Reframing the Gaze: Feminist Spectatorship and Queer Visual Politics in the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_45How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Feminist Spectatorship; Queer Temporality; Ethical Gaze

Abstract

This paper examines a thorough analysis of Céline Sciamma’s 2019 film Portrait of a Lady on Fire through the intersecting lenses of feminist spectatorship and queer visual politics. The film is built on the tradition of feminist film theory and influenced by psychoanalytic frameworks, the film capsizes the conventions of heterosexual male gaze, and instead, constructed an alternative visual regime based on emotional mutual benefits, moral stare, and non-possessive desire. Sciamma’s film strategy–such as using silence, static compositions and exclusion of male figures–are explored as forms of resistance, undermining the presentation of patriarchy. The essay quotes fundamental theories of visual pleasure and narrative cinema from Laura Mulvey, concept of masquerade from Mary Ann Doane, and formulations of “queer time” and “the technology of gender” from Teresa de Lauretis. The essay places Portrait of a Lady on Fire as a radical feminism text. In addition, the essay also quotes on theories written by modern scholars such as Judith Mayne, Michèle Bacholle, and the Tatsenko sisters, by doing so, the discussions of gender fluidity, archival reclamation, and affective spectatorship are all intensified. This paper argues that the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire doesn’t just reshaped the cinematic spectatorship, but also reframed the definition of close relationships and identity politically, resisting cinfine, categorization, and possession. Through a close reading of visual form, narrative structure, and character interactions, this film defines itself as containing aesthetics and ideological intervention in the politics of looking––turning audiences into ethnic viewers and participants.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Binhan Xie
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/15
TI  - Reframing the Gaze: Feminist Spectatorship and Queer Visual Politics in the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Mental Growth and Human Resilience (MGHR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 411
EP  - 418
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_45
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_45
ID  - Xie2025
ER  -