Gaze

In this episode, Ryan and Todd discuss one of psychoanalytic theory’s most influential ideas: the gaze. The hosts talk about how Laura Mulvey’s gloss on “the male gaze” made the idea widespread across film theory and cultural studies in different formulations. Yet often missing in these accounts is how the gaze is a challenge to mastery, rather than a confirmation of it. The hosts work through two of Lacan’s examples to this effect, found in Holbein and Velázquez, before offering several of their own as they try to hone in on what makes this idea both evergreen and elusive.

You can listen to Gaze online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Gaze is an episode from Why Theory by Why Theory.

This episode is 01:23:57 long.

This episode was published on Oct 12, 2025.

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