Male Gaze Class Discussion Overview

    The term scopophilia refers to the male gaze of Hollywood which objectifies women into mere objects to be looked at. The male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents women as sexual objects. 

    In class we discussed the male gaze from the reading and how it has played a role in many films. Before going into this discussion, I had a little bit of knowledge about the male gaze from a marketing stand point since I am a marketing minor. However, in marketing it isn't called the male gaze it is called sex appeal and they have some similarities. In one of my marketing classes we discussed how advertisements tend to sexualize and objectify women specifically. An advertisement that we discussed in that class was the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's commercial where they use half naked women to pose with a burger. This makes no sense because what does a burger have to do with a half naked women? It should just showcase a burger on the grill or someone eating it indicating that the burger is edible. My professor also brought up the question of, what if it was a half naked man eating a burger? The majority of the class agreed that it would be really weird and awkward. There are many more commercials that do the same but it is interesting that this does not only happen in Hollywood films. 

    It is crazy to me that the male gaze is still used in films today because it plays into stereotypes and creates a false outlook. If we want to create a better society and culture it would be best if we showcase the true meaning of someone or something and not objectify it. I think that the overall class discussion was eye opening and I appreciated listening to other peoples points on the subject.