The male gaze has been a highly influential and talked-about idea in feminist media history. It was first introduced by Laura Mulvey in her famous 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, which describes the theory of how mainstream films often present women as passive objects created for pleasure for a heterosexual male viewer. According to Mulvey, this happens through specific camera angles, framing, and story structures that specifically target the male point of view. The woman becomes someone “to-be-looked-at” while men are the active subject controlling the narrative.
Although Mulvey wrote this nearly 50 years ago, we can still see the male gaze in movies, television, and social media today. Mercier (2024) and Thompson and Lee (2022) both argue that, even though we have seen improvements in modern media, we can still see visual patterns shaped by sexism in many ways. It’s very often the case that when a story is about a woman, the visuals still support male desire.
A significant example supporting this is the 2021 Marvel film Black Widow, which focuses on Natasha Romanoff’s childhood trauma, family relationships, and emotional complexity. Directed by a woman Cate Shortland, the film shows many key differences from the other films. Although Killian (2023) explains that the movie can’t escape the characters’ past. In Iron Man 2 (2010), Natasha was introduced as a side character and immediately sexualized, with tight clothing, flirtatious dialogue, and close-up shots of her body. This introduction completely shaped how the audience saw her, despite the changes made over a decade later.
This tension reflects another subject of debate, the female gaze. The purpose of this theory is for women behind the camera to reshape how they are seen and feel on screen. Some scholars disagree with this, arguing that it’s not who’s in control of the camera but the embedded structures of society that influence how women are shown. The Conversation (2016) points out that there is no simple reverse gaze that can mirror male power, as the gaze is a part of a long history of sexism and inequality. The male gaze helps us understand that the media doesn’t just entertain us; it also shows how deeply connected and intertwined everything advertised is. While representation has improved, the gaze continues to shape femininity and masculinity online.
Killian, K. D. (2023). An analysis of Black Widow (2021): Marvel’s most feminist film features powerful sisters and an attenuated male gaze. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, 35(1), 106–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/08952833.2022.2139926
Mercier, E. (2024). Exploring everyday slut-shaming: The role of family and the male gaze in reproducing women’s sexual shame. Sexuality & Culture, 28(3), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-024-10303-2
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6
The Conversation. (2016, October 27). Explainer: What does the ‘male gaze’ mean – and what about a female gaze? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-the-male-gaze-mean-and-what-about-a-female-gaze-52486
Even though modern media tries to improve how women are shown, your blog made me realise that changing the image on screen is not enough, the real issue is how society has already been taught to read women. The male gaze doesn’t just come from the camera, it comes from how people interpret what they see and what they expect women to be. So even if a female character is rewritten, many viewers still approach her with the same old mindset, almost as if they are waiting to confirm stereotypes rather than challenge them.
That’s why real change has to go deeper than media representation, and has to start with how we understand value, power, and agency in everyday life. Also maybe the real question is: how can we create a space where women are not just seen, but truly recognised for what they do and who they are?