Laura Mulvey on the Male Gaze

The concept of 'gaze' is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented. Laura Mulvey coined the term 'Male Gaze' in 1975. She believes that in film audiences have to 'view' characters from the perspective of a hetrosexual male. The camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a mans reaction to those events. Laura Mulvey's theory suggested that the media is aimed for the men. The man is controlling and the women is passive.

Jonathon Schroeder(1998) "to gaze implies more than to look at - it signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze."

Mulvey suggests that the audience view the films in two ways; voyeuristically and fetishistically. As audiences watch films without being watched by the characters they become onlookers of their lives. Therefore they become voyeurs of the people on screen

Critics of Laura Mulvey point to the popularity of 'patriarchal' texts with both genders; many women are not bothered on even conscious of any male bias in film because most women want to be entertained, and therefore have no need to be empowered while watching a film.

Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi horror text Alien (1979) in the film he represents women as powerful capable and highly competent, in the form of Sigourney Weavers Ripley, who alone among the crew of a space ship with  a killer alien on board manages to kill the alien and survive instead of being helped by a man who would show bravery and power in most other films.

I believe that the media do sexualise women, so to some extent I do agree with this theory. It does make me think if this is what men want from women, then women can use their dominance to manipulate men. I think many images are sexualised these days without realisation. I wont be using erotic images in my magazine because I want it to focus on the music. As I am picking the 'electronica/dance' genre it could be very easy to sexual images (e.g. clubs, the beach scene).