Through the Lens of the Female Gaze: What Female Gaze Means in Film

Depicting women on screen as an expression of the 'female' and 'male' gaze.

Film remains a space today where men hold the dominant position. According to statistics from film researcher Martha Lauzen, women directed just 16% of 2024's highest-grossing films. On the other hand, the number of female characters in film has grown compared to 2023, matching the number of male characters. In 42% of films, women were the lead characters, and the same held for men. Duos accounted for the remaining 8%.

How female characters are actually portrayed in films, and how the 'female' gaze differs from the 'male' one — that's what DeTalks looked into.

Male Gaze vs. Female Gaze

The term 'female gaze' emerged as a counterpoint to the 'male gaze.' The concept of the male gaze was pioneered by film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1973 essay 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.' This concept came down to the objectification of female characters on screen, reflecting men's fantasies directed at women. Women, in this framework, were reduced to simply being 'an object to be looked at.'

Film and media studies professor Caitlin Benson-Allott has described 'being an object to be looked at' as referring to a kind of sexual spectacle, where a character, usually a woman, is presented to us as visual pleasure, noting that in everyday life, we call this objectification, though she personally prefers the phrase 'being-looked-at-ness' over 'objectification,' commented Benson-Allott, referencing Mulvey's words.

But the idea that the 'female' gaze is simply the opposite of the 'male' one is debatable. Professor Caitlin Benson-Allott noted that this concept of opposition rests on the idea of a binary gender system. This means treating women and men as opposites, like Yin and Yang — an approach that leaves no room for genders that fall outside that binary.

Features of the Female Gaze

Benson, along with another researcher on the topic, director Joey Soloway, has argued that the 'male' and 'female' gaze don't depend on the gender of whoever stood behind the camera and yelled 'action!' Benson-Allott has described this as really being about a political and ideological system, particularly the dominant patriarchal order, said Caitlin.

Writer and director Ianna Smith, for her part, has noted that films under the 'female' gaze can feature longer shots. The camera can 'hold' on a character on screen, letting the audience feel that character emotionally. Joey Soloway has also outlined several distinguishing features of the 'female' gaze.

Soloway has described picking up a camera and using it to tell their audience, 'I'm not just showing you this, I really want you to feel this along with me.'

According to them, the 'female' gaze can share feelings and evoke them in viewers better than the 'male' gaze does.

Building on this point, the female gaze shows us what it feels like to be the 'object' of someone else's gaze, and to be a woman in a world of men.

The third point concerns responding to 'being looked at.'

Soloway has described it as a very brave thing to return the gaze and dare to say, 'I see you seeing me,' explaining that it's not simply 'I feel that I'm being seen,' and not just 'this is what it's like to be seen,' but now, 'I see how you see me,' explained Joey.

So 'returning the gaze' means women wanting to act and be the subject, rather than simply a pleasant object to observe.

Examples in Film

'Suicide Squad' (2016) / 'Birds of Prey' (2020)

Eleanor Meade, author of an essay on the 'female gaze,' noted the transformation of the character Harley Quinn as directors changed between the two films 'Suicide Squad' and 'Birds of Prey.' The first film, about a group of criminals working for the U.S. government to save the world from a mystical force, was made by director David Ayer. The second installment, 'The Suicide Squad,' was directed by James Gunn. The standalone film 'Birds of Prey,' which tells Quinn's own story, was directed by a woman — Cathy Yan.

Harley, in turn, stopped wearing extremely short, revealing costumes and dresses, switching to pants or shorts instead. Saving the world in comfortable clothes has presumably gotten easier.

Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey. Photo: IMDb

The character of Quinn also grew from infantile and mentally unstable into a heroine who left her abusive relationship with the Joker and showed solidarity with other women in trouble.

American Psycho (2000)

Based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, the film 'American Psycho' was directed by Mary Harron. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is a manic perfectionist who wants to be first and better than his colleagues in everything. But eventually, his manic tendencies take over, and the man starts killing.

Yet despite the large amount of blood and violence, the film has been recognized as an example of the strength of the 'female' gaze. As written by critic Angelica Jade Bastién, in 'American Psycho,' the director avoided detailed depictions of Bateman's crimes, unlike in the original novel. Harron pushed depictions of violence and cruelty outside the frame.

In an interview with Dazed, the director also noted that 'American Psycho' is a very feminist film.

Harron has described the film as a satire about how men compete with each other in this hyperreal universe, saying that women there matter even less than a tan or a suit, and that for her, despite the fact that all the women are tragic and end up killed, what matters is how the men perceive and treat them, commented Harron.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

The film, which depicts a romantic relationship between two women, Marianne and Héloïse, belongs to director Céline Sciamma.

As reported by Caitlin Benson-Allott, the film destabilized the 'male' gaze, though not through its depiction of love between women. During the bed scene, for instance, both women are positioned equally in the frame, their gazes on equal footing. Neither one looks down at the other, as usually happens in films shaped by the 'male' gaze.

Benson-Allott has described how the model, Héloïse, becomes the commissioner of the art, while the painter, Marianne, becomes the subject of the painting, and both become each other's viewer, commented Caitlin.

In contemporary film, the concept of the 'female gaze' is taking on greater significance. It's not simply an alternative to the male gaze, but an attempt to show a different perspective — one that gives voice and agency to those who were previously reduced to nothing more than a beautiful object.