Male Gaze/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The writer assumes the audience to be male, and as a consequence, provides more Fan Service targeted towards males than females.

  • Straight: Alice's hips, breasts, and ass are given far more attention by the camera than Bob's Shirtless Scene. Alice also gets more fanservice shots of her than Bob gets of him.
  • Exaggerated: The camera never even focuses on Alice's face, and she wears lingerie the whole time, whereas Bob wears something so loose that only his face can be seen.
  • Justified: As in a Viagra commercial or similar, the intended audience logically would be male.
    • The camera acts as the POV shot of a male character.
  • Inverted: Female Gaze
    • OR: The writer assumes the audience to be gay guys, and adjusts accordingly.
  • Subverted: The camera slowly pans up Alice's body, focusing on her breasts. It then does the exact same to Bob, focusing on his crotch.
  • Double Subverted: ...But the camera guy doesn't give a shit, and presses on as if nothing has happened.
  • Parodied: From one of the Dead or Alive girls: "Gee, that camera guy has been focusing on my boobs quite a bit...!"
    • Alice has large breasts. The cameraman tries to do this, and she beats him down. "I regret nothing!" can be heard over the sound of him being pulverized.
  • Deconstructed: Alice has been sexually humiliated and abused for a lot of her life, and makes it clear she's uncomfortable with her body and doesn't want to be seen this way. The camera continues to focus on her breasts, hips and ass, though, creating an effect that is...jarring.
  • Reconstructed: The work makes it clear that Alice is a Good Bad Girl who likes this sort of attention.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice gets focus on her bust, but the camera angle changes to make dramatic emphasis on plot elements. then when Alice leans, the camera focuses on her rear, then pans to a dramatic angle over the map to coordinate the heroes' efforts when Alice starts outlining the situation. The director flips the point of view between how sexy Alice is, and how important the situation is.
  • Averted: The camera focuses on and fanservices Alice and Bob equally.
    • OR: No fanservice is given AT ALL.
  • Enforced: Most Writers Are Male + All Men Are Perverts + Fan Service = PROFIT!
  • Lampshaded: Alice has Medium Awareness, and comments "Wow, the cameraman's a perv today!" See also Parodied above.
  • Invoked: Alice decides to Show Some Leg
  • Defied: Alice says My Eyes Are Up Here
  • Discussed: "Whoa! Check Alice out!"
  • Conversed: A group of Straw Feminists (or just regular ones) are discussing the Male Gaze in the Show Within a Show.

Hey, stop focusing the camera on the actor's curves and go back to Male Gaze!