The male gaze is the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and women from a masculine point of view, presenting women as objects of male pleasure (Eaton). Feminist film critic Laura Mulvey first coined the concept in 1975. According to her, the gaze consists of three perspectives; the person behind the camera, the representation of the interaction of the characters within the film itself, and then that of the spectator. Mulvey states that “gender power asymmetry, is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses” (Mulvey). This translates to the fact that male viewer is the target audience, thus art is created keeping a man’s needs in mind, further that this problem stems from an old fashioned male driven society.
What is the male gaze? Basically everything you’ve ever seen on screen and text. Movies, music videos, advertisements anywhere you look, male gaze is prevalent. This is because the entire society has been built on patriarchal norms – which immediately presumes that the main consumer of art is a cis-man. When a movie introduces any female lead, most of the time, it starts from her legs, moves up and stays at her chest, focuses on the hair and then finally reaches her face. That is quite reflective of the quintessential way a woman is “checked out”.
While the male gaze over the past few decades has been really reviewed and debated over, the female gaze is still a newer concept. The most logical way of explaining female gaze is simply reverting the above given definition and substituting the genders:“The female gaze is the way in which the visual arts and literature depict the world and men from a feminine point of view, presenting men as objects of female pleasure”. However the female gaze is much more than that. Jill Soloway, the award-winning creator of American Television Series “Transparent”, claimed the phrase and attempted to define it at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival.
She claims that the female gaze is much more than just having films focused on women – it is about actually using emotions and feelings to represent a film. It also focuses on being more than just an avenue for women to return the gaze, but also be a critic of the already existing notions of the male gaze. It calls out the male gaze. The idea is to use the female gaze as a conscious effort to create empathy, as a political tool – it is the other gaze, the gaze that questions all gazes.
Films are a reflection of society; they portray the social, cultural and political reality of any society or nation. India is a vast nation with multiple regional cinemas, however the present article mainly focuses on mainstream Hindi Cinema or “Bollywood” because it is seen to exercise widespread influence over people and enjoys mass appeal. Popular cinema and culture derive from each other. Films are believed to be the opium of the Indian masses, as people rely on this medium to help them escape into a world of fantasy (Gokulsingh). Especially in India, cinema has had a very symbiotic relationship in terms of culture, society and politics, because as much as these three factors affect cinema, cinema affects them as well.
There is no question to the fact that India is an extremely patriarchal nation. The foundations of our society like every other have been built on the norms dictated by patriarchy, which essentially means that the man is the superior gender. The narratives of Hindi cinema have undoubtedly been male dominated and male centric. Themes have been explored from the male audience’s point of view. The heroine is always secondary to the hero. Her role is charted out in the context of the male character, who is central to the script.
Though there exists a body of feminist film making in Hindi cinema, the leading ladies of Hindi films have more or less played defined roles, which conform to the values upheld by the Indian society. Women in Bollywood have been uni-dimensional characters, who are good or bad, white or black. There are no shades of grey. This dichotomy has been reinforced through popular films, which distinguished between the heroine and the vamp, the wife and the other woman. The woman can be one of two things; docile, domestic, honourable, noble, and ideal or she is the other extreme – wayward, reckless and irresponsible. There is no middle ground, there is no reality exhibited. One movie that clearly depicts this dichotomy is David Dhawan’s Biwi No. 1. The wife played by Karishma Kapoor is shown to have sacrificed her successful career to experience domestic bliss with her husband Salman Khan. When the husband strays, it is the other woman (Sushmita Sen) who is blamed for the same and is demonised all through the film. Meanwhile the husband who is the actual adulterer gets merrily forgiven at the end of the movie.
While this is just one example, cinema even now mainly caters to the male viewer. Women’s roles are extremely shallow; they’re in the archetypal role of the mother, sister or partner. Of course recently, contemporary cinema has attempted to explore taboo subjects like sexuality, infidelity, surrogacy, divorce, live in relations and have started to question patriarchy. However, in most of these cases, the audiences fail to question their society themselves because until and unless you do not show the audience subjugation in terms of violence, they do not want to believe that patriarchy exists.
Our politics also influences the sort of cinema which has been more than evident in recent times. The number of cuts and certifications the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has been doing recently is very reflective of having a certain majoritarian ideology. A recent debacle that took place was when CBFC refused a certificate for a coming of age movie called “Lipstick Under My Burkha”. Their reason being: “The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life. There are contagious [sic] sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society”. Because God forbid women have sexual thoughts. This sort of mentality that suggests that women cannot think in a certain way is testament to the fact that we are still in a society which refuses to believe that a woman is free to think of whatever she wants.
A need for change is imminent because that is the only way we will grow. Cinema has to create a separate and independent space for Indian women to help them grow and understand their full potential. We need more female directors and more directors who are willing to not conform to what society dictates. Cinema’s only end is not to entertain. It must begin a quest for social change through entertainment. It’s using film to awaken a sense of understanding and knowing amongst the population, to see beyond what is right in front of their faces. The purpose of the female gaze is to question everything.
Bibliography:
1) Eaton, E.W. (September 2008). “Feminist philosophy of art”. Philosophy Compass. Wiley. 3 (5): 873–893
2) Mulvey, Laura. “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.” Visual and other pleasures. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1989. 14-26.
3) Gokulsingh, K.M., & Dissanayake, W. (1998). Indian Popular Cinema: A narrative of cultural change. (pp. 88). U.K., Trentham Books Limited.