male gaze

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The implicit assumption or presentation of the viewpoint of a heterosexual man in films and other visual media, often manifesting in lingering, eroticized shots of women's bodies.

Word forms

male gaze

Etymology

Coined by John Berger in the 1972 BBC documentary Ways of Seeing, and popularized by Laura Mulvey in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", published in 1975.

Derived words

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