Volume ,Issue
The Reversal of the Gaze: Visual Power and Counter-disciplinary Practices of Maternal Subjectivity in All Her Fault
The American TV Series All Her Fault takes the case of a missing child as the narrative core, and constructs a game of visual power through the struggle and resistance of Marissa Irvine, the mother protagonist, in extreme difficulties. This article takes Foucault’s theory of power gaze and feminist motherhood research as theoretical frameworks, combined with the details of the drama text, to explore how the disciplinary gaze of patriarchal society towards motherhood operates through visual mechanisms, analyze how Marissa transforms from a “guilty mother” being gazed upon to an active seeker of truth, and reveal the anti-disciplinary power contained in her visual practice. Research has found that the series achieves a reversal of the visual power of motherhood through the use of metaphors in camera language and the design of the visual behavior of characters. It not only criticizes the social norms that overly blame women for family accidents, but also provides new narrative possibilities for the self-empowerment of motherhood.
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