Introduction
“The male gaze “is a concept proposed by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey. This concept refers to the portrayal and presentation of women from a male perspective in movies and media. In these stories, women are often portrayed as sexy and attractive from a male perspective. These women often exist as mothers, wives, or objects, without their own independent personality traits. This blog will present and discuss several classic and popular movie scenes to showcase the portrayal of women’s roles in movies from both male and female perspectives.
Differences In The Portrayal Of Chubby Girls In Different Lenses
The first movie to be discussed is the representative work “Tiny Times” by an excellent Chinese director, writer, and screenwriter. This writer was listed on the Forbes China Celebrity List for ten consecutive years from 2004 to 2014.
This is a movie with a very obvious male perspective, which tells the story of four girls, Lin Xiao, Gu Li, Nan Xiang, and Tang Wangru, who experience the crisis of love and friendship in their lives in Shanghai and strive to resolve it as they grow up. In terms of character design, Lin Xiao is the narrator of the story with a gentle personality. Nanxiang is a beautiful painter full of artistic atmosphere. Tang Wangru is a straightforward and humorous atmosphere creator. And Gu Li is a wealthy second-generation with millions of assets, smart and witty. In terms of character design, Tang Wangru is the only “clown” among these four girls. She is the only one with a relatively chubby figure and a humorous personality, and has had many embarrassing incidents in movies. This movie fully reflects the stereotype of overweight girls in society and the discrimination against them for obesity. They seem to lack image, be funny and inappropriate, as if they are inherently ridiculed in society. In a scene from the movie, Tang Ruyi had a crush on a boy for a long time and dared not confess his feelings. Finally, one day she gathered the courage to confess her feelings, but the boy ignored her directly in front of his girlfriend. The underlying message that spans from beginning to end is that being a fat woman is not worth being loved.
On the other hand, the portrayal of the chubby girl Kat in the film and television work “Euphroia” is bright and bold, confident and flamboyant. In this film, Kat is an ordinary high school girl who wants to be equal and harmonious with every girl. As a chubby girl, she is not obsessed with a mediocre boy, nor is she anxious about her figure or love, but busy with self-awareness. Her charm lies in her intelligence, rationality, and strong self-awareness.
Conclusion
The portrayal of chubby girls varies greatly among different directors’ works. As a girl, whether she is fat or thin, beautiful or ugly, she should not be portrayed from a male perspective as an object without personality in film and television works. They should be vibrant, bold, independent thinking, autonomous consciousness and ideas, and female characters who do not sacrifice for anyone. They are not just mothers, wives, or sexual partners, they are themselves.
Reference
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6-18.
Jingming Guo. (2023). Jingming Guo. Wikipedia. https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%83%AD%E6%95%AC%E6%98%8E
YouTube. (2019). [euphoria ｜kat’s new look (season 1 episode 3 clip) | HBO]. Retrieved from:https://youtu.be/pRPM2_SVKc4?si=KPnNhBcw-R7taZGC
YouTube. (2014). [Tiny Times 1.0（小时代1.0折纸时代）- OFFICIAL HD TRAILER – 2013 Chinese Box Office Hit]. Retrieved from:https://youtu.be/lAh_qwRKfqg?si=lv72UTG8QsuV494S
