-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Clotilde TorregrossaAbstract:
From the introduction: At the heart of recent feminist theorizing about art is the claim that various forms of representation—painting, photography, film—assume a "male gaze." The notion of the gaze has both a literal and a figurative component. Narrowly construed, it refers to actual looking. Broadly, or more metaphorically, it refers to a way of thinking about, and acting in, the world…. In examining this key feminist notion more carefully, I shall make clear the intrinsic interest of this approach to aesthetics and suggest why its concerns merit serious consideration. To this end, I investigate how gendered vision work in one specific representational practice: film. Film is a natural choice for such a study because it is a medium so fundamentally built around the activity of looking. It is also, not surprisingly, the medium where the male gaze has been most extensively discussed. The relationship of gender and cinematic vision is extremely complicated. A complete analysis of this topic would require several hundred pages. In what follows, I focus on two key claims: that in cinema the gaze is male, and that the cinematic text is a male text. I make clear how these claims should be understood and situate them philosophically. In confining myself to the core claims of this debate, I shall of necessity leave aside many important, but internal, issues in film theory.
Comment: An important text bringing feminist art-historical and film studies discussions from the 80s and 90s to philosophical aesthetics. Devereaux provides a clear overview of the concept of the male gaze and thus could replace a longer read of the original source (Laura Mulvey) in an introductory course on aesthetics.
Devereaux, Mary. Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers and the Gendered Spectator: The New Aesthetics
1990, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 48 (4): 337-347
Can’t find it?
Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!