Mulvey - American Beauty

The camera often fragments a woman's body, relating her to being an object in a males eyes. This is classed as the Male Gaze, a theory made by Laura Mulvey. She discusses how we see things through the males eyes and how a male may interpret certain situations and creating ideologies.

The camera continuously focuses on intimate parts of the woman and when she is touching herself and undoing her zip on her top. This creates an association that all women should look like this through a  males eyes and what a male wants to see in women. Also, a passive audience would think that they need to act seductively to gain a males attention and lust. However an Active audience would realise that this is what men fantasises about and not a real woman would act in this way.

The camera tilts upwards and downwards, taking the males role when looking a woman up and down and studying her body and beauty. This relates to Mulvey's Male Gaze theory, as the camera is taking the role of the males eye contact of ' checking out' a woman. The camera does this when the girl is touching herself, to show how the man will be looking at her at this specific time. Even though he is fantasising about her, the camera still interprets how he would act in that situation in reality.

You also see the ' look of the characters' and their expression to what the audience also have to watch. This is also part of Mulvey's theory and how their are 3 looks within film, one being the look of the character, the look of the camera and the look of the audience. The girl is looking directly at the camera, which makes the audience masculinised as we are taking the role of the male within the film. Whereas the man is not looking directly at the camera but slightly through the camera to show he is looking at the girl in the background. The camera shows an extreme closeup of the mans face and eyes to show his expression and reaction to what is happening in his fantasised word. He is also shown to be enjoying it which shows the gratification of pleasure and enjoyment. The girl is shown to look very seductive, especially by her movements and facial expressions to give the man pleasure.

By the zooming in on the blonde girl, she is placed in the centre which automatically reaches the males attention. By the zooming in on her, it represents the males attention and what he is focused on in particular when he is actually there to watch his daughter perform. The camera shot then changes and zooms in on the mans face and his eyes widening at the sight of her. As he begins to focus on her more and more, non diegetic music takes over and low key lighting surrounds her body which makes her more highlighted to the man and the audience. This signifies that he has entered his fantasizing world, and everything he is seeing is in fact in his head.

The red petals that fly out of her chest, has a connotation of colour of lust, which is the current emotion of the man and the girl for each other in his fantasy.