Theory of the Male Gaze

In current society today, technology is advancing at a rapid rate and with so much exposure to the media it is difficult to control what is being seen by children. Disney is one of the largest and most successful companies in the film industry. From children 4 years old to adults and every age in between, Disney has found a way to create films that entertain all ages. The seemingly innocent content of Disney movies are enjoyed from a very young age; however, behind the colorful and lighthearted storylines of many Disney films lies many unreasonable social ideologies that children may be subconsciously becoming accustomed to. In her work, “Where Do the Mermaids Stand,” Laura Sells discusses the hidden messages in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Sells explains how this movie expresses a hierarchy of gender and exaggerated femininity by demeaning the role of women in society. Susan Jeffords, author of “The Curse of Masculinity,” discusses similar ideologies in her article. This article looks at Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and focuses primarily the role of men and the how they perform to fit into this white male system by means of upholding hegemonic masculinity. The two articles “Where do the Mermaids stand” and “The curse of Masculinity,” bring to attention the reinforcement of the white male system, the racialization in the white male system, and the reinforcement of hegemonic masculinity in beloved childhood Disney movies.

With a help from three research assistants, after collecting the movies, they extracted the story lines, images, dialogues as well as songs about sexuality in the movies. As a result, in the samples of $100 Million G-Rated Movies from 1990 to 2005, including animated Disney movies, they found heterosexuality, which contained both sexiness and ogling of women’s bodies, was accountable in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Toy Story 2, and Princess Diaries, etc (Martin and Kazyak 2009). Most of men characters, as researchers observed, were more likely to gaze at women characters’ bodies in a desiring way, which was considered to be portrayed as “less serious and less powerful than hetero-romantic love” (Martin and Kazyak 2009:323). This left me a question: should girls be stunning, sexy, and beautiful so as to be noticed and loved by

The darkness provides an optimal opportunity for the gaze; an individual can openly look without the fear of being caught or judged. Laura Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” discusses the manner in which cinema caters to the male heteronormative gaze turning the representational female form into a visually pleasurable object. The process of turning the female form into an object removes power from the individual who owns it. Mulvey wrote, “Woman’s desire is subject to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it” (343). The female is seen as lacking and is confined within the realm of

The magazine article describes the stark contrast in the portrayal of female sexuality between pre-Code and post-Code movies. Pre-Code movies are flagrantly sexual; although some contemporary film critics believe that women were simply embracing their sexual freedom through these pre-code films, the marketing for many of these brazenly sexual films often included derisive comments from males, suggesting that the intent of overt sexuality in films was more crude. Post-code films often used screenwriting strategies to stay within bounds of the Code. Denby argues that this censorship actually created a net benefit for women, who were given stronger personalities and more interesting plot lines instead of simply being sexual objects. The article suggests that censorship led to the inception of the screwball comedy genre, which was forced to “create sex without sex.”

In the past years, Disney/Pixar has revolutionized the premise of their movies by shifting away from princesses and portraying resilient male characters as the protagonists of their highly successful animated feature films. From 1995 to 2008, Disney/Pixar released eight films, all of which included a male lead, yet these characters are arguably unlike any other protagonist in early Disney animated films. In their essay, “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar,” Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden call attention to the new manner Disney/Pixar use to depict their heroic male characters in their movies. Gillam and Wooden claim that Pixar is using their movies to promote the acceptance of a new standard of masculinity capable of embracing feminine traits, as conveyed by the male characters within the films. As a viewer, it is easy to recognize the emasculation of the male protagonists within Pixar movies, however, the authors’ claim is faulty; they fail to acknowledge that society now has room for a new sympathetic man because it is straying way from a patriarchal beliefs of the past.

The portrayal of Feminine aspects within Disney movies has been widely criticized, however the way masculinity is portrayed in films is also very controversial but infrequently discussed. My goal for this research paper is to look at two Disney films through a feminist lens and queer lens to decipher any stereotypical aspects of masculinity that are shown within the main characters. I am hopeful to find a film that breaks the norm of having a masculine main character that is hyper masculine like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast or Jaffar from Aladdin. I would also like to analyze the damsel in distress situations in films where the male role seems to always be the heroic figure even when they aren’t the main character in the story. Even though

The essay by Gillam and Wooden attempt to prove that in many Pixar/Disney films, the often male protagonist goes through a change where they are “stripped of their identity” and made into a new more female like character (470). The two authors assert that Pixar has been making movies that create a new model of masculinity – one that does not follow the ideals of the “ubermacho Gaston” but rather a gentler and more understanding man (471). Gillam and Wooden assert this to appeal to the reader who has seen all or some of the movies they are refrencing not only to prove a point but to make the reader aware of what has occurred in the movies.

Mulan is an animated film that was released in 1998 from Disney during third wave feminism, which features an Asian woman protagonist. She is a Disney princess, but at first glance you wouldn’t think so. Mulan is introduced as a clumsy tomboy who did not think she would ever bring honor to her family. In order to accomplish said honor, she would have to by being the perfect bride, in accordance with the matchmaker. The film has a great amount of feminist ideals, however, it doesn’t leave out stereotypical gender roles and several examples of overdetermined ideologies. Patriarchy is very prevalent in this film, from the woman characters positions, down to the songs they sing throughout the film, patriarchy is a theme that cannot be missed. This paper will discuss how feminine and masculine stereotypes are conveyed in the film, how gender stereotypes are portrayed, and of the patriarchal themes included in the film.

Several film theorists have used a variety of tactics and view points to analyze feature films since their inception. One of the most prominent theorists of those that analyze films from a feminist perspective is Laura Mulvey. Mulvey is famous for her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which presents an array of theories involving the treatment of women in films. Arguably the most notable idea presented in Mulvey’s work is the existence of the “male gaze” in films. This essay will examine Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze in relation to Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Vertigo. Vertigo does not fit the criteria of a film that

Praise for Toomer’s depictions of black sexuality are well-deserved because they are bold and daring in a way that was uncommon prior to the modern era. Traditional literary depictions of women were limited to those that conformed to the values of the cult of womanhood. What Toomer’s women in Cane accomplish is quite the opposite. He employs the male gaze as a tool of humanization, often in critique of the violence executed against the black female body which has been justified for so long by the gaze itself. Toomer works to situate womanhood in reality as opposed to Victorian notions of purity, chastity, and domesticity. He does this by placing black and white womanhood adjacent to each other and offering sexuality and promiscuity as part

This story, like many other Disney stories, involves a young, naïve girl who is easily and illogically swayed by the good looks and charm of the handsome man, the same heterosexual and misogynistic fairy tale that is constantly recreated in each of Disney’s movies. The same company that retold classic fables like Cinderella, Pocahontas, and Sleeping Beauty, notoriously exploits, objectifies, and hypersexualizes women’s bodies and femininity and has created a multibillion dollar industry that profits from its demeaning ideals that negatively categorizes and homogenizes women. The Little Mermaid is no exception in the way it portrays beauty in terms of youth, smallness, and a ‘pretty singing’ voice, thus subliminally sending the message to its youthful audience that women must ‘prove’ their womanhood to men, the ultimate and most important judges or they are in fact inauthentic and flawed. This story also idealizes and constructs ways that feminism is falsely related to sexuality, consequently assuming that women’s transition from childhood to womanhood is influentially provoked by their sexual curiosity and promiscuity, and unable to resist the opposite sex’s carnal advances. Arial is just another example of the ways in which Disney ritually practices invoking inferior complexes to the linkage of women, depicting them as susceptible and needy of the dramatically hypermasculinized men, insinuating their superiority as the saviors of these women. This, however, poses the idea that this antiquated idealism may potentially emanate from patriarchal society’s intimidation by the threatening challenge women pose to masculinity if these sexist ideas were to ever cease. Undeniably, The Little Mermaid is another classical children’s tale that has

The portrayal of women, gender roles and stereotypes in Disney films has long been a controversial topic. Disney’s 1959 animated film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and Robert Stromberg’s 2014 live action remake, ‘Maleficent’, each provide a different take of Charles Perrault’s 1697 fairy tale, ‘La Belle au bois Dormant’ (‘The Sleeping Beauty’). The comparison of Aurora, one of the main characters from both films, brings into light the stark contrast in portrayals of gender roles as well as physical ideals and stereotypes in women. Emphasis or lack thereof on physical characteristics and gender representation from both texts challenge and reflect ideals and stereotypes that are impactful to the audience.

In the early 1990s Laura Mulvey’s thesis concerning the patriarchal structure of an active male gaze has influenced feminist film critiques and Hollywood. Mulvey’s project is to use psychoanalysis to uncover the power of patriarchy in Hollywood cinema. Patriarchal influence upon cinema is found primarily in pleasure (pleasure in looking) or as Freud’s has put it, scopophilia. Mulvey suggests that it may be possible to create a new for of cinema due to the fact that patriarchy power to control cinematic pleasure has revealed.

Disney’s films are arguably pervasive on the topic of rape culture, considering how images consumed at an early age helps normalize sexual attention that crosses the line. From princesses that are devoid of agency and depend on knights and shining armor to save them from life-threatening situations and nonconsensual kisses that are depicted as being romantic, characters and situations in some of our culture’s oldest stories diminish women’s freedom and devalues self-love. In return, this is affecting everyone today. The mechanics of this kind of exposure is easily publicized and transmitted into the minds of little ones. This may be a PG-rated children’s film, but as I graduated from the Disney’s series I examined and realized that taking away a women’s authority and sense of self by allowing males to overpower females sexually and emotionally is extremely dangerous for adolescents to view and absorb a form of entertainment.

The original draft more generally based and less clear of what the exact thesis and argument was because I focused on other dynamics, such as patriarchy, in which I needed to narrow. Overall in the final prospectus, I argued that there are sexist themes portrayed in The Little Mermaid and the importance of analyzing and identifying these are because it is so prevalent and affective in real life society. Every argument has a purpose and a goal, and the goal with writing this paper is to bring awareness of this type of rhetoric in films in order to avoid falling or accepting its skewed