The concept of the male gaze comes from feminist analyzation of film. It points out that most film is created from the point of view or with the audience of heterosexual male viewers in mind. These manifest itself in the types of characters, the way shots are set up and the plots and themes.
Example? A female character who is only in a movie to be the girlfriend character. In every scene she looks attractive and is there for the viewer to look at.
Its kind of hard to avoid these types of things, cause so many movies use the male gaze. Sometimes if you can't avoid it, you can alteast know what is going on. And this is where the tests come in.
There are a lot of different tests you can use to see if a movie or TV show is using the male gaze. The most commonly referred to is the Bechtel Test.
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The Bechtel Test, as outlined above, requires that there be...
- Atleast two women...
- Who talk to eachother...
- About something other than a man.
Some people add on to this that both women must have names, and sometimes both first and last names.
Other tests include...
- the Ellen Willis test: if you flip the genders, does the story still make sense?
- the Sexy Lamp test (courtesy of Kelly Sue DeConnick): can you replace your female character with a sexy lamp and still have the story work?
- the Mako Mori test: there is a) at least one female character, b) who gets her own narrative arc, c) that is not about supporting a man’s story.
And a new one that has popped up on tumblr...
- the Tauriel test a) there is a woman, b) WHO IS GOOD AT HER JOB. (Hint hint. Skyfall doesn't pass.)
So maybe you're not going to stop watching movies that don't pass this test, but what I'd encourage you to do is just be aware of it. If something doesn't feel quite right to you in a movie, or if you're wondering why the sex scene is longer than the major plot points, check back to these tests. The male gaze may be why.
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