welcome back it's Robert Macfarlane here and today we're going to be talking about how
male directors treat female lead stories
Queen's Gambit Tomb Raider Atomic Blonde are just some of many many female-led stories that
have been coming out in more recent years i do think that it is brilliant that we've been seeing
more stories with female protagonists leading the stories even more recently with Wonder Woman as
well however unfortunately the majority of these films have been directed with the male perspective
and i'm gonna avoid the fact that yes most of these films are directed by white male directors
and yes i am a white male i i realize this and even i actually directed a short film recently
called Immune which was a female-led story this doesn't necessarily mean that men and
women cannot direct each other's genders in terms of the protagonist of the story however
it does mean that we as the directors and as the filmmakers need to take more time to understand
that characters gender and how they would perceive the events around them this episode is about
representation and more specifically we're looking at what is known by Laura Mulvey as the male
gaze for those of you who don't know Laura Mulvey she is a film theorist she still does a lot to do
with film and she came out with one of the most defining theories of the 20th century in 1975 she
released a paper which talked about the male gaze and how in which cinema at that point only seemed
to serve men or the male gaze what was interesting here is it didn't just talk about the fact that
film served men it also talked about how women would also change the way they perceived content
to a male gaze as well so ultimately we started to realize that not only was content very
misogynistic and from the male perspective it also revealed that we as viewers as an audience
accepted this very one-sided perspective now after that point filmmakers and directors and producers
started to become more aware of this and films and stories have started to change over time
especially in the last 10 years there have been many more films have been written with
a female lead but this doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't have the male gaze attached now
if you look at films like Tomb Raider now the earlier films with Angelina Jolie
i think we can all agree had a very overtly sexualized version of the character now was
this in tandem with the games at the time i think so and then the more recent version of Tomb Raider
was a far less sexualized version of the character and actually tried to buck those tropes very
interesting and also very very important that we start to actually consider how we represent
gender in our films don't worry don't run for the hills just yet i'm not necessarily saying
that only women can direct female stories or male directors can write male stories but what
i am talking about is us becoming more aware of how we present one another in the stories
that we tell so where has this come from well i recently watched The Queen's Gambit on netflix and
men are going to come along and want to teach you things to be honest it
was really fun it was really interesting it reinvigorated my and many others interest in chess
which you wouldn't consider was that sexy but the series really made it very interesting to watch
very compelling a great story and an interesting character journey however after watching the
series my wife and i sat down we spotted some conversations happening online about the series
and it was very interesting it revealed to me just how much the male gaze is still
influencing our watching habits now and also whether we even question what we're seeing so
we're not necessarily saying that the audience needs to be ultra aware of all the content
that they put out there but we as directors and filmmakers do need to be aware of how
our content can actually change society itself so during The Queen's Gambit we watch a very young
girl become obsessed with the game of chess and become a young prodigy and end up spoiler alert
becoming very very very good at it now i won't spoil the end but it's pretty self-explanatory
the series dealt with some very interesting and topical issues even now even though the
series is set in the 60s we do witness a female going into a male dominated game
where she is seen as lesser and is seen as a shock when she starts to beat the men at their own game
what's interesting here is the derision and the way in which the men see the character doesn't
seem to affect her as much as the substance abuse so the series also tackles addiction as well which
is an interesting topic but what i want to talk about is how it presents the female character
throughout her journey now as we witness her go down into the depths of substance abuse and
addiction
we start to really get an idea of how the director
has actually chosen to represent the character now one scene specifically comes to mind
where she is actually at the bottom of the hole she is using alcohol and drugs regularly
she's actually risking her love of chess however as people have actually pointed out online
this isn't just a matter of okay she has a drug addiction
but let's look at how she's been represented on screen if this is her at her lowest point
many people and many women have pointed out how unrealistic this is
now i'm not necessarily saying that we always have to be 100 realistic but if we are trying to
explore the person's mentality and current mental state how much research we do into what that
person should look and feel like at that point in their life is really quite important so as you see
in this situation she's walking around scantily clad okay from the male perspective that doesn't
ring any major alarm bells but if we remove ourselves from that and we start to think about
what society was like back then as well as what society is now and we ask ourselves the
question from the female perspective and the male perspective what would we really look like in this
situation what would the home look like in this situation many comments online have stated that
this really is how someone would look in their best moment rather than their worst moment so the
representation of the female lead in this series is somewhat obscured by a particular perspective
and this is where we bring it back to the male gaze we're seeing her scantily clad
why are we seeing her scantily clad we need to ask ourselves what is this adding to the story are we
just trying to titillate our audience and if so why why are we still trying to do that in this
day and age and how much does it really add to the quality of the content by the time we actually get
presented with this imagery in the series we're about halfway through so we haven't actually had
to try and keep the audience there they are already sold on the character or they're not
they've made a decision whether they're going to commit to this story or not and that is something
that's incredibly important to remember as well if someone is there for your series they're for
your journey they will have made a decision about whether your characters are worth watching or not
within the first 10 minutes of watching the series so with that in mind what other content have we
watched over the last 40 years that have actually used again the male perspective on characters that
is just not needed it's been well documented that the princess characters within Disney
films in Aladdin you've got the princess there who is actually taken one step further not just
form-fitting dresses but she even shows off her cleavage and flat stomach this can be incredibly
destructive to women in general these aesthetic ideals are just impossible to match so if we're
witnessing a character in The Queen's Gambit who's meant to be at her lowest point but still looks so
glamorous and beautiful we automatically say to women even if you are in the lowest point
in your life you are still meant to look this good can you see how this doesn't just add a
unfair pressure on the women but it also doesn't add anything to the storyline and if you're not
adding to the story then you are spending time and effort on something that just isn't necessary
what's amazing here is this conversation is happening this is not just being
accepted anymore and so we as directors and filmmakers need to be incredibly aware of how
we're presenting characters don't just use the sexualization of women in your films to
try and get more people to watch it instead ensure the quality of your content is there
first and also motivates how we see characters stories will take your characters
into erotic moments and story elements making love in a film can be an incredibly intimate
and pleasurable thing for your audience to see as a catharsis
but don't just use the sexualization of a woman in any moment that you can put it there for the sake
of getting more eyeballs thank you for joining me today if you agree or disagree with what i
just said about female and male representation in film hit me up in the comments i'd love to have
a chat with you and find some links below to help you up your game on your next film