The Power of Looking

One of America's favorite past times is visual media, in particular cinema. Since the invention of the kinetoscope, people flocked to catch a glimpse or insight to someone or somewhere outside of their reality. Through the Hollywood style of filmmaking, the female figure, in particular, was continually being shaped and defined according to patriarchic ideologies. As a result, an unrealistic ideal of a woman was created. Cinematography magnified these ideas or constructs via the vast amount of images it produced and, in turn, projected onto the audience which was assumed to be predominantly male.

Laura Mulvey coined the “male gaze” term in her article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. This gaze is that of the active role the male assumes, with the opposite or passive role being forced upon the female. Mulvey, influenced by Freudian ideology, uses psychoanalytic concepts to study cinematic spectatorship. She uses phallocentrism and the assumption of the dominant patriarchal society to support her statements. The nature of this gaze can be either voyeuristic or fetishistic. The author also introduces the concept of scopophilia or the pleasure in looking or fascination with the human, arguing that it contributed significantly to the objectification of the female form in cinema. Mulvey uses specific films to support her ideas, “In Only Angels Have Wings and in To Have and Have Not, the film opens with the woman as object of the combined gaze of spectator and all the male protagonists in the film. She is isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualised” (Mulvey 838). Furthermore, Mulvey argues that the female exists only to support or motivate the male character’s role in narrative cinema as evident in River of No Return, starring Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum.


Mulvey makes a strong argument as it is essentially the truth presented and supported by psychoanalytic framework. Since the 1970s, the time of the publication of Mulvey’s article, the “male gaze” and the objectification of woman has accelerated as in modern times very little is left to the imagination. It can be argued that the "male gaze" is persistent in visual media for the reason that it has been assumed suitable and passed on from generation to generation. As argued by John Berger, these constructs are deeply rooted notions as illustrated by the Biblical figures of Adam and Eve as well as oil paintings were the female form was presented as an object. The notion that a patriarchal society is default needs to fundamentally change in efforts to introduce new ways of thinking or approaches to the representation of the female form in cinema. However, as it has proven, this is quite a difficult task to accomplish as these are deeply rooted social constructs.


The “male gaze” is contrasted by the introduction of the “oppositional gaze” or black female spectatorship argued by Bell Hooks. Hooks encourages black women to challenge and critique the pre-conceived notions of a white, male dominated Hollywood. The “oppositional gaze” as illustrated by Hooks was formed in response to the lack as well as misrepresentation of the black female figure in cinema. Hooks uses the example of “Sapphire” from Amos ‘n’ Andy to explore “both the negation of black female representation in cinema and television and our rejection of these images” (Hooks 120). As the character was essentially the “backdrop” that was there to “soften images of black men,” Hooks argues that black women “identified with her frustrations and woes. They resented the way she was mocked. They resented the way these screen images could assault black womanhood, could name us bitches, nags” (Hooks 120). Hooks also goes beyond Mulvey’s ideas and her psychoanalytic framework by stating that “mainstream feminist film criticism in no way acknowledges black female spectatorship. It does not even consider the possibility that women can construct an opposition gaze via an understanding and awareness of the politics of race and racism” (Hooks 123).


Bell Hooks exposes a significant criticism of cinema: white people creating black culture. That in itself is the core issue of how black women are represented in cinema. She raises important questions by introducing her theory of the “oppositional gaze” or black female spectatorship which promotes the questioning and critique of the cinematic images being produced. Rightfully so, Hooks’ black feminist theory adds a layer to the overall misrepresentation and objectification of the female form in visual media. It is up to the public, however, to utilize these ideas to construct their own conclusions and perceptions of the female form.