The Essence of the Male Gaze in Means Girls

From advertising to cinema, sexuality has always been a dominant force that has been used to achieve certain goals, from generating profits to portraying genders in various ways.  One of these various ways is the “male gaze,” or the act of looking at women, who are being objectified by men.  One such movie to portray aspects of the male gaze is Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004).

16-year-old Cady Heron (Lindsey Lohan), who was previously home-schooled, has moved from Africa to Evanston, Illinois and starts to attend North Shore High School.  She is befriended by Janis and Damien, both social outcasts who help get Cady familiarized with the school’s cliques.  Unexpectedly, Cady is then befriended by the bitchy queen-bee Regina George (Rachel McAdams) to join the Plastics.  Realizing the possibilities, Janis devises a plan to ruin Regina’s life, with Cady joining into the plan after she’s mislead by Regina at a Halloween party.  As she deconstructs Regina’s life, Cady’s is slowly turning into the one she’s trying to take down, as she is repulsed by Aaron Samuels, Regina’s ex-boyfriend, and renounced by Janis and Damien.  After learning the truth about Cady’s nutrition bars, Regina puts herself into the Burn Book, a book containing hateful statements about numerous girls at North Shore, she gives it to the principal, then spreads its content all across the school, prompting a riot.  After holding a remediation session with all of the school’s girls, Regina storms out of school and is hit by a school bus.  After being shunned by the entire school, including Aaron, Janis and Damien, Cady confesses she wrote the Burn Book.  After winning the state Mathletes competition, Cady goes to the Spring Fling and is crowned Queen, but she tells everyone that her victory belongs to everyone and they are all beautiful in their own way.  Everyone forgives each other, and all of the drama is put to rest.

Mean Girls, as a whole, can be a study of the objectification of women.  Throughout the movie, Regina, Cady, and the rest of the “Plastics” strive to gain the attention of the men at North Shore High School.  One sequence exemplifying this is before the Halloween party, where we see Regina, Cady, Gretchen, and Karen dressing up.  All but Cady dress as animals in a sexually-provocative manner, with Regina dressing as a Playboy bunny and Karen as a scantily-clad mouse.  Here, the viewer is subject to voyeurism, for they see these women as sexually-pleasing objects.  Nothing is being noted about either of their mental capacities or personalities, therefore they can both be portrayed as blonde bombshells, or those who aren’t very intelligent but get their way by the use of their attractive bodies and assets.  For example, in her day, Marilyn Monroe was the epitome figure of the blonde bombshell.  Also playing into the objectification of women, the women in Mean Girls are dressed as animals, which plays into the male viewer’s animalistic, sexual fantasies.  Seeing these women dressed in this manner, as well their lack of looking directly into the camera, distances themselves from the viewer, which in turn makes him desire the women more greatly.

Another sequence portraying the male gaze is when the junior girls are in the gym confessing their cruelties and apologizing to one another, with each confessing girl doing a trust fall into a group of girls.  Here, we have a point of view (POV) shot of Regina making a cruel comment about Janis, who’s just gotten onto the table to confess.  The shot following this is the reaction shot showing Janis replying to Regina.  The POV shot was shot from above, showing Regina in a subjective manner.  It’s also a mid-close up shot with Regina in the center, putting all of the attention on her.  Looking at these two shots, we see that Regina is, once again, objectified and shown for the means of pleasing the male viewer, while the reaction shot does the complete opposite with Janis.  With the reaction, Janis is shown among the rest of the people in the crowd and is dressed in a more masculine manner, thereby repulsing any of the viewer’s sexual desires for her.  

Basing on the observations of these various sequences, we can agree with Mulvey’s assessment of the role of women in film, primarily as an object to be looked at and desired.  Throughout the film, the viewer has opportunities to be a scopophilia, taking every chance possible to gaze upon the attractiveness being portrayed by the various women.  While there are very few men in leading roles that can be targeted as victims of the male gaze, the way the women interact with one another in Mean Girls supports the idea of said gaze.

The Narrator and Tyler Durden

Between psychology and cinema, Freud’s ideas of the ego and the id, as well as the Oedipus complex, have been subtlety, yet extensively, used in many films throughout the industry’s history.  In the film Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999), Fincher uses Freud’s ideas from The Ego and the Id to exhibit character development and the relationships between the narrator (Jack [Edward Norton]), Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), and Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter).

Jack, an automobile company employee, suffers from insomnia, and is advised by his doctor to go to support groups, where Jack finds emotional comfort in people who have physical and mental sicknesses he doesn’t have.  He’s eventually disturbed by Marla, an impostor such as himself.  Jack meets Tyler on a plane trip home and befriends him. He arrives at his apartment, which has been destroyed by explosives, and eventually stays at Tyler’s place.  They start a fight behind the bar, and after having multiple fights, they attract a crowd of men and start a “fight club.”  Tyler becomes sexually involved with Marla and tells Jack to never mention anything about him to Marla.  As more fight clubs emerge, Tyler starts “Project Mayhem,” an anti-corporate/materialist terrorist organization.  Eventually, Jack finds out that Tyler is part of his psyche and is everything Jack could never be.  Fight Club displays, after deeper analysis of the film, the Oedipus complex between Jack, Tyler, and Marla.  Scenes portraying the characteristics of this complex include the first meditation session Jack attends, the bits of scenes at Tyler’s house showing Jack’s frustration towards Marla and Tyler’s sexual intercourse, and the final scene where Jack “kills” Tyler.

The Narrator (Jack)

Even before we meet Tyler or Marla, we find Jack at one of his many support groups, engaged in a meditation session.  As part of the meditation, Jack steps into his cave where he finds his “power animal:” a penguin.  In a sexual and animalistic mindset, a penguin can’t fly, which makes it castrated from the majority of birds that do.  Women, similar to penguins and their inability to fly, are, in a sense, also castrated.  The penguin is found in the cave where Jack is meditating.  Since the penguin can be related to a woman, the cave becomes a feminist object and symbolizes the uterus.  Later on during another mediation session, Jack finds Marla in the cave instead of the penguin.  Therefore, Jack’s power animal is Marla, who in turn becomes Jack’s mother figure.

Marla Singer

Fast forward later into the movie, and we find bits of scenes where Tyler and Marla are engaged in fierce sexual intercourse, and Jack is very frustrated with the noise from said sex.  The issue of the intercourse becomes more prominent when Jack glances into Tyler’s bedroom and briefly witnesses the crazy sex Tyler and Marla are having.  It is during this moment the Oedipus complex comes into fruition:  Jack sees Marla, his mother figure, having sex with Tyler, the father figure as well as Jack’s id, of whom he possesses the sexual drive and passions absent from Jack’s personality.  Jack, without realizing it, becomes jealous of Tyler and sees him as an obstacle between Marla and himself.  Up to this point, Jack relates with Tyler and seeks to be like him and, in turn, rejects Marla.  Now, after seeing their sexual intercourse, he unconsciously seeks revenge on Tyler while seeking help and comfort from Marla.  

Tyler Durden

Jack’s revenge on Tyler is fully realized in the final scene, when Tyler and Jack are in a skyscraper overlooking the credit card corporate buildings that have been rigged with explosives, which were planted by Project Mayhem.  Tyler has beaten up Jack to near-death and exhibits a dominating figure over him, courtesy of his strong, masculine personality lacking in Jack’s ego.  For the first time, Jack realizes he has control over his id, Tyler, and mentally takes the gun out of Tyler’s hand.  By shooting himself through his cheek, he kills Tyler and regains complete control over his psyche, thus completing his revenge against Tyler.  After being reunited with Marla, who was captured by members of Project Mayhem, the ideal relationship between the child and mother figure is realized when Jack takes hold of Marla’s hand.  Jack takes the place of Tyler’s father figure to be with the mother figure he sought for throughout the entire story.  

FIght Club clearly demonstrates the Oedipus complex in action through the characterizations of Jack, Tyler, and Marla.  From analyzing these select scenes, Fight Club can be interpreted as a fictional, intensified study of Freud’s complex.



By Jonathan Earley
Written for Film Philosophy college course