6. Laura Mulvey's Theory

Laura Mulveys Theory

Laura Mulvey's Theory is the male gaze, this is a concept that deals with how the audience views the people presented in the media concept. For certain feminists it can be thought of in 3 different ways:

-How men look at Woman
-How woman look at themselves
-How woman look at other woman

She believes that in a film audiences when viewing characters you have to perceive them in the same view of a heterosexual/straight male. She came up with this Theory in 1975.

Features of the Male Gaze

When the camera lingers and repetitively stays around the curves of the female body, also the events that happen to the woman in the media concepts are largely in the context of the male reaction to the events that are unfolding.
Through doing so it relegates and degrades woman to the status of objects. The female viewers are forced to experience the narrative second hand through the perception and experience of the male.

Example:


This video example is of a Robin Thicke song that follows part of the theory. Although when the females in the video are introduced you are still able to see their face they're all objectified by what they're wearing for one and by the camera angles lingering on the body of the woman. The video objectifies woman through the video itself and the  lyrics and is from a males perspective.