Male Gaze in Film

The male gaze has been extensively discussed in literature. Films tend to utilize women as visual objects that exist to entertain a male audience through scopophilia. In this thesis the male gaze has been researched on basis of the gender of the director. To see if there is a difference between the occurrences of the male gaze in movies directed by women versus movies directed by men, a thematic analysis was used. Seven themes were found, from which five were derived from literature. These themes showcased how the male gaze differed in films directed by men or women. It seems that male directors are more inclined to utilize female characters as objects to provide visual pleasure to the male audience. Female directors tend to stray away from objectifying film techniques that add to the male gaze. It also seems that in movies directed by men, but were written from a female perspective, the male gaze was absent. This indicates that men can give women subjectivity, as long as they have a leading role.