Back نظرة ذكورية Arabic মেল গে'জ Assamese Mužský pohled Czech Male gaze German Mirada masculina Spanish Begirada maskulino Basque نگاه مردان Persian Miehinen katse Finnish Regard masculin French המבט הגברי HE
In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts[1] and in literature[2] from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.[3] The concept was first articulated by British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema".[4] Mulvey's theory draws on historical precedents, such as the depiction of women in European oil paintings from the Renaissance period, where the female form was often idealized and presented from a voyeuristic male perspective.
Art historian John Berger, in his work Ways of Seeing (1972), highlighted how traditional Western art positioned women as subjects of male viewers’ gazes, reinforcing a patriarchal visual narrative.[5] The beauty standards perpetuated by the male gaze have historically sexualized and fetishized black women due to an attraction to their physical characteristics, but at the same time punished them and excluded their bodies from what is considered desirable.[6]
In the visual and aesthetic presentations of narrative cinema, the male gaze has three perspectives: that of the man behind the camera, that of the male characters within the film's cinematic representations, and that of the spectator gazing at the image.[7][8]
Concerning the psychologic applications and functions of the gaze, the male gaze is conceptually contrasted with the female gaze.[9][10]
- ^ "Feminist Aesthetics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
Assumes a standard point of view that is masculine and heterosexual. . . . The phrase 'male gaze' refers to the frequent framing of visual art objects so that the viewer is situated in a masculine position of appreciation.
- ^ That the male gaze applies to literature and the visual arts: Łuczyńska-Hołdys, Małgorzata (2013). Soft-Shed Kisses: Re-visioning the Femme Fatale in English Poetry of the 19th Century, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 15.
- ^ Eaton, E.W. (September 2008). "Feminist Philosophy of Art". Philosophy Compass. 3 (5). Wiley-Blackwell: 873–893. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00154.x.
- ^ Mulvey, Laura (1975). "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Screen. 16 (3): 6–18. doi:10.1093/screen/16.3.6.
- ^ Berger, John (1972). Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0140135152.
- ^ Farrington, Lisa E. (1983). "Reinventing Herself: The Black Female Nude". Woman's Art Journal. 24 (2): 15–23. doi:10.2307/1358782. JSTOR 1358782.
- ^ Devereaux, Mary (1995). "Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers, and the Gendered Spectator: The "New" Aesthetics". In Brand, Peggy Z.; Korsmeyer, Carolyn (eds.). Feminism and tradition in aesthetics. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780271043968.
- ^ Walters, Suzanna Danuta (1995). "Visual Pressures: On Gender and Looking". In Walters, Suzanna Danuta (ed.). Material Girls: Making Sense of Feminist Cultural Theory. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 57. ISBN 9780520089778.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
interview-mulvey-2011was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Jacobsson, Eva-Maria (1999). A Female Gaze? (PDF) (Report). Stockholm, Sweden: Royal Institute of Technology. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-10-04.