CONTENT
I came into my research journey only knowing that the male gaze had been some sort of theory. Over the summer of 2021, Tiktok spread the trend of whether one was “written by a woman or man”, essentially whether you fit the standards of a woman or man. That said, many filled up the comment sections of various posts referencing the theory of the Male and Female Gaze. This sparked my interest in my research topic.
Some of the most important takeaways from my research on the Male Gaze came from the contextualization and literature review. I unpacked the misogyny plaguing the film industry and the lack of change that has occurred for decades and decades. Today, women are not just misrepresented in films due to the overwhelming presence of male directors and producers, but even both the creation of movies and reviewing of them. Only 17% of writers and directors of the 250 top-grossing films in 2020 were female, while 94% did not have any female cinematographers. This made it evident to me that the overly sexualized and the overlooking of female characters in film is because of their very lack of presence in the industry.
From my research, I found that over the past four decades, from the 1980s to 2010s, the frequency of Male Gaze present did change over time as the 1990s witnessed the highest count of misrepresentation of females in films, while, the 2010s (most recent decades saw the least).
With that said, I hope to conduct two studies, one specifically addressing the effect of the Male Gaze on the LGBTQ+ community as well as another study addressing whether the theory of the Female Gaze has increased along with the decrease in Male Gaze.
PRODUCT
After creating my presentation I was able to improve my public speaking and the development of a clear presentation. A big part of the AP Research course relies heavily on your ability to create a clear argument for those who know absolutely nothing about your topic. That said, being able to work on simplifying the statistics section of my methodology during my oral defense presentation gave me the chance to see what I should change in my research paper.
This has been one of the best experiences to transfer the skills learned through the creation of a formal research paper and formal presentation to college-level classes and the tasks that will be asked of me in the future.
PROCESS
As a researcher, I learned that I enjoy using multimedia pieces of evidence whether it be podcasts, television, music, etc. In fact when doing preliminary research, one of my biggest inspirations to further my research was the song Normal Girl by SZA!
As a student, I learned the trials and errors of the research process. Often in school, we are told to take a test, finish our homework, or even face a pop quiz. All of these instances have a right or wrong answer, with no in-between. However, as a student creating my research projects, I quickly realize that there is no clear-cut linear path to success. My research question changed around 4 times throughout the year, and the process of selecting and viewing the films of my study was also altered several times.
As a human being, I found my growing love for the film art medium and the impacts it has had on our society.
To end this chapter in my first chapter in research, I can not wait to create and further the learning and trails I endured and enjoyed this year!
Khady out!