There is a male gaze in feminist theory from John Berger in 1972, means from men’s sight to describe women and objectivize them. Women in cultural products are always described as passive, submissive, weak and even sexualized. Male gaze in movies has three angles: camera, means how the women looked and recorded in camera. Character means how characters in movies see the female character. Audience, how audience see the female character in movies. But nowadays it is so different from the past, according to how Lacon classified gender, gender isn’t biological, is mental, political and ideological. Which means male can be female, female can be male. I will explain an example in Chinese movies, which is very famous now.
Before introducing recent Chinese movie, I will introduce some background during cultural revolution in China. At this time, Chinese government was claiming that women can hold half of the world. That’s may sound like female gaze, but different. Because Chinese communist party consider gaze in Marxism, not feminist, the goal of party and Chinese people is to liberate all human and they all worked hard for it. So how men/women see women or women/men see men, all of them is depends on the contribution to liberation, personal lifestyle and even some political life or contribution. They respected the gap between bodies and didn’t take them and gender into consideration as standard to gaze others.
There is an male actor, named Huang Xuan, whose characters in movies and series are always in female’s position. That’s because his presence is very like a forbidden history person Wang HongWen in China. A young guy became vice president of China at 38 in cultural revolution, but was failed in political struggle, suffered cruel treatment and was defined by government as anti-revolutionary bad group in the gang of four. Wang HongWen was a charming and handsome guy with many attractive points, suffered fierce torture. Someone as a director who knows that history, thinks Wang HongWen was fighting for the goal of liberation and doesn’t want young people to receive official mainstream narrative simply. He found the actor Huang Xuan’s presence and appearance like Wang HongWen (what I have put as featured image is Huang Xuan on left side and Wang HongWen on right side). And he just uses actor Huang Xuan to represent and metaphor Wang HongWen in his movies for avoiding censorship from government, although someone who have a little political sensitivity can find it. The featured image of Huang Xuan is a photo in the camera when he was taking part in making a movie Fang Hua. (芳华) His dress style, posture, expression and angle of camera just looks like Wang HongWen, which gives audience a feel of the historical call back. After the director opened this door, other directors use this actor to do the same things in their movies. So, the character in movies who is performed by Huang Xuan in movies will always in a position of women in the context of male gaze in feminist theory. Other characters’ relationship with Huang Xuan’s character in movies will be always several fixed types. Like that he is always accused unjustly, tortured and betrayed by other characters, and someone knows his innocence, accompany him. Nowadays, many Chinese have aware that he is representing Wang HongWen and some his characters’ experiences are Wang HongWen’s experiences. When looking at Huang Xuan in a movie, audience will always say he is the most tragic character in the movie; his characters in movies are always passive, submissive and being defeated. And he, his character will be seen as an object receiving the spirit of Wang HongWen. Just like the women in the perception of male gaze. Which means the characters’ gender not only depends on body, but also its position in a movie, what plot they will serve for and many factors. Cultural revolution in last century influenced how Chinese see the gender and character. Like Jiang Qing, another member of the gang of four. She is woman, but work hard, persisted the goal of liberation with strong willpower. Some audience won’t see her as a woman in male gaze, but hope her can be successful, construct China better and devote for the liberation people like a hero, no one will care about her body or appearance. So, a director created a new character named Xue QianXun to represent her in a movie: The East is Red. This is a kung fu swordsmen movie, and this female character is very independent in this movie different with usual female image.
What I want to say is that we are in post-modern age, how we categorize sexuality and gender are not only depends on something biologically, so the way we consider male gaze and female gaze may have some changes.
