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

3D: Is it the Right Future for Hollywood?

The film industry, over its entire lifespan, has introduced and pioneered many innovations that have shaped the way we view cinema today, from the inclusion of sound and Technicolor to computer-animated special effects and tapeless recording on HD and Red (4K resolution, equivalent to 35mm film) cameras.  In the past year, since the release of Avatar, the inclusion of 3D technology in films has exploded onto the scene, where it’s hard to ignore its presence in theaters.  Although the use of 3D technology in today’s cinema has the potential of enhancing the viewing experience, it is unfortunately being used in the wrong ways and slapped onto movies for increased ticket prices and box office profits.

There are two main methods to create 3D in films, and each method results in distinctly varying levels of quality.  The first method is to shoot a movie with 3D cameras from the beginning of production, resulting in a film that is in 3D natively.  Some examples of movies shot using this method are Avatar, Resident Evil: Afterlife, and most 3D animated films, namely Legend of the Guardians and Despicable Me.  The other method is to shoot a movie in 2D, then in post-production converting the footage to 3D.  Movies using method #2 include Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender, and the upcoming movies for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Films using the conversion method come out in far less quality then those shot natively in 3D.  If more films are made using the conversion method, the general public will grow to have a distasteful outlook on 3D.  James Cameron, director of Avatar, in an interview with USA Today, mentions the following:  “If people put bad 3D in the marketplace they're going to hold back or even threaten the emerging of 3D. People will be confused by differences in quality.”

No matter what method is used to shoot a film in 3D, there has been issues with how they are viewed.  One of the most noticeable issues is in order to view 3D movies, the moviegoer has to wear glasses to experience the effect.  Wearing said glasses can become uncomfortable after an extended period of time, as well as lead to eye fatigue.  Another negative effect is how the glasses reduce the brightness of the image, making the original way it was meant to be viewed only possible by not wearing the glasses.  As J.J. Abrams, director of Star Trek, points out, “When you put the glasses on, everything gets dim” (The New York Times).  Until 3D technology gets to the level of sophistication where glasses aren’t needed, the glasses will be an Achille’s heel for the advancement of 3D cinema.  3D movies can only be enjoyable if it is viewed in the same way as the ones that have been filmed in 2D since the inception of cinema.

Probably the most daunting and, therefore, unfortunate aspect of the escalating usage of 3D in today’s films is for the increased profits major studios can reap from ticket sales of 3D movies.  With most 3D movies slapping on between a $3 to $5 premium, Hollywood studios can generate more money from the 3D versions of films rather than their 2D counterparts.  Because of this, studios are more inclined to convert movies into 3D during post-production solely for the purpose of more revenue.  Because of Hollywood’s increasing desire to create more movies in 3D, big name directors and movies have been pressured, although not always successfully, to shoot or convert their films into 3D.  For example, Clash of the Titans was shot in 2D, but Warner Bros. insisted during post-production the movie be converted to 3D.  The studio insists the 3D is used to enhance the viewing experience, but many critics state that viewing it in the said way makes it barely watchable.  Another movie considered to be made into 3D was the recent release Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which is based on the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series and directed by Edger Wright.  The idea was quickly put to rest “partly to avoid straining what promises to be a young audience with high ticket prices, [and] partly because the already busy look of the movie might have become overwhelming in 3-D” (Cieply).  Using 3D should be determined on the effectiveness of its inclusion in a film, such as the added depth of field evident in Avatar, rather than on the desire to make a quick profit and use it as a gimmick to get moviegoers into the theaters.

In conclusion, the positive impact of 3D in cinema has the potential of increasing the enjoyability of watching movies in ways that were not possible with 2D cinema, but as long as Hollywood continues to use it in a lackluster manner and for the sole purpose of increased profits, the future for quality 3D films is bleak.

-Written by Jonathan Earley

Opinion essay for college English course

Featured Video #2: Feel Good Drag

I created this music video for a scholarship.  It took me four days, over 1,000 photos, and practically no sleep to complete this video.  I used a Nikon D90 to take the stills.  The song is "Feel Good Drag" by Anberlin.

Featured Video #1: Identity

The following short was my "Signature Project" for my TV Production class at the Fairfax Academy in Fairfax, VIrginia. It was my final project at the Academy, and uses stop motion (with Legos) and live action to tell a story using no dialogue.

Welcome!

It is a delight to begin, what I hope to be, an ongoing, career long blog through my trials and adventures of life in the film and video industry. I hope you join along this exciting endeavor. I do not know where life will take me, but with the right choices, I feel I can go as far as I desire. Again, welcome, and let us begin this journey. Now!

-JE