The Male Gaze; "film spectators experience unconscious, scopophilic pleasure in two way: 1) by identifying with the male gaze of the camera as it concentrates on female characters 2) by identifying with the male characters who gaze at female characters within the film itself.
MEAN GIRLS
The male gaze is reflected in the teen movie Mean Girls. The infamous scene that instantaneously comes to mind is in the Christmas concert scene when the 4 girls sing Jingle Bell Rock and are all wearing fairly provocative outfits revealing a lot of skin. The auditorium where they are performing is filled with a complete audience, and the camera focuses primarily on the way the girls' body moves and their 'cheeky' facial expressions. Expectedly, the camera then focuses on a boy in the audience who is in shock admiring the girls. This leaves an impression especially on females that they should present themselves in a certain way and feel comfortable being objectified. Films such as Mean girls encourage this ideology. This is WRONG. It is particularly bad as the portrayals have deeper implications for the young adolescent females who watch this film and internalize the characters behaviours and accept the representations of the females as correct.
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