Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Male gaze theory (now commonly known as just gaze theory) is the idea that women and men are used as objects; usually in a sexual fashion; to attract the viewers attention.

This theory was thought up by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" where she states that the male gaze occurs when the audience is put in the perspective of a man. She also stated that in can be put in three different ways:

1. What men think about women
2. What women think about themselves
3. How women look at other women

Features of male gaze:

Mulvey quotes that the main feature of male gaze is that "the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events."

She also states that it "relegates women to the status of objects. The female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male."