This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Capt Famous: One important difference to note is that while the Male Gaze turns the woman into an object, the Female Gaze still keeps the man as the subject. It's like the difference between someone seeing a cake they want in a bakery window and someone seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. I think it's almost inappropriate to have these two things given such similar names, as they really are very different.
Nornagest: Let's not cast this in terms of tiresome gender politics. There is a pretty big distinction between these tropes, but it's just that Male Gaze is about camera angles and framing — presentation, in other words — while Female Gaze is about a character's interest.
I almost think that it'd be worthwhile to give both their own Distaff Counterparts, since I'm pretty sure you could find plenty of gender-flipped examples either way. Another option would be to make both gender-neutral for the same reason; under most circumstances, actually, I think that would be the better solution. But Male Gaze is an established critical term, and I think SOP here is to use the critical vocabulary where it exists. Either option, of course, would take a rename.
Fly: I agree with this. This trope is the difference between "Edward in the sunlight was shocking" and the scene in Point Break where the camera is pointing at every part of Keanu Reeves besides his face; between disembodied pairs of tits on comic covers and Kyon monologuing in the novels about how beautiful Haruhi's hair is. It's not the difference between men looking at women, and women looking at men, and I'm sure that's what these pages are going to turn into if something isn't done about it now.
It's a shame 'male gaze' is the common term. Fanservice Object and Fanservice Subject would be good names, and we can keep Male Gaze as a redirect and mention it in the write-up as the accepted critical term for the phenomenon. What do you all think?
Mercuryinretrograde: " One important difference to note is that while the Male Gaze turns the woman into an object, the Female Gaze still keeps the man as the subject." The image used to illustrate this trope is a picture of a man's abdomen and pelvis. I'm failing to see how that retains the 'subjectivity' of said man and I've seen plenty of other examples in which male body parts sans faces are used to appeal to women.
Some Guy: I've edited the description to get rid of the Straw Feminist effigy. The main reason why the Female Gaze doesn't get more criticism is because it's a lot less common. Compare the pages images as an example. One is a blatant street advertisement that's rather obviously Mr. Fanservice in action. The other is a still image from an Anime with no obvious purpose and we have hundreds more just like it.
Torri: I'm confused as to why Female Gaze is described as a character's gaze rather than being the same as Male Gaze. One can see men shot in Female Gaze in a lot of media even though it's not as prevalent as Male Gaze, just take a look at the trailer for New Moon or any number of Yaoi anime and manga and you have objectified men. I'd still want Male and Female gaze separate tropes as Male Gaze is so common that it's all but invisible to some people while people note it as strange when this is flipped.
Pykrete: Just curious, but what happened to the original picture of Therkla googling over Elan? Even making the extensions about gender politics and not objectifying or whatever, it still seems to fit.
