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Thursday, September 19, 2013

The male gaze - James Bond 'Die another day'

The James Bond franchise is a clear example of a film objectifying females and forcing the audience to view females via the male gaze. The scene within "Die Another Day" when James Bond meets the character Jinx demonstrates my previous statement by objectifying Jinx for the pleasure of both James Bond and also for the audience. The scene begins with a view from Bonds perspective. This instantly has the audience viewing the text through a males eyes, meaning even females are viewing other women through the eye of a man. Also when Bond sees Jinx the scene is showed in slow motion, showing how the presence of the female has slowed down the text, giving the audience time to appreciate and focus on Jinx. When Jinx begins to walk on the beach towards Bond, she walks unnaturally, over exaggerating the movement of her hips, which catches the viewers eye and also highlights that area of body meaning she is not actually being looked at as a women but as an object. When bond and Jinx meet, Bond says "magnificent view" this is clearly aimed towards Jinx, showing how he has judged her by her appearance. This then feeds in to the audience who will then solely judge other women on how they look. Also in that section of the scene Jinx is always looking up to Bond which represents the patriarchal society that we live in as Bond is in a position of power as he is being looked up to, and then Jinx is not in a position of power as she is being looked down on. Finally once Jinx has left the sea and is drying herself with the towel,  a close up of her face is used, showing that she is wearing make up and it hasn't been ruined by the sea that she is was just swimming in. This then gives a false representation of women. Women will look at this scene and think that they have look like that all the time, increasing self consciousness and the use of make up. Also males will look at this thinking that all females should look like that at all times. This is then called a hyper reality, this is because the film is not representing reality and is instead reflecting a fake reality.

1 comment:

  1. When you state any text description it must be justified. For example you state...

    "The scene begins with a view from Bonds perspective. This instantly has the audience viewing the text through a males eyes"

    Thats identified a discussion point but it is not justified, how is it presented in Bonds perspective, how does the camera take on the form of Bonds perspective?

    Another example
    "Also when Bond sees Jinx the scene is showed in slow motion"

    What is jinx doing? where is she? You must refer to the narrative in detail.

    You use some good media terminology. But strangely you never actually mention Laura Mulvey and the male gaze theory.

    Not a bad first attempt but bare in mind these tips in future scene analysis.

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