MALE GAZE: VISUAL PLEASURE and NARRATIVE CINEMA

"The gaze is male whenever it directs itself at, and takes pleasure in, women, where women function as erotic objects” – Laura Mulvey

                    Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She's the first feminist theorist to analyze the objectification of women in film using a pscho-analytic approach. And she's the theorist who made the essay entitled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 

  

                    According to dictionary gaze means to fix the eyes in a steady intent look often with eagerness or studious attention. It's a concept which deals how the viewers look the people presented And Male Gaze means is to describe when the audience is put into the perspective of a man to the women. Male see the women as a sex object they not look it in the eyes but they look it literally to the curves of the body.

                    Male gaze shows that how the men look at women. Men aren't look direct in the eyes instead they look at the curves of the body, butt and to the boobs. They used to look at the sexual desire not into character. Some of the film has a male gaze theory. In the movie Transformers there was a scene that the guy was having a sexual temptation to the body of Megan Fox because she had a sexy body and perfect curves. Another is, the camera focuses to the hips of Megan while she fixed the machine of the car because it has a problem.    

                     And this theory was not only used in the film but also in the advertisement. Most of the advertisement the male gaze theory was prevalent. They used women as sex object. Women in the advertisement is revealed there hot and sexy body because it can attract the eyes of the consumer especially the men.

                    These is the another example of male gaze because it shown that the women is like a remote control whenever the guy touch there something happen to the women and its related to what the man touched.

                     Up to this moment the Male Gaze was prevailing in the industry in film and advertising. And you can see it everywhere.

Transformers - Megan Fox

 WOMAN'S BODY POWER IN PHILIPPINE 

 SEX MELODRAMAS 

          "Woman's Body Power in Philippine Sex Melodramas", written by Jamal Ashley Abbas is an article that talks about women used as a sex object.  In the article said that the women are the main subject in the sex melodrama and Abbas said that the Sex Melodrama was used to be called as a sub-genre. Obviously the article only shown how women used as a sex object and there has no choice but to show their flesh in to the public. The only weapon of a women is the power of their sexy body. 

               

           In Filipino films there has so many Sex Melodrama  since 70's and 80's and there was so many rising sexy star in 70's. Some of these are Vivian Velez in Apat ang mister ko, Rosanna Ortiz in Madonna, Rio Locsin in Salawahan, Lorna Tolentino in Katawang Alabok, Carmen Ronda in Bata pa si Sabel, Chandra Romero in Kapag Tumabang ang Asin and many more. 

        

          And up to this moment there still sub-genre like Ligo na Ü Lapit na me Starring Edgar Allan Guzman and Mercedes Cabral. In this film there showing their whole body while doing sex and the scenes was almost sex scenes than to conversation. Another is. the movie of John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin which is the Unofficially Yours. The story is like Friends with Benefits. 

       

        

           I sudden every time I watched movies, women always used as a sex object. The society must realize that the women has much power than to men they can do something than to be a sex object for a film.  

Different Perspective of
Apparatus Film Theory

                    Most of us doesn't know what is the general meaning of Apparatus Theory. We can't explain the different perspective of Apparatus Theory if we doesn't know the meaning of it. Apparatus Film Theory is ideological and argues that cinema maintains the dominant ideology culture within the viewers. Ideology is part of it's nature. Apparatus Theory follows an Institutional Model of Spectatorship or in the simplest way that it has a effects to the viewers. 

KARL MARX

                    According to Karl Marx that the society is capitalist. Marxist Film Theory was a capitalist, which argues that society is characterized by disagreement between social groups. Marxist Theory means that the rich/wealthy people demoted the poor people. For Marx, the poor people should have no power than to the rich one. Poor people works for those people who have a lot of money. For me, It's really unfair. Rich people should not degrade the poor people. They must help the poor people to lighten up their lives. Each people must have rights to be free. For Marx, most of the films shows how the rich people demote the poor one. 

JACQUES LACAN 

                    Jacques Lacan was a French Psychoanalyst. His perspective was distinctive from Karl Marx. Lacan called the most controversial psychoanalyst because his psychoanalytic theory is the adaptation of Sigmund Freud's principles - Unconscious Mind which are the Ego, Super Ego and Id. It means that the psychoanalytic theory of Lacan is the language that we need to understand. 

CHRISTIAN MERTZ

                    Christian Mertz was a French film theorist also a best pioneering the application of Sausurre theories of semiotics to film. It means that the signs and symbols has a different meaning and we can see it everywhere even in the cinema. He also said that the cinema is like the reality and specific language. Semiotics was the eye opener of each individual. Like what I said signs and symbols has a different meaning we should think first, we should contemplated our minds using those thing. 

Cinematic Desires: A Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Cinema is the art of appearances, it tells us something about reality itself. It tells us something about how reality constitutes itself. - Slavoj Zizek

"Cinema is the ultimate pervert art. It doesn't give you what you desire - it tells you how to desire"

- Slavoj Zizek

                  Slavoj Zizek was a philosopher and a psychoanalyst. Zizek is a professor of philosophy and psychoanalysis at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Another is, Zizek is a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Ljublijana, Slovenia. Slavoj Zizek is the one who presented The Pervert's Guide to Cinema. 

                   The content of The Pervert's Guide was the film critic of Zizek. He explained some scenes which is Possessed (1931), The Matrix (1999), The Birds (1963), Psycho (1960), Duck Soup (1933), Monkey Business (1931), The Exorcist (1973), Alien (1979), The Great Dictator (1940), Alice in Wonderland (1951), The Red Shoes (1948), , Fight Club (1999), Dead of Night (1945), The Conversation (1974), Blue Velvet (1986),Vertigo (1958).Solaris (1972) and many more. He explain those films in a broad way. He expanded the knowledge of the viewers to understand the the hidden language of the cinema and the uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves.

                   Most of us when we watch a movie we agreed in the whole thing. We didn't criticize the movie we've watch. Zizek tells us the cinematic desires of every movie we've watch. The movie should give what we need in the whole story and must the cinema give what you desire. The cinema must satisfy their viewers to desire.  But sometimes the cinema fails to give what we need or what we desire and to show the connection in reality. And for that cinematic desire is tackles about the how the cinema touches the viewers mind and it tells about how the cinema satisfy their viewer and they responsible with that. Zizek wants us to see the reality when it comes in cinema.

  

A Film Review

THE MATRIX (1999)

The Matrix is one of the popular movie in 1999. The Matrix is directed by Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. The main characters in this movie are Thomas Anderson or also known as Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). The story is all about the nature of reality then it ends up with a blast of fiction stories.This movie is entertaining and yet confusing because if you analyze the whole story it tackled about the reality of life. Another is, in the beginning of the movie they shown the untold story of why Neo is the one they need, you must watch the whole movie to understand the story. It’s entertaining because when this movie was made it has a heavy special effects and they uses an advance technology that doesn't seen before. 

There was a computer programmer at day and at the same time a hacker at night named Thomas Edison also known as Neo. He sits alone at home while staring on his monitor suddenly he received a mysterious message from a mysterious woman named Trinity.
Trinity told to Neo to follow the white rabbit to show the direction to the place they met. After that Neo follow the white rabbit and finally they meet each other and Trinity introduces to Neo the character he has supposed to be and she lead Neo to the Matrix. And after that Neo met Morpheus a messiah of sorts. Morpheus told to Neo the truth about his world through shedding light on the dark secrets and Morpheus told to Neo that he is the one of prophecy. 

The Matrix is a computer based system which uses of artificial intelligence to wake up the individual's mind which makes them believe that is the real world not the normal one. 

There’s a scene that Morpheus told to Neo that this is your last chance and Neo must choose. At the first Neo doesn’t convinced that is the real world he will fight for. If Neo choose the blue pill the story will ends but if he choose the red pill he stay in wonderland. And finally Neo decided that he will stay to the wonderland and face the world of Matrix.

 

And at the last part of the movie Neo save the life of Morpheus against to Agent Smith but Neo got a critical condition. Trinity helps Neo in that fight she coached Neo that he can do it and when Neo came to the normal world Trinity gave Neo a kiss because he came back from the fight against to Agent Smith.

The Matrix
(trailer)

The blue pill or the red pill

Film Theory and Criticism

"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls." 

-Ingmar Bergman

                          

         FILM CRITICISM 

                                                

                  Film criticism is how we express our understanding about the film we've showed. Film criticism helps us to understand the film better. Film criticism is how we analyze the film such as the technical side and mise en scène. Based on what i read from a dictionary mise en scène came from a french word means arrangement of scenery and properties to represent the place where a play or movie is enacted.

          FILM THEORIES

FEMINIST THEORY

Feminist theory is showed that the power of women over men. Back then the superior in our society is men than women but now feminist showed to us the strength of women than men. According to Melanie Lord, Anthony Greiter and Zulfo Tursunovic "Feminist theory is an outgrowth of the general movement to empower women worldwide. Feminism can be defined as a recognition and critique of male supremacy combined with efforts to change it."

GENDER STUDIES

Gender Studies focuses in gender identity. Gender Studies talks about of women, men, lesbian, homosexual and transgender.  According to Whitman College 

"Gender studies uses the concept of gender to analyze a wide range of disciplines."

PERFORMANCE THEORY 

Performance theory focuses in the character of a person and this theory talks about the daily movement of individual. Performance Theory tackles about the performance of people in our daily lives. But in the industry of film performance theory tackles about the performance of people on stage.

SPECTATORSHIP THEORY

According to Tony McKibbin "What we want to do here in discussing the nature of spectatorship is look not at how viewers respond to a film statistically and scientifically, but instead at how the viewer is involved, implicated and engaged in the viewing experience." It only says that spectatorship theory is talks about when they watched a film there's is something a big question in their mind. 

ETHNIC THEORY

Ethnic Theory talks about the difference of each races in our society. Ethnic theory focuses of the different of skin color, different culture, different religion and different languages.

AUTEUR THEORY

Based on the dictionary auteur theory is a view of film maker in which the director is considered the primary creative force in a motion picture. It only says  that whatever the reaction of the viewers still the director vision is prevailing.