This paper provides an account of how a normative male gaze is produced and upheld even in a video game famed for its inclusive nature, Dragon Age: Inquisition. The analysis originates in content studies concerning the portrayal of gender in video games in relation to in-game physical gender portrayal. It is followed by a contextualization of specific video sequences and certain game mechanics in relation to Laura Mulvey’s feminist film theory about the Male Gaze. Mulvey’s film theory approach, while useful as an intellectual tool, is not developed to be applied to video games and thus it is also necessary to consider any implications related to the interactivity of the game. As characters are subjected to a gendered male gaze in relation to both their physical appearance and attributes they are made to uphold the normative status quo. The Gaze is evident in how characters are portrayed, how the main character becomes a default male character regardless of actual gender and in the construction of women as something other. But most importantly, in the actual game mechanics through which all characters become objects for the player to use either in combat or to own in the guise of offering romance to the narrative.

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The thesis deals with gender analysis in films studying metamorphoses of archetypes in film Bitter Moon directed by Roman Polanski. The methodical and theoretical sections of the thesis analyse the influence of archetype changes of film characters in gender roles. The thesis identifies and analyses mainly woman film characters appearing in some classical feminist texts, feminist film theoretical and critical articles, in some psychoanalytical works, in dramatheraphy and film science. The sources mentioned above became primary resource materials for our archetypal research. The analysis of each of the film character is focused on the most distinctive archetype with respect to its metamorphosy. Apart from the archetype research the thesis is marginaly concerned with problems linked to the female ideal and her sexuality usually portrayed in an unalterable way, and archetypal patterns are in such a way transmitted to audiences through femininity and masculinity in the context of gender roles. Keywords: archetype, Roman Polanski, Laura Mulvey, Annis Pratt, cinematic archetypal coherence, feminist film criticism, film narrative analysis, archetypal masculinity, archetypal femininity.

Studien undersöker hur kvinnliga karaktärer representeras i relation till skräcktematiken i tv-serien Penny Dreadful (2014-). Syftet har varit att studera huruvida det som är typiska kännetecken för skräck kan kopplas till kvinnlighet, femininitet och feminism (det senare då man kan uppfatta ett genuskritiskt samtal i serien). Med hjälp av psykoanalytiska teorier kring abjektion visar analysen hur det som är skrämmande med kvinnor, är skrämmande på andra sätt än vad som är skrämmande med män. Det som är abjekt med kvinnan definieras ofta utifrån hennes sexualitet och biologiska egenskaper, och skapar därmed en feminin monstrositet och således är helt olik den manliga. Detta har till stor del växt fram genom historiska myter, religioner och konst, som har bidragit till könsspecifika monster utifrån stereotyp femininitet, så som häxor, sirener eller Medusa. Genom att utforska tv-seriens karaktärer med hjälp av semiotiska och psykoanalytiska verktyg avslöjas möjliga tolkningar som visar hur nämnda feminina monster tycks grunda sig i manlig rädsla och kvinnan som hot. Kastrationskomplexet som bidragande faktor och den manliga blicken tycks därför kväsa uttryck för kvinnlig frigörelse i serien, genom att sexualisera, plåga och göra kvinnan abjekt och monstruös i direkt genmäle till dessa. Serien tycks därför trots sin genuskritiska diskurs kontrolleras av en manlig blick och ett skoptofiliskt seende, något som möjligtvis bidrar till att kvinnlighet och femininitet kodas som abjekt, och i värsta fall stigmatiserar den feministiska kvinnan. / <p>Reviderad upplaga</p>

In den Anfängen der Cultural Studies in der Birmingham School spielte Geschlecht eine eher untergeordnete Rolle. Bald wurden jedoch auch feministische Positionen herangezogen, um Ungleichheiten der Alltagspraxis zu erklären, die nicht klassentheoretisch zu fassen waren. In den Arbeiten von Rubin und Mulvey beispielsweise werden Geschlecht bzw. Geschlechtsunterscheidungen und -ungleichheiten durch makrosoziale Wissensstrukturen und kollektive Praktiken reproduziert.

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In the traditionally patriarchal Hollywood industry, the heterosexual man’s “male gaze,” as coined by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, is the dominant viewing model for cinematic audiences, leaving little room for a negotiated reading of how visual images are created, presented, and internalized by male and female audiences alike. However, as Hollywood’s shifting feminist landscape becomes increasingly prevalent in the mainstream media, content incorporating the oppositional “female gaze” have become the new norm in both the film and television mediums. Through an extended analysis of the gaze as socialized through gendered learning in children, the “safe space” afforded through the formulaic platform of “boy bands,” and the function of romantic comedies and the emerging feminist rhetoric prevalent in such films as “Magic Mike: XXL,” the conceptual “female gaze” is defined and explored through the demographic of young girls as they grow and push their understanding of desire, particularly as they develop into the mature, media-cosuming women that have become increasingly vocal in the Hollywood sphere.

Nymphomaniac represents yet another complex art-movie by director Lars von Trier. The reception amongst film critics is seemingly incoherent about whether the film reproduces misogynist values or if the film could be perceived as feminist.  This thesis aims to explore how Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze still applies and provides tools for examination together with the intersectional approach, to decode and identify patriarchal conventions. As whiteness is inextricably linked to patriarchal structure it is discussed throughout this thesis and in a separate chapter. Hence this thesis suggests an intersectional feminist critical analysis to be the most adequate method to examine this movie and to fully comprehend how different elements of power coexist to suppress women and racialized people within the context of Nymphomaniac.  This thesis concludes that von Trier does not only embrace the male gaze, he also occasionally rejects it.

Bilge Olgac, one of the first female directors of Turkey, who shot her first film in 1965, shaped her films according to the developments in Turkey. This thesis investigates how Olgac was affected by the events that took place in Turkey from the 1960s to the 1980s and how she reflected this impact on the representations of men and women in her films. The study seeks answers to the following questions;  *How has political, economic, and social changes in Turkey, influenced Bilge Olgac and her films from the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s to the 1980s? *How are men and women and their relationship represented and how is the gaze indicated in the films? These research questions are tried to be answered by analyzing Olgac’s films Lawless Land (1967), Dark Day (1971), Gulusan (1985) and Ipekce (1987). While analyzing women and femininity and men and masculinity in these films, Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory is used. Findings suggest that between 1965-1975, Olgac tried to keep up with the male-dominated cinema industry on the one hand and tried to impose herself in the industry on the other and directed melodramas in which women were represented as weak and passive and men were represented as strong and active. Olgac, who took a break from cinema in 1975, focused on female protagonists by presenting a different perspective to the audience in the 1980s. However, detailed analyses of the films also reveal that she could not get rid of the dominant ideology and the female characters in her films could not escape from traditional roles. In other words, Olgac’s films reflect patriarchy, similar to the Hollywood films Mulvey has examined.