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Otacon: "Remember when Meryl totally wiggled her ass right in your face?" Snake: "Hoo yeah, I remember that... that was important? I had no idea, I was just looking at her ass." - Metal Gear Awesome 2
Weird. Every time I look in the mirror, I see myself in that scene I did in Varsity Blues... not sure what kind of super power that might be... maybe I have the ability to tell which scenes were written by men -- Sniki Sanders, Hewoes
The zoom feature is hooked directly to his crotch' - Kevin Murphy, Rifftrax of Cloverfield
The Male Gaze is a term used to describe the way a (usually male) director/cameraman's interest in women informs his shots, leading to a focus on breasts, asses and other jiggly bits even when the film isn't necessarily supposed to be a T&A-fest.
For example, a sex scene between a man and a woman may show more of her body than it does of his, or focus more on her reactions than his (see Right Through His Pants). When the opposite happens in porn it's a source of annoyance to many. Alternatively, it could appear in shows that aren't overtly sexual - for example, scenes of bikini-clad female characters talking that emphasise their bodies rather than showing just their heads.
The term also applies in other mediums, such as video games and comic books. During the Dark Age, comic books were often perfect examples of the male gaze, with scenes being framed to show off a female character's "assets" over everything else. The trend continues at a lower level today.
While this is not always intended as Fan Service, it generally has the effect of being so. Jiggle Physics and Gainaxing are particularly notable forms of this.
This is by no means a new phenomenon - see this picture of Mary Magdalene, done in the 1500s. The story runs that towards the end of her life, she became a hermit, and grew her hair so long she didn't need clothes. Nevertheless, the painter has decided to paint her without the hair covering everything that it otherwise might, and not as a particularly old woman. From a theoretical perspective, the male gaze refers to how females are depicted as passive subjects of an implicitly male audience, rarely looking back and acknowledging their status as subjects; essentially, voyeurism.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- The majority of Charmed consisted of butt and cleavage-shots.
- The Star Trek:Deep Space Nine episode "Let He Who Is Without Sin" featured a pointless close-up of Vanessa Williams' rear as she walked past the camera.
- Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (the second, inferior one) gives the camera a definite fixation on then Pink Ranger Kat, most notably a very blatant ass shot during a jungle scene. Tanya, the then Yellow, seems to escape this, which is strange because Carranger, the Super Sentai series it was based off of is one of the few to have a female Yellow Ranger.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon also featured a blatant ass shot as Rei, dressed as a pop star for a psuedo concert, walked towards her dressing room. Of note is the fact that this show was a live-action one about five Magical Girls in schoolgirl outfits; a large portion of the show featured significant Male Gaze on general principle.
- The Painkiller Jane TV series used this a couple of times in the assassination plot/time loop episode: we get to see Jane put her pants on over that nice black pair of panties (from the front, showing off her nice legs), and see the barely-clad ass of the girl Connor was having sex with...
- On Seacht, kisses between Lipstick Lesbian couples far outnumber any others.
- Controversial lonelygirl15 episode "Girl Tied Up" features a pan over Emma as she lies tied up on a bed. Suspiciously, the thumbnail for this video on YouTube is of the moment where it passes her cleavage; consequently this is the most watched LG15 video on that site, but one of the lowest rated. Particularly disturbing since the film is supposed to be being shot by the adult Dr. Hart, and Emma is 15.
- Supernatural is an odd one about this. They focus on cleavage shots aplenty and nearly every female demon's outfit is low-cut yet they pay just as much loving attention to the male leads' attributes, even going as far to pan up a sleeping Dean's naked legs in an early Season One episode.
- And how about the slow, slow pan up from 80's-hookerwear-clad Alex Drake's feet in the Ashes To Ashes pilot? (Not to mention that she went for a really unlikely length of time without changing clothes.)
- Doctor Who- Romana I is introduced via a pan up her entire body.
- "The Girl in the Fireplace" has a pan across Billie Piper's tight T-shirt and jeans-clad body.
- Parodied in the KateModern episodes "Birdwatching" and "Much, Much Worse". In both cases it is implied that the cameramen - Gavin and Toe respectively - are perhaps enjoying their camerawork a little too much.
- Slings And Arrows does an appropriately meta version of this: the husband of the Minister of Culture comes to several performances, and brings binoculars. There's always a brief shot through the binoculars, in which we see that he's focusing on the lead actress's cleavage.
Anime
- When Faye Valentine's top is cut open in the Cowboy Bebop movie, the camera shows nothing above or below her breasts. The TV series also has several lingering shots of Faye's legs and breasts.
- Parodied in (you guessed it) Excel Saga: When Misaki first appears, the camera begins to pan up her body. It then does a Jump Cut to her rear before resuming the pan... and stopping at her chest. She then asks why it stopped. When the camera attempts this again later, she grabs the camera and demands that it cease. Cut to a written apology from the director.
- When Gohan, Krillen and Bulma land on a strange spaceship in Dragon Ball Z, they want to go explore it. Bulma is apparently so excited to traverse the ship that she forgets to put on pants. She spends the next several episodes in her eponymous underwear for no reason.
- This also seems to happen in reverse in Dragon Ball Z. There are far more long panning shots up spandex-clad male bodies than can possibly be justified by dramatic reasons.
- In Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, Kyon is the cameraman for the Brigade's movie; with the buxom and beautiful Mikuru the main character of said movie, the camera's view...dips...on occasion. Also note that in chronology, the first thing we see of Haruhi is her chest.
- Also played less subtly for laughs. Itsuki makes a crack to Kyon about he and Haruhi being Adam and Eve. Cut to a still camera shot of Haruhi walking down stairs... with the shot starting around her waist and eventually working up to her head. Less subtle indeed.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh, used on Anzu/Tea while she was playing a Dance Dance Revolution-like game. Whether intentionally or not, it gives the impression this is where Yami's gaze is focused. Hmmm...
- The almost supernaturally endowed Rangiku Matsumoto on Bleach is constantly subjugated to this.
- Interestingly, the similarly well-endowed Orihime is very rarely shown in a fanservicey way - unlike Matsumoto, she never even wears revealing clothes.
- In Princess Tutu there's a scene where Autor is walking behind Rue. The camera switches to show her walking from behind, then slowly pans down to gaze at her rear end and legs. The camera then switches to show Autor looking downwards with a blush on his face, then quickly glancing up when Rue turns towards him as if trying to cover up where his attention had gone.
- The third episode of Code Geass had a blatant one of these during Karen's shower scene. The shower curtain gets accidentally pulled aside, and we see her standing in the shower with a Sexy Back shot. Then the camera drops about 3 feet, perfectly framing her behind.
- During Lalamon's evolution sequence to Rosemon in Digimon Savers, the camera makes sure to pan up her behind and directly into a cleavage shot. When the time came for Data Squad, this part of the sequence was cut out.
Comic Books
- Comic artists who draw this way will often show a female character facing away from the camera, but twisting her back (sometimes improbably) towards the 'camera' so that the viewer can get a good look at her breasts as well as her behind.
- Rob Liefeld is probably the most infamous artist here; see, for instance, here, here, and here◊.
- Ed Benes has a reputation for this too, though his knowledge of human anatomy at least allows him to make them look human when they do such unlikely poses.
- All-Star Batman & Robin features an issue in which Vicki Vale spends an entire scene standing around posing in lacy pink underwear for absolutely no reason. The script for the scene (included in the trade paperback) contains a blatant admission from Frank Miller as to what he was doing: "Okay, I'm shameless, let's go for the ASS SHOT."
- In The Loners the team debate whether the villainess's getup is a costume or a tattoo.
- Three◊ examples◊ of Courier◊ from the Gambit X-Men spinoff. Should I mention that Courier was a male shapeshifter who was Mode Locked in this form by Dr. Sinister?
- This troper was deeply annoyed when she downloaded a few pages from a pornographic Doujinshi starring a Hard Gay and a Bishonen, where the 'camera' was focused entirely on the Bishonen to the point of omitting most of the Hard Gay's body.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Constantly spoofed and played straight with Foxxy on Drawn Together, especially when she's been soaked with liquid.
- Used on the various Stripperiffic female villainesses and superheroines in Justice League. When the The Royal Flush members were being introduced one by one, Joker gave a "Hmm..." when the camera panned to Queen's legs before rising to display her face.
- Spoofed in Power Puff Girls - we never see Ms. Bellum's face, so when she speaks, the camera cuts to her chest.
- Loonatics Unleashed - we come back from a commercial to a shot of Lexi bunny's tail and her backside as she sexywalks away from the camera toward Ace.
- ''A.T.O.M' - The Suiting Up shots of the team show the guys putting on helmets and gloves, buckling seatbelts. Lioness? We get a worm's eye view shot from behind of her straddling her motorcycle, or a close shot of her zipping her battle outfit over her breasts.
- This troper remembers being pleasantly surprised in his adolescence by an episode of the early '90s X Men animated series, where Rogue is blasted by Apocalypse so hard her normally-indestructible bomber jacket is burned away (though her even-more-indestructible tights, hair, and flesh are not), she collapses to the ground, the camera positioned behind her...and you are suddenly very aware that she is wearing indestructible spandex.
Videogames
- Many Dating Sim games (especially eroge) in which the player is male and the haremettes are female go as far as to obscure the male Player Character in every CG, usually not even drawing his face. In this instance, however, the effect is largely to help the player step into the shoes of the player character and so is more akin to Heroic Mime.
- Metal Gear Solid: after the scene where Solid Snake first meets Meryl, there is an extended shot (in slow motion) of her buttocks as she is leaving. It was intended to draw attention to her unique walk so she could be identified in disguise, but it was so pronounced and out of place that even lovers of Fan Service found it creepy.
- The third game had a first person 'Snake Cam' at certain points during cutscenes, and when the female character EVA was around pressing the button would often greet the viewer with an extended shot focused on her breasts, either intentionally (Snake looking) or unintentionally (EVA showing him).
- The director even went so far as to include some bonus 'Peep Show' segments on the Director's Cut edition, which involved the scenes with EVA recut in various interesting ways, with her dressed in an interesting alternate outfit.
- He also did a recut scene of a segment where Snake undressed an attractive male, which raises some awkward questions about the director. Especially when it's taken into account the way the games are notorious for dressing men in Spy Catsuits and having long, lingering shots on their buttocks too, and also that the lead character always ends up shirtless at some point in his adventure. Hell, Metal Gear Solid's penultimate battle is a shirtless fistfight on top of a Humongous Mecha.
- Outside of the recut sections, notice too that holding the button around Bishonen Raikov reveals Snake's eyes to be permanently fixed on Raikov's junk.
- This editor is convinced that a good deal of Metal Gear Solid is geared towards the Female Gaze, given how taut and firm Snake's ass is.
- In First Person Shooter SiN Episodes (i.e. a game in which the camera angles are almost entirely up to the player), the character of Jessica Cannon wears a Spy Catsuit that, when viewed from behind, is apparently designed to draw attention to her rear end.
- And the opening sequence, with the player waking up, features the tremendously endowed villain Alexis Sinclair standing beside his stretcher and leaning over.
- Lulu's victory pose in Final Fantasy X.
- Lara Croft suffers from this in many ways in the Tomb Raider games; not only does she possess somewhat... exaggerated attributes in the bosom and rear end departments, but the clothes she wears (particularly in the earlier games) are designed to enhance them even further. Coupled with this is the fact that she is mostly viewed from behind during the game (partly as a necessity of the game mechanics), and it's not hard to imagine what many gamers of the male persuasion would be thinking about when playing the game.
- A very, VERY common mod for the early Tomb Raider PC games was called Nude Raider, which made a very... subtle... change to Lara's outfit. (It removed it, and in some versions of the mod, changed her player model to give more detail to her anatomy). This troper even remembers a print advertisement for a video game cheat device (Gameshark, IIRC) based on this mod - in it, a (insinuated to be) nude Lara is seen walking off "screen", a bikini flying away from her, with the caption "Want the code?"
- This got even worse in Tomb Raider Anniversary, where the updated graphics and animation allowed the developer to do the same game except with more fanservice--as Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw notes in his review, when she comes out of the water she's realistically wet and glistening, and if you leave the game idle for a while she does these shamelessly erotic stretches.
- Zero Suit Samus is introduced in The Subspace Emissary, the Adventure Mode of Super Smash Bros Brawl, with her dropping to the ground from an air vent followed by a slow pan from her legs to her face, with particular attention paid to her rear. Clad in a Spy Catsuit as she is, this is hardly surprising.
- The alien Tali in Mass Effect, despite being an alien and lacking the Most Common Superpower, has amazingly robust, childbearing hips and a Spy Catsuit which specifically draws attention to them. Many gamers longed for a romance option with Tali.
Film
- Charlie's Angels (and the sequel too, naturally) featured numerous scenes which pointedly and gratuitously framed the lead actresses' rear ends. This is particularly noticeable in the numerous fan-servicey scenes of various female characters dancing (though the scene with Cameron Diaz disco-dancing in the second flick was nice enough to feature her legs as much as her ass), stripping (don't ask) or in the slow-mo action shots where the Angels inexplicably always seem to wear tight pants or bodysuits of some sort, and high heels, regardless of whether or not they'd be convenient or comfortable or even safe to fight in. Considering it was based on a 1970s' jiggle show, though, is anybody really surprised at any of this?
- The first Hercules movie from the 1950s featured a scene in which the male characters are captured by a group of Amazons. Despite the obvious threat of the women's weapons, the camera "inexplicably" focuses on a long line of long legs (bare, natch).
- Counterexample: The Film Of The Book American Psycho (directed by Mary Harron) is a rare example of Female Gaze, in particular the sex scene that shows far more of Patrick Bateman than of the prostitutes he is having a threesome with.
- This is actually Bateman Gaze, since the entire story is told from his perspective it has more to do with him being much more interested in himself than them.
- This editor recalls that the films The Sentinel and Harsh Times both released around the same time, and both featured Eva Longoria, and both had a shot where the camera focuses on her butt. In both cases it was to emphasise how the men in the scene see her. In both cases the director was also a male.
- Toward the end of Alien, there's a long scene where Ripley's in a shirt and panties. During the whole time, the camera's focus is clearly aimed rather lower than her face, and doesn't go back up to its usual height until after she gets some more clothes on.
- Batman Forever, and especially Batman and Robin, would provide the audience with loving close-ups of the dynamic duo's chest, crotch and rear every time they suited up. Hard to tell however if this is an example of the Female Gaze or merely a homosexual version of the Male Gaze, considering how Camp the Batman movies had become by this point.
- Spoofed hilariously in Scary Movie, which is pertinent since horror movies are perhaps the most guilty of this trope (often in squicky ways as a woman contorts her body sensually and moans orgasmically as she is dying). The movie opens with a woman (played by Carmen Electra, if memory serves) running from a psycho killer, her clothes getting ripped off by anything she runs by, and stopping to pose and flick her hair as she runs through a sprinkler.
- This troper remembers a film of 1984 where there is a scene with Julia and Winston in the room on top of the antique shop. For some reason she gets up and walks around in the room for surely minutes completely naked and the camera shows her entire body. Every shot at Winston, though, shows only his head, or at best his upper body.
- Trust me, that's not fanservice.
- Parodied in The Naked Gun 33 1/3 when Leslie Nielsen's character first sees Anna Nicole Smith. Watch as the camera goes slowly up the legs... and up the legs... and past the knees... and up the legs... and up the legs... and up the legs... and past the knees again...
- The James Bond movies have this from time to time with the Bond Girls, prominently when anyone's getting out of the water with a bathing suit- ostensibly as a tribute to Bond girl Honey Ryder. Casino Royale manages to make it both Darker And Edgier and Stupid Sexy Flanders. Daniel Craig looks very nice in blue... (To quote a livejournal icon, 'IM IN UR MUVIE APPROPRIATIN UR MALE GAZE'.)
Music Videos
- One is bound to find this in just about any music video featuring one or more women, even if its directed by the artist herself. Hip-hop, rap, and R&B music videos are the least shameful of this, gloriously zooming in close enough to see stretch marks. It is here where the term "booty-shakin' video" is derived from.
Professional Wrestling
- Turn on any WWE show ever. Chances are, if a woman is onscreen, her name isn't Linda McMahon, and she's wrestling, the camera is focusing on her breasts falling out of her top, jiggling as she moves, or competing for who can get the most ass shots. This troper does not speak about the "new" ECW, but she's got two words for you regarding their treatment of women: Extreme Expose.
- The above segment being the part in the show where three scantily clad women - one just barely over the age of 18 - dance to club music in the ring. It started as the 18-year-old's way to show off how much of an "exhibitionist" she was. Ugh.
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