Hello, I'm Callie! I'm a New Media student with a huge interest in film and literature and how they reflect and impact real social issues. For my final year project, I researched the idea of the female gaze, its history, its relevance in modern cinema and its relationship to art in Portrait of a Lady on Fire and The Handmaiden. The results of my research were presented in the form of a written and video essay, which I am sharing on this page. I am very interested in sustainability, equality and making the world a better place, and would like to devote my professional future championing these values within the media industry.
This final year project is divided in two parts: a video and a written essay. It explores the role of art and its relationship to the gaze, feminism and queer theory in two recent films, Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Park Chan-Wook's The Handmaiden.
Thank you to Dr. Caitriona Kirby and Stephen Boyd for guiding me throughout the development of this project and helping me turn this idea into reality!
The video essay component of this project can be watched above. While it primarily focuses on the two mentioned films as its key case studies, it also explores the history of the male gaze in cinema as a theory envisioned by Laura Mulvey, how it has been contested throughout the years by other theorists, and wonders how the notion of intersectionality and the prevalence of media convergence have influenced the relevance of the gaze in our contemporary media landscape.
The critical essay part of this project goes into more depth about the theory behind the video. Exploring the history of Greek mythology, portraiture, pornography and cinema through a female and queer gaze, it is the piece of work that I am the most proud of throughout all my years in IADT. I am grateful that I was able to spend my final year of college exploring themes that I was curious about and learn so much about them, and am delighted to share the results of my work on this page. You can download the essay by clicking on the button below.