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The theory of the male gaze in cinema (men look, women are looked at) was formulated by Laura Mulvey in 1975. If, in the near five decades since then, its meaning and application have passed you by, this is the documentary for you. Otherwise, the film-maker Nina Menkes’s highly authored polemic is a specious amalgam of half-baked theorising, selective clip analysis and pseudo-academic bleating that pins the evils of patriarchy entirely on dopey Hollywood sex comedies and Brian De Palma shower scenes.
The women at the heart of the feminist director’s potent, oneiric films are all refuseniks, turning their backs on the roles assigned by a capitalist patriarchy.