1. The Male Gaze
A large percent of media texts especially in the film
industry are imagined and created through the male eye.
The patriarchal society has shaped the film form to
objectify women and to train the both the male and
female audience to accept this as the norm.
Is a perfect opportunity to explore the
male gaze and how eroticism has been
coded into the language of the dominant
patriarchal order.

2. The film is a close reproduction of
the comic where Rodriguez has tried
to contain as much of the comic
genre in the film with its noir lighting
and splashes of vivid colour mixed in
with clips of animation and comic
strips. Even more strongly than in
film the comic genre accentuates
gender roles to such an extreme that
the men are portrayed as
‘excessively macho’ and the women
as ‘sidekicks, sex kittens or helpless
appendages’. This is very important
this means that Rodriguez has taken
this male-centered subculture of
comics to mass culture .
The original Nancy
from the Sin City
comic by Frank Miller

3. The women in Sin City are defined
by their sexuality. Pictured as
strikingly beautiful and half naked
their strength and power is
channelled through their sexuality
and physicality.
They have been stereotypically
idealised to be loathed and lusted
after as objects of male fantasies
where they admire the female
spectacle but in no way respect it.
This is clear in the film where they
are repeatedly called ‘whores’ and
slapped around.

4. With roles such as the glamorous,
angelic love interest that turns out to be
a common prostitute, the stripper with a
heart of gold and the beaten waitress
with an abusive string of boyfriends,
each clearly jeopardised or victimised by
brutal crime and injustice there lies the
misogynistic cliché that these weak
women need rescuing by men from other
men… and from themselves. This
makes the male audience feel more
powerful as they imagine themselves in
the position of these male saviours.
Take for instance Shellie the waitress
who is beaten by Jacky Boy and has no
choice but to rely on Dwight to protect
her through violence while she cowers
and panics in nothing but underwear and
an mans shirt with blood dripping from
her lip.

5. Although in this film the women are
completely sexualised for male gratification it
doesn’t mean that they are completely
passive submissive characters. They fight for
themselves, they are cunning and capable.
Such as Gail, leader of her sisterhood of
prostitutes. She is armed, independent and
protects herself.
On the other hand she
is repeatedly told by
Dwight that she is ‘a
Valkyrie’ (a mythic
Norse woman warrior
or angel of
Death), this implies that although she is a strong
woman that can fend for herself she is still
defined by a man.

6. When Jessica Alba’s character Nancy is
introduced to the audience in the film she is
dancing at a sleazy saloon wearing not much
more then a pair of chaps and cowboy boots.
The camera pans around and focuses on
Alba’s body as she gyrates, pleasing both the
on-screen patrons and the audience watching
the screen. – A perfect example of the male
gaze!

7. Looking at reviews online, almost all point out
how the women are represented, here is a small
selection:
This comment is particularly interesting as it
shows people are aware of Mulveys theory
of the male gaze and Sigmund Freud’s
theory of scopophilia.

8. The film adaption of Sin City
much like the original comic is…
‘written by men about men for
men’.
Dana Leventhal – Brightlightsfilm.com