“Peeping Tom,” released in 1960 and directed by Michael Powell, is a disturbing thriller about a serial killer obsessed with catching the images on camera of those he kills right before he kills them. The very title of the movie elicits the idea that this film is voyeuristic since peeping tom’s are those who observe people without their knowledge. However, what truly makes this the sadism of the main character, the serial killer, Mark. He takes pleasure in the sadistic voyeurism of producing his films about igniting fear and capturing that on camera and then killing his victims. So he is not only watching and filming these women (voyeurism) but his obsession is in capturing the fear on film (sadism).
However, another factor that adds to the sadistic voyeurism in this film is the male gaze, which stems from feminist theory in regards to the patriarchal way women are portrayed in films. In “Peeping Tom” Mark not only singles out women as his victims for no explicit reason, but when he is filming them, and the way we see them through his camera, is often in a sexually objectified manner. To illustrate my point a little more clearly, I will focus on the opening scene, in which we don’t know Mark’s identity yet, but we get a stage-setting view of his first victim.
The first shot is an extreme closeup of someone’s eye (Mark, but we don’t know that yet). This imagery suggests gaze, as the eye is looking straight ahead. The next shot is an establishing shot of a dark, abandoned street with a lone woman looking into a store window. The unidentified man walks out of the bottom corner of the shot and begins to approach the woman. He then stops, and we get a closeup of a camera in his bag, with the lens’ peaking out of the top of the bag. He takes his coat and tries to cover up the camera so it is not so obvious. We then hear a click followed by a mechanical rotating sound, which makes us understand that the camera is indeed filming. The perspective then shifts to inside the lens of the camera, and this is when we get a true sense of the voyeuristic nature of this man as he films a strange woman, unknown to her.
Through the lens we see him approach the woman, and as he gets closer, the camera shifts down onto her butt before moving back up to her face again. This is the first distinct example of the male gaze. The woman is dressed in a tight skirt wearing tights and high heels, and when the camera focuses on her body, we get a sense of sexual objectification. As the woman notices him, she turns around and says, “It’s be two quid,” implying that she is a prostitute. When she turns around to lead him to her place, he agrees to the deal by following, and films her as she crosses the street, and leads him into an alley. When she stops to unlock the door, the camera again shifts down to film her entire body, before the man’s arm is shown throwing something away. When they walk up the stairs he focuses on her butt and her legs, again sexually objectifying her body. As they enter the room, she begins to undress and he stands still to watch (and film) as she does so. He then proceeds to kill her, but all we see as the viewer is a look of extreme fear on her face and hear her screaming before the shot cuts to the man watching the film he just made in his own personal theater. The fact that Mark watches his films and obsesses over the quality of them reasserts the sadistic voyeurism.
I really enjoyed your application of the male gaze theory to Mark’s character, especially in regards to this first scene. I think Powell deliberately emphasized the male gaze to show Mark’s obsession with women, but also to give the audience an immediate look into his character. Although not necessarily sadistic in nature, the consistent symbolism of the eye (gaze) throughout the film is directly eluding his voyeuristic filmmaking and fascination with fear and emotions.
I did not take into account the male gaze in this film at all. I am really happy that you brought it up because it made me understand certain scenes in a completely new light. I often felt like the male gaze was only presented at times when he was in his curious-killer mindset, thus having another trigger that gave the audience some insight to what may be going through his mind just with how the camera was moving and what the focus was. The sexual objectification of women was presented in a very unique way- you discussed the scene with the prostitute and it almost feels like the way he moves the camera leads to the scene having to do with sexual assault, when in fact the fear is in the woman’s eyes because of death. This was a complicated twist that always made me slightly uncomfortable, your examples were very thorough in helping discuss the meaning behind why the movie was shot with a male gaze.
This is a quality explanation of the gaze portrayed throughout the film. I also think it’s interesting that you point out that there is no real explanation as to why he compulsively invokes fear in women solely (i.e. that the gaze is towards women only and not men also) because he seems to be projecting what happened to him as a boy and as a child, so the although the repetition of trauma is present, it is not exact. Perhaps it could be explored further as to why he targets women by discussing his social trepidation in general.
I agree with you that Mark’s character is very sadistic and voyeuristic. Perhaps Mark targets women because of his father’s behavior after Mark’s mom died. We saw Mark have a flashback of a young woman in his dad’s life shortly after his mom died — this could have contributed to his trauma and fear as a child — causing him to accuse women of all the blame. I never even realized the way Mark objectified the women he filmed, but now that you mention it I can definitely see what you are referring to when I think back on the film.
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Peeping Tom,” directed by Michael Powell in 1960, delves into the unsettling theme of sadistic voyeurism, epitomized by the protagonist, Mark, a serial killer who derives pleasure from filming his victims’ terror before killing them. This perverse blend of voyeurism and sadism highlights a disturbing exploitation of the male gaze, where women are objectified and their fear commodified for personal gratification. In a modern context, understanding such dynamics is crucial, especially when considering the responsible use of advanced computer software like that developed by the Honista Team, which can ensure ethical standards in content creation and consumption are upheld.