Laura Mulvey and the " male gaze "

 

Introduction

 

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist , she was born on August the 15th 1941 and is currently working as a professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck , university of London . Laura coined the term " male gaze " in 1975 , she believes that film audiences have to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male .

Features of the male gaze

The camera lingers on the curves of the female body , and events which occur to women are presented largely in the contents of a mans reaction to these events . The male gaze relegates women to the status of objects , the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily , by identification with the male .

Use of the "male gaze" in everyday life

Some theorists have noted the sexualizing of the female body even in situations where female sexiness has nothing to do with the everyday product that is being advertised . Many of the Lynx adverts highlight the " male gaze "! theory as they use the sexualisation of the female body to entice the men into buying the product and lead them to thinking that in using this product they would attract these type of women , and that's what the " male gaze " theory is about .



Criticism of Mulvey and the gaze theory

Laura Mulvey and the theory were criticised as many people argued that some females enjoy being looked at e.g. beauty pageants .
Also another argument could be that the gaze can be directed at people of the same gender for many reasons , not all to do with sexualisation , such as in comparison to body image and clothing .

Here are a few examples of how women can be objectified in music magazine front covers .

 

 

The women on the magazine covers above are enhanced to look appealing in order to catch the " male gaze " which encourages the men to buy the magazine , to have ownership of the women and see more photos of them inside . i picked the second magazine cover image to highlight the way in which music magazines have started to lose what the main purpose of the magazine genre is and trying to relate the male audience by using female actresses that are not even related to the music industry .

 

 



 

 

 Although above there is an NME magazine which challenges the stereotypical girl that is usually seen on the front cover of music magazines . Beth Ditto is showing that women don't have to be necessarily attractive to be on a magazine front cover . This suggests that NME has stuck to the ain purpose of a music magazine , and not strayed off in the direction of rolling stones by objectifying women to ensure the male audience .

 

Mise En Scene - Props ( citizen Kahn )

 

 

In this clip there is toilet role used that Mr Kahn has brought from the cash and carry , this is stereotypical as all Asian family do their best to get the cheapest deals and cut costs as he says " special discount from cash and carry " . Also Mrs Kahn is holding a large sponge and cleaning the sofa , this is stereotypical as it shows that all Asian families are clean freaks and even though there is no mess and everything is clean they still have to clean it . 

The Kings Speech

What makes a film British ? Most people would associate a British film with things that are typically British , like a setting in the UK , or a focus on typically British people over seas . It should also include mostly British actors in the cast , and a story line based on certain aspects of a stereotypical British life . example of this are Bend It Like Beckham , The Kings Speech.The Nationalities of the Scriptwriter,director , producers etc , are less important however if they were also British it would make for a British classic . The King Speech is a great example as it has British cast  , its based in great Britain on British history and also the director is British. 

Exhibition Issues - Box Office in the UK ? The Kings Speeches box office performances succeeded any expectation momentum pictures had , with a 3.52 million gross in the opening weekend , this put all other British films to shame as Slumdog millionaire only made 1.83 million in its opening weekend , calender girls made 1.88 million in its opening weekend ,  atonement made 1.63 and finally Pride Of Prejudice made 2.53 million .

Exhibition Issues and reviews : the films reception ? The film got an incredible critical reception as it was nominated for 14 Baftas and 11 Oscars , they include best picture , best director best supporting actor and actress best screenplay , best editing and many more.  In response to the question " Not another film about the Monarchy . What good are they to anyone " the guardian said that they are a god send for the British film industry as if you think about it really films like this are promoting the British legacy , they then go on to say how lead man Colin firth picked up a golden globe for his part and his appearance lead to a Facebook campaign being made to elect him ascend to the throne .

Critical review of the film  ? 

Web 2.0 and Exchange ? 




The Films Production Issues ? 
Firstly many people found it very peculiar that people would want to make a film that highlighted somebody with a stutter and especially to mimic the king like that . Also See-saw , a British/Australian company financed and produced the film , by getting deals with key distribution partners like The Weinstien company (USA) and Momentum Pictures  (UK) and more . But See-saw had a huge decision to make when fox - searchlight came sniffing and wanted in , but they wanted to own all of the rights to the film . This meant See-Saw would have to cut other partners which led to a big issue , but See-saw chose to turn down fox-searchlight and keep their original partners . While preparing the project , the films production team provoked the ire of one of the film's stars , Geoffrey Rush ,by taking the unorthodox step of posting the movie script through his home letterbox in Melbourne , Australia . Rush's management team wrote an angry email to the filmmakers for their impertinence . But despite this rush excepted the role he was offered . Also the kings speech first set out as a play in 2006 so had to get the writes from the writer of the play to be able to make the film .

The Finance ?

Prescience saw the films potential early on and became the key financier of the film . The Weinstien company and Momentum pictures were also obviously large investors into the film .The UK film council gave See-Saw one million pounds for the production which with all the investment gave them a budget of around 15 million pounds .

Distribution and Marketing issues ?

These posters have been marketed to stand out and draw in the audience with words and phrases from critic reviews . Momentum pictures the British distributor created the films market plan and marketed the film to UK audiences .

Media Dredd Essay improvements

“Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences”.

Topic - Uk and US film industry
Aspect - Production
Viewpoint - Dominated by global institutions - big six , completely control film industry
introduction - To what extent do you agree ?

Films that the essay answer is based on - British = Dredd
                                                                  American = Star trek

• Box office figures
• budget to make the film
• how long it took from green light to being on screen
• Big six - what other things that the company that made the film own
• Comparison of the companies that made the film
• Release Patterns
• How the film is made

• Use of technical terminology i.e " film buffs "
• Refer back to the question and support answer with lots of facts
• Dont waffle , stay relevant to the question

To what extent is media production dominated by Paramount ( star trek ) or any of the big six , which sell their films and let out their services/equipment ( stages etc ) in comparison to film 4 and dredd ?

Star Trek Facts 

•  Director for Star Trek is JJ Abrams
• Budget $190,000,000 (estimated)
• Gross from USA = $228,756,232 but overall world wide gross = $466,978,661 which proves we need to release films all across america .
• Genres Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi
• The green light for Star Trek was June 2009
• The run time for star trek was 132 mins , which is the normal run time for normal Hollywood movies , compared to dredd which is 90 mins and could be a factor as to why Star Trek is better. 
• Stark Trek was a territorial saturation 

• Production Companies

  • Paramount Pictures  (presents)
  • Skydance Productions (presents)
  • Bad Robot (production)

• Distributors - paramount is whats known is whats know as a vertically integrated company as they control all aspects of production and distribution . 

Filming was done on location in Los Angeles , California, and around the area at the Lawrence livermore national laboratory in Livermore. Additional locations included Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Sony Pictures Studios in Culver city, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. Some shots were made in Iceland .

Dredd facts:

Genre - Action, Crime, Sci Fi

Where was it filmed - Cape Town Film Studios, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Budget - $50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend -

$6,278,491 (USA) (21 September 2012)

Gross -

$13,401,683 (USA) (26 October 2012)

Run time -

95 min (the longer the run  time the more it has cost to make, this is why Hollywood films are usually longer than other film companies)

Production companies -  DNA Films, IM Global, Peach Trees 

Director - Pete Travis

Distribution - It was a limited national release

 If you compare dredd to a film like Disney’s ‘Brave’, Dredd’s post production 

included the filmmakers experimented with the visuals of Mega-City One, 

including the design and positioning of the city's tower blocks, to create the 

impression that the city had risen out of the remains of another. The outcrops 

and appendages were added to break up the buildings' straight lines. Garland, a 

novelist-turned-screenwriter was in charge of editing Dredd, with the help of 

other producers Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich they may have had to do 

reshoots as well.

British production companies

From the feedback i received for my Dredd essay , i know i need to improve on not drifting into a film review and sticking on track with an essay , i need to do less explaining with what the film is about and go into more detail about facts , figures and statistics . Also i need to focus on linking back to the question and be more specific on certain things like CGI etc.