The male gaze is a term coined by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Mulvey argued that traditional Hollywood films respond to a deep-seated drive known as “scopophilia”: the sexual pleasure involved in looking. Mulvey argued that most popular movies are filmed in ways that satisfy masculine scopophilia. In this sense, the male gaze ultimately explains the way in which particular media texts, such as films, objectify women by making them the object of a hetero man’s desire. In other words, mainstream media objectifies women, showing the female body through a heterosexual male lens as a passive non-actor secondary to the active male characters. Mulvey’s essay came forth in the context of second-wave feminism in the 1960s-70s. Although there were subgroups of second-wave feminism (such as antipornography feminists and pro pornography feminists), all were united under the impact of cinema on audiences. There was a mutual understanding that media texts impacted how society viewed a woman’s place in society. Feminists concluded that the male gaze views the female body as an object for men “to watch, conquer, and possess and use to further their goals.” In most films, the male gaze controls the narrative, ultimately putting forth the message that women are subordinate to men and that their agency is reduced to that of an erotic subject with their value attributed to how their body pleasure male viewer’s through its appearance. The male gaze presents the female form as a sexual object for men to quite literally consume through viewing. This phenomenon is present in many popular films portraying both hetero and homosexual relationships. Films that are marketed as queer films are actually filmed through the lens of the male gaze making it so that lesbian relations are constructed to satisfy the hetero male viewer. This is seen in the French film Blue is the Warmest Color (2013), a film that was once marketed as portraying authentic queer relationships. I believe this film puts forth the false ideology that queer women perform their sexuality for male viewing rather than take pleasure in it for themselves as evident through the obvious male gaze.
This film Blue is the Warmest Color based on the graphic novel of the same name by Jul Maroh is about the coming of age of a French teenager Adèle,. The camera follows Adèle as she explores her blossoming identity throughout her late teen years. During these formative years, Adèle falls in love with a woman, Emma, and is forced to come to terms with the fact that she desires to exist outside of her current heteronormative world. Adèle explores her bisexuality throughout the film as she has sex and relationships with both men and women. If one examines the film’s plot alone,, it seems to be about a woman exploring her bisexuality through the authentic portrayal of on-screen explorative relationships. However, the film itself is actually a heteronormative portrayal of bisexuality filmed through the male gaze. This is not surprising as a cis-hetero man, Abdellatif Kechiche, directed the film. The filming process tells the story of what happens when a cis-hetero man casts two straight women to portray a same-sex relationship on screen.
Behind the Scenes
Behind the camera, Kechiche exploitedthe main actresses Adèle Exarchopolus and Léa Seydoux. They came forth in an interview with Daily Beast forth and said that they were “terrorized on set by Kechiche.” The actresses were unaware of the movie's explicit nature until they were coerced into shooting nine minutes of unscripted sex. Seydoux said the following in the interview when asked about the difficulty of portraying her role:
“The thing is, in France, it’s not like in the States. The director has all the power. When you’re an actor on a film in France and you sign the contract, you have to give yourself, and in a way, you’re trapped.”
Exarchopolus responded similarly:
“...once we were on the shoot, I realized that he really wanted us to give him everything. Most people don’t even dare to ask the things that he did, and they’re more respectful—you get reassured during sex scenes, and they’re choreographed, which desexualizes the act.”
Seydoux and Exarchopolus were treated as objects on set. They were ultimately forced to engage in unscripted and unprofessional sex scenes. Abdellatif Kechiche cared more about his vision of the movie than the safety and comfort of the actresses. When asked about how they felt about the sex scenes, they point out the absurd length of the scenes themselves. The interviewer noted how the length of the scene was rather long and both actresses agreed. Seydoux said she was embarrassed by the whole thing, while Exarchopolus said she tried to escape from her own mind well filming. Exarchopolus even went on to say that the sex scenes were “hard because [she’s] not that familiar with lesbian sex.” The actresses identify as straight and therefore can not authentically portray sex between two women in a queer relationship. The author of the graphic novel on which the film was based, Jul Maroh even felt that “ the film is too straight” in the sense that it was not an authentic portrayal of a same-sex relationship. Blue is the Warmest Color was created in a context that did not support feminism and a safe expression of sexuality. The film was centered around the male director’s vision of bisexuality and lesbianism, one that relied on graphic sex scenes between the two women. The sex scenes in the film were created for the male viewer who would get off on the drawn-out, close-up imagery of two women having sex.
The Male Gaze In Action
In order to identify the male gaze in this film, I’ve chosen to do a scene analysis. The scene that I am analyzing is one between Adèle and a character named Beatrice. This scene is important to analyze because although it is not an explicit sex scene, the women are still framed in the male gaze. More than this, the women in the scene utilize a female adaptation of the male gaze that objectifies other girls passing by. If you mute the volume of this scene, the body language between Adèle and Beatrice is powerful; the viewer can feel their every emotion. The scene is a compelling ode to the passion in the film that positions queer sexuality as something that is performed by women rather than authentic.
In this scene, the camera acts as the sole spectator to the conversation between the two women. This angle can be seen below; the camera does not focus on Adèle and Beatrice together until the end of the scene. The camera goes back and forth between each character as they engage in a dialogue and, in turn, put forth the message that the audience is viewing a real conversation. The director creates an intimate space that is separate from the outside world in which the film exists. In other words, he attempts to convey the message that the connection between the two women is so intense and passionate that the outside world is no longer of relevance.
The coloring of the scene is also very muted, signifying a dullness in the life of the characters. The audience is supposed to feel the uncertainty of Adèle as she navigates her sexuality. Meanwhile, Beatrice is positioned as dominant to Adèle because of her comfortability with her sexuality. Beatrice’s hair stands out due to its dark color; the brunette color adds dimension to the scene and draws the audience's eyes toward her character. Beatrice has also applied makeup and styled her hair, indicating she is put together. Adèle, on the other hand, is portrayed as dull and messy. Her hair is not colored as vibrant as Beatrice’s and is tied back in a messy up-do. All of this serves to situate Adèle as innocent, inexperienced, and unsure of herself. This image plays on the masculine fantasy of a dominant woman taking control of a sexual encounter, an ideology that alludes to the male gaze in the scene.
The male gaze isn't explicitly obvious until the camera pans away from the two women at 0:32. The camera pans up and down a woman's body walking past, showcasing her breasts and hips. The audience sees Beatrice’s eyes quite literally undress a woman walking past her with an intense gaze. Her facial expression can be seen above; she is mesmerized by the women's figure. The camera pans to the woman’s behind and objectifies her body. Beatrice goes on to comment on the women’s “nice little ass”. The director frames this encounter in a way that the audience does not even need to hear the dialogue to know that Beatrice sexualizing the woman. It’s in this sense that the scene exemplifies a female adaptation of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze. Beatrice is a lesbian and she objectifies a woman in the way that heterosexual men stereotypically do, according to Mulvey. The scene then transmits the message that lesbians, too, partake in the male gaze's structure when looking at the feminine form.
The scene culminates in a kiss between the two women. The intimacy of the scene makes it so that the audience can actively sense the pleasure between the two women. The camera finally shows the two women in the same frame when they kiss, exemplifying the unity of the two women through their shared desire. The closeness of the shot serves once again to validate Mulvey’s male gaze theory. The audience focuses on the lips and tongues of the two women as they passionately kiss. This is because of the way Adèle and Beatrice’s hair obscures their face, making it so that their lips are the only parts of their faces that the viewer can truly see. The intimacy of the frame positions the women as beings meant to satisfy the desire of the audience. They are portraying the presumed erotic nature of contact between lesbian women. Lastly, the coloring of Beatrice’s nails is again symbolic of Adèle’s sexuality. The film is titled Blue is the Warmest Color, blue is meant to signify Adèle’s love for women. Beatrice’s nails are painted a deep blue color and they are positioned passionately on Adèle’s face. The audience sees Adèle blush after the kiss, capitalizing on the fact that she was both aroused and embarrassed by the experience. Overall, the scene depicts feminine queerness in a way that adapts to the male gaze. The women in the scene are objectified not only by the characters but by the audience as well. This focus on the feminine form and sexual arousal/ exploration serve to validate society’s eroticized view of lesbianism.
By Alyssa Morterud