I recently watched the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film from 2001, whilst watching i started to take notes, analysing the film using the Male gaze theory. My notes are pretty brief, just noting down the key points, camera angles etc.
- Camera focusing on thighs
- Rolling around, legs wide open
- Robot between legs - hinting at rape? sexual innuendo?
- Angle shot between legs
- Grunting - loud grunts, sexual noises
- Walks quite masculine
- Shower scene - adds nothing to plot - very sexual
- Naked scene - partial view of breast
- Butler - be a lady, wear a dress
- Holds dad of high esteem - only shows emotion towards a man
- Only does what she does because of a man (her dad)
- Grey - masculine bedding
- Rides a motorbike
- Acts like a man
- Target Audience game - movie
- Legs wide apart when sat down - posture like a man
- PJ's unbuttoned revealing flesh
- Bum camera shot
- Film is shot like the game
- Male shower scene - not as long but nearly a full frontal of Daniel Craig although you don't see any parts unlike the female shower scene.
In this film i realised that the theory of the male gaze can be shown quite a lot in this film. The way the film was made, right from the camera angles when filming, all suggest that this film was made primarily for the pleasure of a male audience. There are unnecessary camera shots focusing on the body parts of Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), from her thigh, bum and breasts. Also the way her role has been acted as she has a lot of action scenes where she is in quite provocative positions, with her legs spread etc.
The opening scene of her fighting the robot shows this quite a lot, especially the part where the robot is continuously striking between her legs, which are spread, this could be a sexual innuendo, hinting rape maybe, appealing to the male audience watching the film. In this scene she is also grunting quite a lot, which is louder than the actual background music edited onto the film, these are quite sexual, once again pleasing the male viewer.
The shower scene with Angelina Jolie adds nothing to the plot except watching her naked in the shower, then once she gets out you can see part of her breast and bottom, this is obviously for the male audience as the story to the film would be no less without this scene. The male shower scene on the hand isn't as long as the female shower scene, although you do nearly see a full frontal from Daniel Craig, except the camera angle hides his dignity. This reminds me of Art museums, how there are always full of naked paintings of women but very rarely you see a painting of a man naked. So this is still taking on the old age traditional view of women that society has just come to terms with, the Male Gaze can be seen in old and new examples of art form although we have supposed to have moved on.
In the film Lara Croft is scarcely clad, wearing very revealing clothes, especially for an archeologist, this is obviously because it is made from the game, in which she wears all these outfits for the pleasure of the male gamer. But in some areas of the film, like the scene where she is doing gymnastics on bungie ropes, her PJ's are barely buttoned, revealing a lot of flesh, this seems like this is purely for the male gaze, as it is not suitable attire for the activity she's doing and even more so when the house gets under attack.
This film shows many examples that coincide with the male gaze (Laura Mulvey) and Carol J. Clover's theory of the 'final girl'. Although the 'final girl' theory is based around slasher movies, it can be applied to this movie also, as the heroine of the film, Lara Croft, is portrayed as quite a masculine woman, not interested in female hobbies, clothes etc. she doesnt have any female friends (which are mentioned in the film), she likes male interests like fighting, guns, cars, motorbikes etc. She also has a lot of masculine characteristics, for instance, she walks like a man and her posture, especially when sat down is not lady like at all as she sits with her legs wide open. This does not empower women at all, it only shows you have to forget all the womanly traights in order to be a heroine or to survive any disaster etc. Showing that if you act like a man, like masculine things, hobbies etc. you will be able to win.
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