Lily O’Farrell of @VulgaDrawings drew this comic that goes into her thoughts on the female gaze. We’ve talked about the Male vs Female Gaze regarding Harley Quinn before, and even The Bisexual Gaze! Here is The Female Gaze, episode 1 of Film Theory with Lily, your fav passive aggressive Instagram cartoonist. Here’s what she had to say about this:
“First up, this is in no way trying to body shame muscly men, or people who fancy muscly men, you do you you gorgeous hench kings, it’s about the cultural myths invented by men about *every* woman’s wants, needs and our sexuality.
Secondly, art school kids – yes I’m aware the idea of the male gaze originated in the fine art world, but this cartoon is purely focusing on the concept of it in mooovies.
Thirdly, as I was writing this I noticed so many similarities with racism in film, the way white ppl will see an advert for a film that’s from the perspective of someone who isn’t white, and be like ‘that’s not a film for me because it’s not about me’. There’s a theory about this too, it’s called ‘the oppositional gaze’ by bell hooks. I’ll do a cartoon about this separately though.”
Artist: Lily O’Farrell of @VulgaDrawings
Key point, film studios make films based on what has made money in the past. If you want more of a certain type of film made then make sure that when it is made it makes a big profit. If films made from a female gaze perspective made big profits then more would be made.
absolutely thrilled that the only comment on here is a mansplainer absolutely missing the point of anything that is said in this comic
Bre, your comment made my day.
Thank you for defining mansplaining as “Making a factual statement”.
Show business is first and foremost a business. Films will get made if there is a good chance of them getting paying customers to watch them, buy the DVD/BluRay, buy licensed merch &c. That’s why we have a billion MCU films (or at least it sometimes feels that way), they fill theatres and people buy the merch.
Your comment seems true, until you see the numbers. BBC made a truckload of money on Fleabag, and still is. Fleabag was wildly popular and award-winning and upvoted, that message could not have been made louder or clearer by either viewers or sponsors. A few months ago, BBC vowed to fund more projects, both film and TV, from women creators. And when they unveiled millions of dollars for 10 new series/projects in comedy…not ONE was written, directed, or produced by women. Not one.
It’s mansplaining because your comment was -literally- covered in the images. She stated that’s how the industry works. It didn’t need to be restated by you 🙄
thank you for this.