In this lecture, we will explore the ways in which society makes and consumes video, film, and media through a critical feminist lens. Who has been privileged to be the spectator, who has been subjected to the viewed and how does that impact how the viewer sees the world around them?

This lecture will focus on the feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey’s theory of the “Male Gaze” which describes the ways in which the female body is often represented as the passive object for the active view and consumption. We will discuss how the “Male Gaze” has been the default setting through which most modern media has been experienced and consumed by all viewers through analyzing a range of historic films as well as the responses from female filmmakers to this theory. We will also explore the ways this concept intersects with race through the fetishization/exoticization of racialized women, as well as the sexualization of Queer women.

Instructor: Rebecca Watson

Cost: PWYC (minimum donation of $10)