IS 2017 Webreport

In ANH, women serve as a means of satiating the sexual fantasies and desires of men. They do so by being coded as an instrument of sexual pleasure for the audience, especially male viewers, to fantasize and think about. Further, within the universe of the film, the male protagonist is typically portrayed as being infatuated with the main female character. The female protagonist is also often labelled with the stereotypes of being an “damsel in distress” and “eye candy”, and this generalization ultimately implies that she nothing but a member of that overarching set. This allows men to think of her without regard to her individuality or identity as she can be seen as being just a smaller part of a whole. This thus encourages others to treat her without regard to her personality or dignity and this hence dehumanizes her and implies that she is there solely to play the role of being an object of sexual fantasies. By contrast, within TFA, there are few aspects of the film have the potential to provide sexual pleasure to the audience,

with the female protagonist being characterized as an unique, individual character. This creates an identity for the female protagonist that does not to conform to stereotypical categories as espoused in the Male Gaze Theory or pander to scopophilia. This ultimately empowers women as they are allowed to develop their own identity without being reduced to stereotypical objects of sexual pleasure and allows them greater freedom of expression as they are freed from the constrain of traditional gender norms and expectations.