Exploring Laura Mulvey's 'The Male Gaze' Theory

 LAURA MULVEY

Laura Mulvey, who was born on August 15, 1941, is a British filmmaker and a well-known feminist film theorist.

Laura Mulvey's idea of the male gaze is a key part of feminist film theory. She first presented this concept in her important essay called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.

Mulvey looks at how regular movies usually create the way we see things, showing male characters as the ones who take action and female characters as the ones who are just looked at. Her ideas discuss how the camera work, storylines, and editing in films often focus on what a straight male viewer wants to see, which strengthens old-fashioned ideas about gender roles and power.

Mulvey’s theory mainly talks about how women are seen as objects in movies. She believes that in classic films, women aren’t shown as people with their own choices; instead, they are treated like things that male characters want and can own. This happens because the stories usually center around male heroes who take charge, while female characters often just play minor parts or are seen as prizes for the guys when they succeed.

• Example: In James Bond films, women often fulfill the role of the "Bond girl," where their primary function in the story is to serve as an object of desire for James Bond. Their development as characters is often minimal, as their role revolves around being visually appealing and sexually available to the male protagonist.