Sex, Gender, and the Male Gaze in Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut

This article argues that Kubrick's engagement with Schnitzler's Traumnovelle in his final film Eyes Wide Shut exposes the persisting misogyny of our patriarchal culture, especially in terms of how the film, following Schnitzer's lead, remains centered around the controlling "male gaze." Countering established readings that Kubrick's film subverts classic Hollywood cinema by imbuing his female protagonist with her own empowering gaze, I argue that Alice Harford is placed, from beginning to end, under the male gaze herself. The film thereby highlights the extent to which women remain objects of male desire, which has led to their even greater objectification and commodification in our postmodern, late capitalist world.