Through Her Eyes: The Older Woman Disrupting the Male Gaze in Babygirl. A Textual Analysis of Power, Desire, Sexuality, and the Body
Summary
This thesis explores how Babygirl (2024), written and directed by Halina Reijn, challenges the traditional alignment of the gaze with masculinity by centering an older woman’s perspective. This study draws on feminist film theory, gaze theory, and frameworks of power, aesthetics, and representation. It examines how the film negotiates power, desire, and embodiment through the character of Romy, a female CEO who enters an affair with her younger intern. Through close textual analysis, the research shows how Babygirl foregrounds Romy’s emotional and psychological experiences through focalization, close-ups, and montage. The film resists conventional portrayals of women as passive objects by framing Romy’s subjectivity as dynamic, affective, and relational. However, the analysis also reveals contradictions. While Babygirl resists the invisibility and objectification of older women’s sexuality, it ultimately retreats into traditional structures of resolution, reflecting broader cultural discomfort with unresolved female desire. In doing so, Babygirl both expands and exposes the limits of female representation within contemporary cinema, contributing to a growing conversation about the ethics of looking, the politics of desire, and the conditions under which women are made visible.