In the media, it is common for female characters to conform to what men would like to read in fantasy. Have you ever watched a movie, and as the dominant female character makes her entry, her body is panned from toe to head, as though she was a sculpture created to be ogled at by the male audience? The importance of women’s first scenes does not lay in the power of their footsteps, the grit in their eyes, or the booming in their voice. It lies in the sensuality of their walk, the sway of their hips, how perfectly aligned their teeth are. This can be represented in literature as well. Many books are written by males who will never know what it is like to live through a female body, with the set of lenses that only women can look through. Not all, but many forms of art cater to a male audience. This idea is known as the male gaze. Forms of art that are disturbing to the male gaze tend to display women as powerful, dangerous creatures. One impactful, well-known mythology commonly scrutinized by males and male psychologists would be Medusa. Medusa is a work of art that defies the grain of the male gaze, which is why it is commonly psychoanalytically interpreted as the embodiment of men’s greatest fears. 

Medusa is a woman known for her ostentatious scalp of snakes, her superpower to turn a man into stone once he lay a glance upon her, and her threatening demeanor. She is a woman who was cursed by another mythological creature, Athena, for being raped by Poseidon. Anyone that looks at her turns to stone. This is not the pleasurable view we observe of women in the media. Medusa isn’t some hot chick swaying her hips side to side when she walks as men’s eyes follow her. She freezes people before they even have the opportunity to get a good look at her. The curse of her grotesqueness is enough to make the average audience member uncomfortable. 

It is not what Medusa physically embodies, but also what she metaphorically symbolizes that scares viewers. Sigmund Freud, known as the Father of Psychology, was a neurologist who stated that Medusa encapsulates fears such as seeing female anatomy and male castration. He theorized that mythology is often a representation of our fears and nightmares. It contains the same plots as the imagination in our heads when anxiety takes over. The reason these anxieties can affect a male and female audience is that all audiences consume the same literature. The mass of popular literature was created by men. A lot of the female audience’s ideals have been influenced by a male perspective, meaning a woman may also be offset by a presence such as Medusa’s. Medusa represents a fear that everyone has deep down. 

Other psychoanalysts have created their interpretations of Medusa. For instance, Ferenczi stated that the serpents on Medusa’s head represent the absence of male genitalia. Miller views Medusa as the embodiment of a competition between a mother and daughter figure. Athena cursing Medusa may represent a form of jealousy Athena has of Medusa, who was once a beautiful girl lusted after- arousing competition between the two. 

No matter the interpretation, it is evident that any dominant female figure that doesn’t fit the dainty stereotype of a “likable” woman that twirls her hair and laughs with a sweet pitch will stir up controversy and represent fear. Anything threatening a societal norm arouses fear. Many people think Medusa’s only purpose as a woman is to threaten male power and dominance. Many forms of art do not accurately portray women and their multiple facets as a character as they all focus on the effect it has on men, whether it is sweet or intimidating. The male gaze tends to reduce women to a certain set of characteristics rather than a whole human.

Media not created through the male gaze should be pushed for consumption. Medusa is an example of a woman written to threaten the male gaze, however, she is still analyzed through her effect on men rather than who she is as a character. Readers need to analyze art not written through a male gaze so that when a character is written through a male gaze, the reader can pick up on it and identify traits of the character beyond what the male gaze limits them to be. 

Works Cited:

Brown , Madyson. Viewing Myself Through the Male Gaze . Madyson Brown , 4 Jan. 2021, youtube.com/watch?v=sdJ1OA4FeaU. Accessed 8 Nov. 2021.

Glenn, Justin. “Psychoanalytic Writings on Classical Mythology and Religion: 1909-1960.” The Classical World, vol. 70, no. 4, 1976, p. 225., doi.org/10.2307/4348642.

“To See or Not to See. the Ambiguity of Medusa in Relation to Mulisch's the Procedure.” Image and Narrative, imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/uncanny/laurensdevos.htm.