Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power (18)
Directed by Nina Menkes

THE concept of “the male gaze” was first coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975, but film-maker Nina Menkes attempts to deconstruct it and demonstrate how it has perpetuated sexism and the objectification of women in a film which will make you see this medium in a whole new light. 

Menkes’s incisive documentary explores how the visual language of cinema has contributed to employment discrimination, pay inequality and an environment of sexual harassment and abuse in the industry and in society. 

Based on Menkes’s cinematic presentation “Sex and Power, the Visual Language of Cinema” this shows how differently men and women are filmed and the techniques that are used such as the framing, the camera movement, the lighting and the sound to discriminate between them subliminably. 

Men are, by and large, the subject while women are the object, and so every shot is from the point of view of the male gaze. In sex scenes there is a slow pan up or down the female naked form thus objectifying her, while the man appears in wide shot. Also women are filmed in slow motion to sexualise them, while their male counterparts appear in slo-mo in action or military scenes.

Menkes uses almost 200 clips from renowned Hollywood films to cult classics ranging from 1896 to 2021 to make her case. The documentary also features interviews with Mulvey and other prominent film professionals including directors Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) and Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) along with performers Charlyne Yi and Rosanna Arquette. 

Arquette reveals how she was once given a great role, then to be told they had decided to go with a younger actor which, she said, was not uncommon. She also relates her horrifying encounter with Harvey Weinstein in his hotel room.

The film examines the female film-makers who have succeeded in Hollywood and how some of them have inadvertently been using the same male gaze techniques. Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurtlocker which is conceived entirely from the male viewpoint and includes lots of slow motion of explosions and action shots. 

This is a wonderfully thought-provoking documentary, and you will never see films in the same way again. 

Out in cinemas today