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Ferzan Özpetek's gays and gaze: Redefining the cinematic queer gaze

Project type

Conference Presentation Slides

Date

April 2023

Link to slides

The leitmotif of the gaze has been a question central to film studies for several decades. In 1975, film theorist Laura Mulvey proposed the male gaze as it pertains to the objectification of women, through which white cisgender heterosexual men project their fantasies onto women through means of voyeurism or fetishization. While critics have sought to propose the possibility of an alternative queer gaze, examination has largely been limited to the ways in which it directly confronts and rejects the heteropatriarchal framework that underlies the
traditional male gaze theory. This paper, however, will instead examine how the queer gaze differs from Mulvey’s male gaze in both the purpose that it serves and the consequences it has through an analysis and comparison of Turkish-Italian film director Ferzan Özpetek’s "Il Bagno Turco" and "La Dea Fortuna." Particular attention will be devoted to the psychoanalytic and social underpinnings of this queer gaze and the concept of the queer gaze as one of foresight, balance, careful calculation, and reclamation.

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