1
THE GAZE
This term comes from a particular body of film theory: feminist film criticism.
Essentially, what is argued is that over the course of film development a set of
visual codes and signals have emerged in relation to the female subject in film.
These visual codes and signals are said to embody a specific set of values and beliefs and, given that the creation and construction of films has, until fairly recently, been in the control of men, these codes and signals (cues) have been defined within a masculine framework.
What this means is, that men have largely controlled the business of constructing the female, and the feminine, on screen. Accordingly the representation of women on celluloid has been shaped to meet the needs of a male 'gaze'.
What are the implications of this statement?
At its most simplistic level, it has meant that traditionally the male hero has been constructed to enable a male viewer to fully identify with; the action in the film is driven by the male hero's abilities to propel the narrative forward (think of SPEED, RAMBO AND THE LIKE).
The viewer derives 'pleasure' from this created control; the female in these films is secondary, is objectified (usually to suit the needs of the male character), and is there to provide 'visual' pleasure, more so because 'she' is framed and posed (within the medium of the film) and therefore totally controlled.
Psycho can be said to share this 'gaze'; heavily intensified by the semi-erotic and voyeuristic camera work. Marion is 'gazed upon'- by the camera, by Bates. She is objectified as the attractive blonde of the period, single, and sexually available. The 'gaze' in this film is derived for masculine pleasure (Norman Bates derives pleasure, even if guilt ridden, from 'watching' Marion 'without being seen' (the classic definition of voyeurism); the audience derives 'pleasure' from watching Marion, including her death.
At this point you might be compelled to argue that as female viewers there was no 'pleasure' in watching Bates watching Marion, or watching Marion being killed- and you would be right.
There is researched evidence to suggest that there is a gender difference between a female viewing a film and a male viewing a film. This difference seems to rooted in cultural constructs not of 'seeing' but of the relationship between power , control and gender (Berger, 1972).
The easiest way to reveal this difference in 'viewing' is with the pin-up poster. Males gazing upon a pin-up poster are not necessarily engaging in a pleasure derived from eroticism, but they do engage pleasure in the fact that the female is 'framed', visually captured', posed without freedom of speech or movement, unable to exert control. The male viewer has the control and can impose whatever 'script' he likes on the image, without protest.
But if this relationship is reversed and a female is gazing on a male pin-up, there is no automatic reversal of the sense of power or control.
The female gaze does not perceive the male as being an object which is available for mental manipulation. Female viewers do not read the image as a code for power and control.
This difference then has a powerful impact on how the construction of female is perceived and received by different genders.
It is a direct consequence of this critical film theory that two things happened in the film industry;
a) Females began to realise that the only way to break free of 'the gaze' was to direct and construct films themselves (think of Gaylene Preston, Jane Campion)
b) Hollywood began to develop thriller and horror films which appeared to promote a female 'heroine' (usually with masculine attributes; think of Ripley in Aliens, Starling in Silence of the Lambs, Sigourney Weaver in CopyCat, Jennifer Love-Hewitt in I Know What You Did Last Summer, Neve Campbell in Scream).
However, a close examination of these 'females', constructed to meet the new 'feminist audience', discloses a new set of codes and signals to the 'gaze' which are as inherently problematic as the original.
And it is Hitchcock's Psycho that spawned the development of the erotic thrillers (Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction), the horror thrillers (ChainSaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Scream, and other serial killer films) where the object in the film is the hunted female, driven into a 'celluloid corner' and then killed, usually for stepping outside of expected female social/sexual behaviours .