“I am interested in female subjectivity and the ways in which women aestheticize that subjectivity in their films—that is: the female gaze.
I define the female gaze as—the individual way anyone who identifies as female inflects her own female experience or subjectivity onto the film she makes.” (Lisa French, 2021).
Definition from the book:
“The ‘female gaze’ refers to representation that is produced by a female filmmaker. As such, it might focus on any subject and takes on multiple forms. Each woman will have her own female gaze which reveals how she is engendered as female through historic, psychological and cultural experiences, inflecting her life, body and thinking onto her aesthetic approach (her ‘female aesthetic’). The key marker of the ‘female gaze’ is the communication or expression of female subjectivity—a gaze shaped by a female ‘look’, voice, emotional response and perspective—the filmic depiction of the subjective experience or perspective of someone who lives in a female body. The female gaze reveals an awareness of Otherness or difference between the sexes, which in this text is not an axis of value (e.g. that one is better), but one of difference. A woman does not need to be a feminist in order to create a female gaze.” Page 256.