The Male Gaze Theory

1. Laura Mulvey
(1975)
The Male Gaze Theory

2. What Is The Male Gaze?
The Male Gaze describes how the audience
views women, presented in the media,
through the perspective of a heterosexual
male.
Feminist Laura Mulvey looks at this in 3
ways:
O How men view women.
O How women view themselves.
O How women view other women.

3. How The Female Is Viewed.
Mulvey believes that the media shows
women as sexual objects and trophies
rather than actual people. This is done
through the control of the camera, for
example- emphasising the curves of the
female body through the use of close up
shots as well as lingering on parts of their
body, encouraging the audience to view
women through a sexual desire.

4. Patriarchy
She also argues that the way women are
displayed is the way men think they should be
perceived. 91% of men are directors of films,
allowing them to control how a woman is shown
in a media text. It ultimately comes down the
power of men who produce media texts,
sexualising women and passing the ideology
onto viewers of the content in order to please
the male viewers. Mulvey believes that because
of this ideology, sexualising women in media
pleases women as well men because they know
they are satisfying men in the same way that it
is shown in media.

5. Examples
‘Blurred Lines’ is a perfect
example of how women
are sexualised and treated
like objects by men. There
is an explicit version of the
video, showing women
naked.
The sexualisation of
women is also
portrayed in
magazines and
photo-shoots, in
which the
majority of young
teenage girls look
at and aspire to
because of the
ideology given.

6. Flaws In The Theory
O Some women may want to be seen in a
sexual way.
O Artists, such as Beyoncé, use their image
to be seen as powerful, stimulating their
career.
O Doesn’t take into account the perspective
of homosexuals.
OWomen are not always sexualised in all
media texts (for example in the film
‘Before I Go To Sleep’.)