Male gaze is a social and cultural phenomenon, defined as women being seen as the “second sex,” while men become the “first sex” to be observed and gazed upon through various media and channels. It is believed that the narrative and portrayal of women in movies are constructed in an objectified and restrictive manner to satisfy the psychological desires of men, and more broadly, the psychological desires of patriarchal society. There is a clear presence of’male gaze’ in the media, which objectifies women and defines their identities based on male roles (Rodriguez, 2019). Mulvey‘s theory considers the combination of three different perspectives or appearances in movies to maintain a symbolic order that grants male privilege: camera perspective, audience perspective, and character perspective (Mulvey, 1975).
From 2008 to 2015, Dai Jianyong (Coca Dai) continued to take photos of Zhu Fengjuan’s daily life. These photos were later compiled into a book and published as the photography collection “Zhu Fengjuan (Judy Zhu)(LensCulture, n.d.). At the beginning, this work was seen as an intimate narrative about contemporary women, but over time, some discussions about the “male gaze” in the work have gradually appeared.
“When I was giving birth to my first child, the contractions before delivery were excruciatingly painful. At that time, he had set up four or five cameras around me, taking photos with flash after flash… just kept photographing me from every angle. I hated him so much at that moment, but I couldn’t even get up. I was furious—just shoot, shoot, shoot!”
–Interviwed by Judy Zhu (Hayami, 2023)
