the male gaze

the male gaze was written by larura mulvey in the essay 'visual pleasure and narrative cinema' and can be represented as the audience being put into place as a heterosexual man, it shows how an audience can be presented, such as: how men look at women, how women see themselves, and how women view other women. This theory shows that women are being objectified and losing their identity to be used only for their physical appearance. this is shown is still being done in everyday life, for example, in advertising when the female body is used to sell a product even though they have nothing to do with each other.

Lacan

the theory of lack by lacan revolves around the lack of satisfaction in our lives and no matter what we achieve in life we always want more and is never enough to fill this void we are born with. this is similar to freud's theory of the self which is shown through different parts of the theories that relate to each other; freud's theory of the id and how it acts upon primitive impulses is shown in lacans theory of lack as we are driven by desire. this shows the influence between the two as the id in freuds theory is the lack of lacans theory of achieving what is wanted, since we are never truly complete and always desire more the id is always present and causing conscious and unconscious decisions regarding want.
Lacans mirror stage discusses how we have this lack from the moment we re born when we first see our reflection, the reflection represents the perfect version of ourselves and we try our whole lives to become this ideal representation of ourselves. the reason we all suffer from lack is because we can never achieve the perfection we saw in the mirror as infants no matter how hard we strive.