American Beauty

in a short clip of american beauty if we apply the male gaze theory we see it  feature through out at first it is very subtle with just a few camera shots but as the clip it goes on to be a more noticeable. When the girls first get up to dance the camera is in a high angle shot so it looks down upon the girls are your eyes are automatically drawn to the girls legs and as they start to dance that is where your main focus is. Through out the dance routine the daughter is in the centre and should be the main focus but when the dance goes in to a formation and the blonde girl becomes the centre this is when kevin spacey's character takes notice of her, once this happens we are seeing the girl through his eyes and we know this as the camera focuses on his eyes and his eye view alone.the lightings starts to fade out as does everyone else in the scene so there is a single spot light on her and she is the main focus as there is nothing else distracting from her. when the rest are the actors are still in shit the camera does a zoom shot from mid shot to close up which focuses on his eyes it then reverts back to normal and does the same thing to the girl this signifies that only the man and girl are focusing on each other this makes the audience only focus them too as well. toward the end of the clip there is a long shot of just the man in the audience this is in the mans imagination again this shows that the scene is from the males point of view.
The representations in this clip are very stereotypical for example the blonde girl is scene to be the head cheerleader as she is the focus of the shot and she is wearing a cheerleaders out fit with the pleated skirt this is very sterotypical of an american high school also she is seen to be a dumb blond as at the start of the scene when she is talking to her friend she is just sat there playing with her hair not really taking notice of what the other girl is saying to her. The daughter in the clip is a stereotypical moody teenager as she looks miserable in every scene she is in she has a downer about her especially how she talks about her parents and she is ungrateful that they want to support her and encourager her in something that she has tried really hard at. The man in the scene is middle age maybe having a midlife crises as he gets sexual gratification fro looking at his daughters friend that would be many years younger then he is      also he talks about how he wished he was at home as he was missing a james bond marathon this is a very mainly film and this could be an escapism for him and as he is having a midlife crises he sees himself as james bond this is why he fantasises about a much younger girl as he thinks that she wants him and has a chance.