The Hawkeye Initiative does a great job of showing us how unusual it is to see male superheroes overtly sexualized in the way female superheroes are, by simply swapping female characters’ poses with male ones.
Okay, you say. I get it. So, if the male gaze objectifies women, then the female gaze must be the mirror opposite — right? Bring on the close-ups up rippling pecs and washboard abs. We’re finally free to objectify man-parts with wild, feminist abandon!
Er, not quite. The answer is a bit more complicated.
The “female gaze” isn’t about asserting female dominance on-screen. And it doesn’t mean that therefore we get to “man-jectify” men in reverse. (Magic Mike XXL, while a cinematic masterpiece to some, is not a good example of the female gaze in practice).
That’s because the male gaze isn’t just about objectifying women. A male perspective doesn’t have to mean women are objectified (even though, the majority of the time, this is true).
It’s a way to explain a limited male view, where the rest of the characters exist mainly to serve him, his interests, and his storyline.
In 2016, Transparent and I Love Dick creator Jill Soloway spoke about the challenge of defining the female gaze at the Toronto International Film Festival. She argued that the female gaze is really about using the presence of a female perspective on screen to emphasize the story’s emotions and characters.
If the male gaze is all about what men see, then the female gaze is about making the audience feel what women see and experience. Crazy, right?
The problem with defining the female gaze is that it’s often defined by what it doesn’t show, what it refuses to linger on.
Take Marvel/Netflix’s superhero, Jessica Jones. Unlike most female heroines, we never get a head-to-toe, camera pan scene of Jones (Krysten Ritter) wiggling towards the camera in a post-makeover, skin-tight dress, ready to seduce an unsuspecting male foe with her feminine wiles.
Nor does the audience witness her rape firsthand, despite the fact that her PTSD from the trauma is a major part of the narrative.
“[We] have this rich, complex female lead and we are looking at what happened to her from her perspective,” explained series showrunner Melissa Rosenberg in an interview with Variety.
“We are looking at the aftermath of what happened to her from her viewpoint.”
Sexual violence against women is a very real issue. But the way it’s presented on screen, through a decidedly female gaze, is becoming more diverse and more nuanced than ever before.
In one disturbing scene of the dystopian Hulu series, The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) has forced, ritualistic intercourse in an act known as “the ceremony.” The scene depicts her lying on a bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, as the Commander (Joseph Fiennes) thrusts mechanically.
This is a rape scene. But it’s a far cry from the titillating, Law & Order-style scenes we’re used to. The frame is focused on her face, before panning blurrily downwards to her torso and legs. Her character disengages from what is happening to her. The camera direction forces us to feel and experience that moment with her.
We’ve still got a long way to go, but the once-ubiquitous male gaze is becoming less pervasive. In the era of #MeToo and #AskHerMore, women are speaking up — and their voices are being heard. And hopefully, with more female producers, directors, writers and filmmakers at the helm, there’s a greater chance that the female gaze will be prioritized and have a place in media.
