This essay explores the relationship between Russ Meyer’s masterpiece Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Laura Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze. While the film aligns with some basic elements of the Male Gaze, it simultaneously strays from it through the presence of active, powerful and violent female characters who exert power and control over men. This contradictory relationship with the Male Gaze allows the film to function and be examined as a piece of alternative cinema.
Read The Point of No Return: On Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze Now →