Gathering Knowledge: The Female Gaze

[bookgazing]

Today I’m on a bit of a research trip. This year I’ve started reading a little about the female gaze in cinema and I’ve seen a few films that are said to include good examples of the gaze in action. I’ve started developing first unformed opinions about the feminist strengths of the female gaze approach to visual media and begun to wonder what social factors might limit and enhance the positive effects of this alternative gaze.

As it stands I don’t know enough to crystallise these first impressions into solid ideas, but I’m hoping some of you might be able to help. I’d love for you to recommend any resources you think might help me to understand more about the female gaze. If you’ve read a solid piece of theory on the subject, or know of a film/tv program that might expand my ideas I’d be so grateful if you’d share it with me. If you’d just like to chat it up in the comments I’d love to hear from you.

I’m especially interested in looking at:

Basic examples of the different ways the female gaze appears in tv and film

How the female gaze operates in films and television with casts that are exclusively (or close to) male

Whether films and tv programs with exclusively female casts make use of the female gaze in different ways than films and tv programs with mixed casts

How the female gaze currently differs from the male gaze in the way it presents sexual appraisal

Any analysis surrounding obstacles directors may meet when using the female gaze, to showcase a full range of female sexual interest

Thanks for helping me learn more.

Comments

[helloladies]

I read a few essays from this book for class many years ago and I remember really enjoying them. Also, my professor was a huge fan of Griselda Pollock and was always recommending her stuff. Again, it's been a few years, but I remember enjoying what I did read. The only but is that these are older books, and I have the feeling there have been relevant changes in the past few years, so finding something newer might be useful. Do let us know if you find anything else!

[helloladies]

PS: Ana here, too lazy to log out :P

[renay]

This was honestly just me Googling, but I figured collecting them here might be useful.

TV Tropes has a page on it.

The comments in this entry seem interesting (although I just gave them a cursory glance).

An article in the Guardian from 2009 in the context of Twilight, hmm.

Book recommendation from poking around on my university's library catalog: Sexuality, the female gaze, and the arts (seems like a collection of essays from a conference).

There's a Livejournal community! Although who knows what's in it. thefemalegaze

I can also pull you some articles that are popping when I search various article databases, too. Let me know if you want them (you'll have to do some sifting, though).

[bookgazing]

Thank you ladies, looking forward to seeing what else I can gather.

I actually linked that Guardian article in one of the coming Sidetracks documents and it was part of what got me thinking about what you call films which clearly linger on the male form, but don't contain a significant female protagonist and are shot by a male director. Can that be an example of the female gaze, because the shots do explore the male form in a way pleasing to the female eye? And if so, can the female gaze be a cineamtic tool that once again refocuses us on the dudes instead of the ladies?