“Female gaze” in the series “Women’s Tales” – between branding strategy and feminist self-reflection

Abstract

The text is concerned with the analysis of the Women’s Tales series of short films in terms of their representativeness for the theory of the “female gaze.” The starting point for the discussion is the problem of companies’ involvement in the movement for gender equality and in the cultural industry solely for marketing purposes, which leads to brands' consumption of feminist discourse and the symbolic capital of the invited authors, with negligible significance of the projects for art and society. Therefore, the central question of the article is to what extent the initiative of the fashion house Miu Miu, which aims to support women in the film industry, uses the poetics of “female gaze” and enables its development and dissemination. The first part of the text – theoretical – discusses the concept of the “female gaze” and, based on four conceptions of “female gaze,” defines its characteristics. The second part – analytical – consists of a comprehensive analysis of films from the Women’s Tales series, which are divided into four categories according to the dominant determinant of the “female gaze.” The inspection of the shorts enables them to be linked to various aspects of the “female gaze,” confirming the feminist dimension of the series and its critical approach to visual fetishism. Nevertheless, the Miu Miu project itself and the works produced within its framework, due to institutional conditions, have limited impact on mainstream art and remain the preserve of elite culture.