Task 6 - The Male Gaze

The Male Gaze Theory 

The male gaze theory was first introduced by Laura Mulvey, the concept was developed to show how an audience views women. The ways in which they view women can be thought of in 3 different ways:

• How men view women 
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

The male gaze shows the power women can have over men using their sexuality, women in pop culture are typically seen doing this, for example:

In the Q magazine on the left Lilly Allen is not being shot on the cover to promote her music career or any sort of music industry, she is portrayed on the cover in a way that is over sexualised in order to gain male attention. Her seductive, highly suggestive pose and the strap line "Lily Allen & Her Wicked Wicked Ways..." is used to appeal to the typical male patriarchal society and convince them to buy the magazine.

Now in this image we see  the lead singer of Joy Division, Callum Moreman where image is just focused on his face where he has a cigarette in his mouth which gives him the appearance that he is cool and has a "bad boy" personality type, where as you wouldn't usually see females in this type of pose.

Here we can see Beth Ditto who is completely exploiting the male gaze theory as she is not typicaly what the male patriarchy would call attractive which is why it has had such an effect. This is not entirely out of character for her either as she contiusly takes her clothes of during her shows.