Seeing the Knife: The Evolving Male Gaze in “Gaslight” and “The Perfection”
First: image courtesy of “The Perfection.” | Second: image courtesy of “Gaslight.”
Those involved in any sort of critical film theory in the past few decades are likely familiar with the “male gaze.” In 1973, feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the term in an effort to categorize the trend of objectifying spectatorship in film, one that often reaffirms the power fantasies of male viewers. Under this framework, however, female viewers in turn lose social power as a result of a woman-in-despair archetype. Other feminist film theorists have expanded upon—and sometimes even countered—Mulvey’s original analyses by examining the “possibility of a fluid, mobile, or bisexual gaze,” representations of masculine masochism, and the “monstrous woman.” These retroactive elaborations on Mulvey’s framework provide critical avenues through which to question how the male gaze has changed, if at all, between the classical (1920s to 1950s) and contemporary (1960s to the present) film eras.
In many ways, no classical film better exemplifies the nuances of the male gaze than Gaslight (George Cukor, 1944). In Gaslight, female protagonist and opera singer Paula Alquist Anton (Ingrid Bergman) is persuaded by her new husband, “Gregory Anton” (Charles Boyer), to return to the site of her aunt’s murder in London. There, Gregory proceeds to convince Paula that she’s gone insane in order to take full control of her life and steal her deceased aunt’s valuable jewels, all the while pursuing an affair with a young female servant named Nancy (Angela Lansbury). Ultimately, a male Scotland Yard detective discovers that Gregory’s true identity is none other than that of Sergis Bauer, the man originally responsible for murdering Paula’s aunt, and his sinister plot is foiled.
In describing the storyline alone, the gendered and unidirectional action of the film is made apparent: The female leads in Gaslight are objectified to fulfill a man’s desires and demonstrate the static character development imposed by the male gaze. These characters are arguably nothing more than vessels to achieve a male character’s goal. Despite most viewers’ inclination to sympathize with Paula, the mental abuse she endures from her unfaithful husband nevertheless serves as the film’s primary on-screen action. Unlike the characters within the film, Sergis’ manipulation of Paula and his sexually objectifying gaze toward Nancy are made clear to us and, as viewers, we can do nothing but watch the torturous ruse play out. As a result, Gaslight plays more as a horror film rather than a mystery or drama.
Upon discovering Sergis’ true identity, Paula adopts his manipulative tactics while threating him with a knife.
Mimicking the horror film trope of a “final girl,” Paula survives to see Sergis face consequences for his actions. After he’s tied up by the authorities, Paula confronts him with a knife while towering over him. This eventual reclamation of power on behalf of the female protagonist could be what attracts viewers to Gaslight; would the film be as successful if Sergis was never uncovered and justice were not served? But even this “just” conclusion is corrupted by a male gaze. In Gaslight’s closing moments of quasi-revenge fantasy, Paula refuses Sergis’ desperate commands to cut him loose and instead cheekily asks him, “Are you suggesting this is a knife I have in my hand? Have you gone mad, my sane husband?” Despite wielding this very real knife, however, Paula doesn’t follow through with any physical retribution and instead consents to having him arrested. While Paula’s implicit revenge fantasy is physically violent and therefore appears as a hyper-masculine perversion of Sergis’ own gaslighting, she’s still denied the opportunity to realize her vengeance. This unsatisfying conclusion to the film doubly neutralizes Paula even after her abuser is detained by authorities, reaffirming her perpetual subservience to the camera’s male gaze. Unlike Sergis’ material harm to Paula throughout the film, this supposed moment of empowerment can be interpreted as nothing more than a male’s domination fantasy (with rope and all) that poses no true risk to him. Paula’s feminine form of justice in the male-influenced format of film, then, can only consist of empty spoken threats.
Similarly, Sergis’ mistress Nancy receives no on-screen closure whatsoever in regard to Sergis’ deceptions. Her final appearance in Gaslight serves as a reminder that as his servant, she is “not a guest in this house.” As the sexualized object of Sergis’ male gaze, Nancy disappears from our sight altogether once the male antagonist's true identity is revealed and he can no longer manipulate her through his perfidiously powerful persona. This lower class character, however, isn’t afforded a performative revenge fantasy like that of her wealthy counterpart, raising questions about how the male gaze impacts women of different socioeconomic, racial, and sexual backgrounds in contemporary films.
In the post-MeToo era, the male gaze has anything but disappeared and unfortunately continues to plague the film screen. Echoing Creed’s understanding of a bisexual gaze and the “monstrous woman,” however, the male gaze now manifests in more covert forms throughout media. The Perfection (2019) exemplifies this unconventional dynamic while simultaneously mirroring much of Gaslight’s core premise. In The Perfection, esteemed cellists Lizzie Wells (Logan Browning) and Charlotte Willmore (Allison Williams) perform together in Shanghai and immediately kindle a passionate sexual relationship. The longest sequence of the film consists of a bus ride the next morning throughout which Charlotte offers Lizzie painkillers to help cure a hangover. On this claustrophobic journey, Lizzie begins to feel increasingly ill and eventually vomits up live maggots. After being expelled from the bus and left alone in (quite literally) a no-man’s-land, Lizzie is horrified to realize that there are more bugs crawling inside of her arm. In response, Charlotte reveals a comically large cleaver and callously responds, “you know what you have to do.” Without question, Lizzie takes hold of the cleaver and chops off her own hand, triggering a rewind sequence to that same morning from Charlotte’s perspective. During this second time through the bus ride, it’s revealed that Charlotte purposefully slipped Lizzie hallucinogenic pills, subtly influencing the resulting delusions through their conversations. When boarding the bus, Charlotte swats a nonexistent bug from Lizzie’s shoulder to plant the paranoia and later asks “are those fucking bugs?” when she first throws up. In reality, none of this is true, but Lizzie is inclined to believe it in her delirious state. This culminates in Charlotte exclaiming, “your arm!,” inspiring Lizzie’s act of self-mutilation as seemingly planned all along.
Charlotte offers Lizzie a comically large cleaver as a means of escaping her drug-induced hallucinations.
This sequence initially presents itself as a disturbing act of jealousy given that Lizzie replaced Charlotte as the darling cellist of the Bachoff Academy following the latter character’s withdrawal to care for her terminally ill mother. In actuality, though, Charlotte reveals that she was trying to protect Lizzie from returning to Bachoff, where both had been sexually assaulted since they were young. Notably, we learn of Bachoff’s abuse during a flashback through young Charlotte’s eyes, which is a surprising pivot toward a female—rather than male—perspective. In this scene, Bachoff’s headmaster, Anton, emerges completely naked to punish Charlotte for her musical errors. In this case, the violation of female bodies is communicated directly through the perspective of a female character looking upon an exposed male body, subverting the tendency for films to feature nude female bodies. Similar to the first iteration of the bus ride sequence, this body horror is most effectively communicated through the female character’s gaze experiencing it. We’re more inclined to experience the horror of this violence by directly empathizing with its victims.
Like Gaslight, The Perfection most memorably features another woman being manipulated and assaulted on screen for our supposed pleasure. Only, in the contemporary example of The Perfection, the violence and sexual objectification implicit to the male gaze is faciliated by Charlotte, an undoubtedly “monstorous woman.” The massive leap in logic is ultimately that Lizzie could only be convinced to abandon Bachoff if she were no longer physically able to perform and therefore be of any use to the Academy. Lizzie befuddingly understands and agrees with Charlotte’s severe tactics, causing the duo to team up and end the institution’s cycle of abuse. Ironically, this plan for vengeance seemingly absolves Charlotte of her (literally!) skin-crawling abuse and manipulation of Lizzie.
In their review of the film for Vox, Aja Romano claims that that this is, “at best, extremely over-the-top, and, at worst, reads like a troubling white power fantasy.” After all, despite the feminization of the male gaze in The Perfection, there’s an additional racial dynamic present, given that Lizzie is Black and Charlotte is white. This racial component is especially hard to avoid given Williams’ most recognized role as the manipulative, racist girlfriend in Jordan Peele’s race-based horror film Get Out (2017) as well as Browning’s self-explanatory lead role in Justin Simien’s Netflix adaptation of Dear White People (2017-2021). Like the impact of socioeconomic status upon the male gaze in Gaslight, Lizzie is disproportionally affected by the male gaze as a queer, Black woman. Unlike Sergis’ crimes in Gaslight, however, we’re not made immediately aware of Charlotte’s actions until we experience it all over again through her perspective. This approach ultimately relies on the shock factor associated with a woman being responsible for such devious trickery. Originally, we’re just as convinced as Lizzie is of her hallucinations and therefore experience the objectified female gaze. Unlike Lizzie, though, we’re able to escape this gaze by repeating the events through Charlotte’s manipulative quasi-male gaze afterward. This order of events offers us the opportunity to experience the horror of Lizzie’s female gaze with an opportunity to retreat to a male gaze immediately after. Mimicking the class dynamics in Gaslight, The Perfection features a plausible white supremacist reading through its distinct treatment of its Black and white female characters.
In the seven decades between the creation of these two films, there’s been a great deal of technological advancements that have caused the methods of gaslighting in both films to radically diverge. In Gaslight, Sergis’ methods of inducing madness include theft, tampering with gaslights (hence the title), and making otherwise unexplainable noises in their vacant attic. In The Perfection, on the other hand, Charlotte is able to drug Lizzie, direct the resulting horrific visuals through subtle commentary, and ultimately convince Lizzie to self-inflict violence. Due to the additional technological advancements in film, Lizzie’s hallucinations are realistically replicated on screen. This difference in gaslighting methodology also mirrors the gendered power of speech, one that denies Paula any justice beyond a co-opting of her abuser’s language. In other words, language is cemented as one of few weapons for relatively privileged women like Paula and Charlotte, who are victims of patriarchy—and, therefore, the male gaze—but not of classism and racism, respectively. But how do both films treat their white male antagonists who are victims of neither?
Even when facing the music (quite literally in Anton’s case given that Lizzie and Charlotte ultimately mutilate him before playing a duet on a single cello), male antagonists encounter a “fetishized vision of female vengeance, one that ultimately seems far more like an extended male fantasy of domination than an authentic vision of female characters overcoming systemic rape culture” or abuse. In fact, music is a final connecting thread between Gaslight and The Perfection. As part of his broader metaphorical act of performance, Sergis plays piano for Paula just before convincing her that she forgetfully moved a painting. The same piano is heard when Sergis commits a similar act with his watch and Paula encounters a music box upon coming to terms with her falsified insanity. Despite being an opera singer, though, Paula never performs music herself. Mirroring the unidirectionality of Gaslight’s plot and the function the male gaze assumes within it, Paula is merely an object of music. Seventy years after Gaslight’s premiere, female characters in The Perfection do perform their own music in the same way Charlotte performs her own drug-induced form of gaslighting.
Despite the emergence of new forms and diverse character dynamics, the male gaze still exists in media today, continuing to rob female characters of their agency, character development, and, perhaps most importantly, their humanity. Like film theorist Jean-Luc Godard made clear, the format and process of radical filmmaking is just as important as its substance. Despite making progress with regard to the latter, The Perfection proves that the male gaze is alive and well in mainstream films. No matter how loud the music, or how quiet the dismembered audience may be, it hasn’t been enough to drown out the influence of the male gaze on cinema.