The Male Gaze and How We Avoid It

The incredible ubiquity of the male gaze in filmmaking is not something that has gone unnoticed in the past. For even the most passive of filmgoers it is not difficult to notice that the camera tends to linger on a woman's chest or legs no matter the context of the film or the character. The prevalence of this... style? trope? habit? is indicative of the way we are teaching, consciously and subconsciously, new filmmakers to construct these films, and something needs to change.

On the note of what to call the male gaze, what do we call the male gaze? It's arguable that it's a stylistic choice, but the common aspects of it appear everywhere, no matter the genre, time period, context, or tone of the films that it's seen in. It could, of course, be called a trope, but I would argue that it's more than that. It's not just a trope, there's too much of it for it to be called that. It's not literally everywhere but enough of film is infested with it that I would say it's more like the Rule of 3. Just like the Rule of 3 is a writing convention, the male gaze is a writing and cinematography convention. It's just something that is done, it doesn't need to be but it just seems to fit, as though it were meant to be part of the medium. 

This is nonsense, obviously. The male gaze only seems to fit because it's everywhere, and it's everywhere because it feels like it fits so well. This is a cycle that can be and needs to be broken. 

The male gaze teaches prospective filmmakers the role of women in film. The students can be male or female and fall into the trap. These conventions support the male idea that women are prizes to be won, depictions of beauty to be admired physically, but not looked into beyond that. It teaches women that this is their job, that they should be passive and allow the men to handle the problems. These elements are both reductive for both sides, so what do we do about it?

First, the male gaze is called that for a good reason. The film industry has been predominantly led by white men since the beginning of time, so the first thing is obviously to introduce more women into filmmaking roles, and this has been happening more and more in recent years.

The next thing, and arguably the more important thing, is that we should be teaching male directors, cinematographers, writers, etc. not to do these things. This is a behavior that can be unlearned, and recognizing it is the first thing that should be done, but now that we're starting to do that we need to begin teaching how to change it. One way we could do that is by observing how female cinematographers frame their scenes. Many have spoken about the 'female gaze' and what that would potentially be, and the consensus seems to be that female filmmakers tend to focus more on the characters' faces in a scene than their bodies. The lighting on these characters accentuates their emotions as well, rather than their appearances. These techniques tend to accentuate the performances of the actors and the emotions, which one would think is the desired outcome for an often character-driven medium of storytelling. 

Having this be a focus in classes and in filmmaking teaches all filmmakers that we should be doing these things for both male and female characters, treating them as equals in the eyes of the camera and, by extension, the eyes of the audience. This will lead to a stronger, more equal understanding and depiction of women in film.