Subverting the Traditional Male Gaze: A Feminist Reading of The Silence of the Lambs

Director Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs is an enduring piece of cinema.It is a film in history to win Oscar in five of the major categories:best director,best actress,best actor,best screenplay and best picture.What’s compelling of the picture is that the story tends to focus mostly on the feminine perspective of the heroine,Clarice Starling.This thesis,therefore,aims to offer an interpretation of The Silence of the Lambs from the feminist perspective.As a young FBI trainee,Starling works under great patriarchal oppression in a male-dominated workforce due to the classic male gaze and the constant sexual harassment.Through struggling to track down the serial killer,Starling alone solves the crime and proves that a woman is as capable of working as a man.As a matter of fact,she has,to a large extent,subverted the male gaze,power,privilege and authority.