E31 The Female Gaze (Part 1): The Origins of the Gaze

Sex. Love. Literature.

We’re tackling a big topic in our two part discussion on “the female gaze.” What is the female gaze and why does it matter? In this first episode, we establish some context for the term by getting into the history of the “gaze” as a concept, the psychoanalytic origins of the Male Gaze as theorized by Laura Mulvey, and how the oppositional gaze, as coined by bell hooks, makes space for alternative ways of looking and being looked at.

You can listen to "E32 The Female Gaze (Part 2): Complication and Expansion" right now!

A quick editorial note: We incorrectly mention that polo originated in China. Sources consider what would be modern day Iran as the location of origin for the game.

As two people who study, analyze, and have a literal podcast about media, we stand in solidarity with the WAG and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike–along with their counterparts in other industries/countries, who also deserve fair wages and labor protections– none of the works we discuss here or in other episodes would exist.

Lit discussed this episode: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, Vincenzo, The Story of Ming Lan

Bonus reading (aka works cited & consulted):

• Bowers, Susan R. “Medusa and the Female Gaze.” NWSA Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, 1990, pp. 217-235. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316018>
• Benson-Allott, Caetlin. “No Such Think Not Yet: Questioning Television’s Female Gaze.” Film Quarterly, vol. 71, no. 2, 2017, pp. 65-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/FQ.2017.71.2.65.
• Forster, Stefani. “Yes, there’s such a thing as a ‘female gaze.’ But it’s not what you think.” Medium. !2 Jun 2018. Accessed 13 February 2020. https://medium.com/truly-social/yes-theres-such-a-thing-as-a-female-gaze-but-it-s-not-what-you-think-d27be6fc2fed.
• Dyhouse, Carol. Heartthrobs: A History of Women and Desire. Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Hemmann, Kathryn. "Queering the Media Mix: The Female Gaze in Japanese Fan Comics." Transformative Works and Cultures, no 20, 2015. https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2015.0628.
• hooks, bell. "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators." Black Looks: Race and Representation, Routledge, 2014.
• Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Visual and Other Pleasures, Indiana University Press, 1989.

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