This review will focus on Repulsion directed by Roman Polanski in 1965 and how the
male gaze applies to the main character of the film. Key source will be Laura Mulvey’s
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975), in which she describes the phenomenon
of the male gaze and the effect is has on the characters but also the viewer.
Repulsion follows the life of Carole who lives in an apartment in London that she shares
with her older sister. The shy, beautiful young Belgian women is being admired by a lot of
men through out the film which only makes her mental instability worse. After her sister
left for a vacation with her lover, Carole remains alone in the apartment which causes her
to loose complete control of her life.
Therefore the character of Carole in Repulsion applies to Mulvey’s male gaze which
effects the characters of the film but also the male viewers. She is represented as a
passive, weak and disoriented character which makes her an object of desire to some
people but also leads to the sexual satisfaction that comes from watching women.
However since male “viewers don’t want to see bad things happen to, or because of, a
beautiful woman“ (Cwik, 2015) the movie overall is more interested in presenting Carole
as mentally unstable woman rather than treating her consistently as a sex object.
Therefore her mental instability makes her unattractive to the male gaze.
Bibliography
Moore, E. (2016). Sexual Violence and Female Experience in Roman Polanski’s Apartment
Trilogy: Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby, The Tenant - Bright Lights Film Journal. [online]
Bright Lights Film Journal. Available at: https://brightlightsfilm.com/wp-content/cache/all/
sexual-violence-female-experience-roman-polanskis-apartment-trilogy-repulsion-
rosemarys-baby-tenant/#.W_sjCy34yLI [Accessed 25 Nov. 2018].
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