Official Logo of The Female Gaze Screening Club at Ohio State. Credit: Courtesy of Jenna Friel
As fall approaches, bringing with it pumpkins, fuzzy socks and a desire for all things cozy, members of one screening club in particular are eager to provide an inclusive environment.
The Female Gaze Screening Club, founded in 2020, creates a safe space for women and gender-nonconforming individuals to watch and discuss film, according to its Ohio State Student Organization page. Members analyze movies from all genres and styles, focusing on the importance of representation in cinema, Deja Russell, a fourth-year in moving-image production and film studies and president of the group, said.
“How we capture people matters,” Russell said. “If you’re only showing a character from their lips or body, what are you subconsciously telling people?”
Russell said the concept of “the female gaze” is far from novel. Too often, marginalized characters are written and shot as objects instead of subjects, she said. This limited lens, deemed “the male gaze,” can have harmful effects on the audience’s subconscious; beauty standards are reinforced, stereotypes are perpetuated and inclusivity is diminished.
More gender minorities are breaking into the industry, diversifying the mechanics of cinematography, Russell said. To employ “the female gaze” is to challenge perceptions that are rooted in visual bias.
Rheana Smith, a fourth-year in film studies and vice president of the club, said she takes pride in the club’s commitment to such complex issues. She said meetings are conversation-based, relying on honest communication.
“I like to treat people how I want to be treated,” Smith said. “If my opinion is different from yours, I want to make sure that you have somewhere that you can speak and that you can feel comfortable.”
Although discussion is an integral component of the club, Russell said she wants to experiment with the current format by introducing social events and guest speakers as well. Off-campus movie screenings have already been incorporated into club activities, as members attended a showing of “In The Heights” Sept. 17 in honor of National Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month.
“It’s a new club, and we’re still having to build it up,” Russell said. “There is a vision for it, and we didn’t have to start from scratch, but we’re still doing the work to maintain it.”
New, popular movies such as “Emma,” “Birds of Prey,” “Miss Juneteenth,” “Promising Young Woman,” “Cruella” and “Black Widow” have been critically acclaimed for utilizing “the female gaze.” However, Russell said members do not have to limit themselves when suggesting potential flicks.
“The thing that I love about this club is that we don’t just pick movies that employ the female gaze,” Russell said. “We look at all movies and talk about whether it does, whether it doesn’t, why is that good, why is that bad. We talk about a bunch of things.”
As the motion picture industry evolves, there is no doubt that the club will change too, Smith said. Even so, this organization, which meets at 7 p.m. over Zoom on the second and fourth Thursday of each month, will always offer cinematic sanctuary to anyone who needs it.
“I want to have a place where this one person out of 60,000 people can come, and they can talk to 10 people, or even five people, and just be themselves and be seen,” Smith said. “That’s what I want more for this club in the future.”
