From “Being Looked At” to “Self-Visualisation”: Feminist Cinema’s Deconstruction of the Gaze Mechanism and Reshaping of Subjectivity

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_44How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Feminist Cinema; Female Gaze; Sexual Capital; Technological Empowerment; Cross-Genre Narrative

Abstract

Within the cultural context of patriarchy, the “male gaze” in traditional cinema has long positioned women as objects to be viewed, sparking ongoing academic discourse on gendered power relations on screen. Commencing with Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” theory, this paper systematically explores how feminist cinema deconstructs patriarchal visual regimes and actively constructs a new narrative paradigm of the “Female Gaze.” The research finds that female creators achieve a profound shift from the object “being looked at” to the “self-visualising” subject through multiple pathways: demystifying traditional screen images of women, subverting male-desire-centred narrative logic, reclaiming the right to self-definition, initiating narratives of female alliance, and exploring new forms of intimacy. The paper further analyses the complex presentation of sexual capital in contemporary contexts, revealing its potential transformation from a tool of oppression to a means of potential empowerment. Finally, drawing on cutting-edge case studies, it explores innovative expressions enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the positive significance of cross-genre fusion in expanding the terrain of female narratives, envisioning future directions for feminist cinema in breaking down binary oppositions and constructing more inclusive and critical visual discourse. The evolution of feminist cinema represents not only artistic innovation but also an ongoing challenge to and reshaping of socio-gendered power structures.

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  - Mengfei Li
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/15
TI  - From “Being Looked At” to “Self-Visualisation”: Feminist Cinema’s Deconstruction of the Gaze Mechanism and Reshaping of Subjectivity
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Mental Growth and Human Resilience (MGHR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 403
EP  - 410
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_44
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_44
ID  - Li2025
ER  -