I think you’re ignoring the non-physical aspects of Male Gaze.
The problem with your examples, is that in most of the stories/roles you listed, women don’t do anything. Unless the story does something to elevate women beyond passive objects, it’s still written for the Male Gaze where men make are in charge and make all the decisions.
Hmm, I see your point now I’ve looked up the actual theory of female gaze.
It seems in the modern social media space, female gaze has been used to mean something more like “the male characters who women find attractive are the ones that show more emotional, loving, nurturing and supportive traits”. So if used this way, it’s not a direct contrast to male gaze. Maybe we need to call that observation something different!
I wonder if Bob (Sean Austin) does fall into the proper definition though? His character does exist for the most part to lift every other character around him, especially Joyce Byers.
Yay! Real conversation!
Thanks for taking the time to look into it. I haven’t watched The Last of Us, but from your description, it sounds right.
TLOU is good and potentially fits the criteria, I’m not sure actually, as the main female character is a child so inherently vulnerable and kinda reliant on this achey old man to ferry her through the apocalypse. Would still recommend, I cried like a baby through certain parts.
The Sean Astin character I’m referencing is in Stranger Things S2. I think has at least one potential example of female gaze (as a compliment to Winona Ryder’s character).
Stranger Things probably isn’t great for other metrics though, like the Bechdel test.
