The problem with the "male gaze" in Hollywood

90% of the movies Americans watch are from the perspective of a man.   Here's how the "male gaze" has impacted women's representation in Hollywood.

Transcript

00:00🎵

00:29I don't want to be seen in a male gaze anymore.

00:34I don't want to exist in a man's world.

00:36The male gaze has been associated with a neutral gaze for a very long time

00:40because the vast majority of films are produced by men who look at women.

00:46And it's just to say that this gaze has an origin and also has a relationship with male domination.

00:53I feel very uncomfortable now trying to portray the male gaze.

00:57I'm not interested in that view. I'm not interested in doing that.

01:00And I'd just rather not stand in front of a group of men naked.

01:04🎵

01:13My shift in spectatorship came very suddenly and specifically

01:22out of the influence of the women's movement.

01:25So that films that I loved, films that had moved me, I was suddenly watching with different eyes.

01:36The voyeurism, the place of the male star protagonist in fighting off being the object of the gaze

01:48and creating the energy of the story, the woman as spectacle, it was somehow all there.

01:55🎵

02:08I dread reading scripts that have no women involved in their creation

02:12because inevitably I get to that part where the girl turns to the guy and she goes,

02:16What do we do now?

02:19Now do you know any woman in any crisis situation who has...

02:24🎵

02:31Any woman in any crisis who has absolutely no idea what to do?

02:36It molds your mind when you're growing up and you're only seeing things from a male point of view.

02:40And I think that our culture would do better to have more respect for the female perspective.

02:45🎵

02:48I think Hashtag Me Too has focused the discussion on the object of the gaze,

02:55particularly how casual representations of sexual violence against women in film and television, for example.

03:02I think the conversation now is less about who's the bearer of the look on a technical level.

03:08In other words, how we're being positioned by the camera as spectators.

03:12And it's become more about just how women need greater access within the industry,

03:16access to power, to opportunity, to material resources as filmmakers, cinematographers, producers.

03:23🎵

03:27The female gaze implies a centering of female looks,

03:31but also of female stories, of women's lives and experiences in general.

03:36We want to tell stories that reflect our lives back at us.

03:40And many, many, many women watch television.

03:43And many, many women go to the movies, sometimes more than men.

03:47And so we want to see those stories. We want to see ourselves.