Task 12.1- Psychoanalytic models of the viewer and of the viewing activity

The film I chose to analyse for task 12.1 was American Pie. The reason for this is as throughout the film women’s primary role is to strictly be portrayed as a subject of the male gaze providing visual pleasure for a targeted male audience. The target audience is teenage males, who are represented to engage in sex, drugs and alcohol. The target audience to a great extent is male as women throughout are used, as many females would argue as sexual objects and have no other real cause throughout all of the films. Women are in a very central role throughout the film however there involvement is strictly in the interest of sexual intentions of males within the film. However it is possible in certain scenes of the film for women to identify with the male characters, as in one clip within the third American Pie the woman is identified and shown to be providing sexual advice to the male. This would enable women to identify with the dominance that the male audience and characters have, as they are also placed in this position of sexual dominance where a woman is offering advice and taking control of a sexual situation. Furthermore this scene places particular importance as the woman is portrayed to an extent to be mocking the male’s sexual intelligence. However overall female characters are placed in American pie to appease the male gaze and to be “looked at”.