Mulvey's Male Gaze - Audience Theory

• Mulvey first used the term 'Male Gaze in her 1975 essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'. 
• Mulvey's essay described what she saw as the male point of view adopted by the camera to visually pleasure the male audience.
• Mulvey also described how the camera forces on women's bodies, treating them as sexual objects in order to gratify men. 
• She also argued that the central characters in films are male, meaning that the male audience can identify with them, sharing the view that women are passive and there to be looked at. 
• Mulvey also denies the existence of the 'female gaze' in cinema claiming that women do not seek gratification from attractive men in cinema.
• In addition, she argued that the camera's focus on women's bodies, and its need to gratify men detracts from the storyline of the film.