Clothing and the Male Gaze

The film Dirty Pretty Things uses costume design to work against the accepted practices of portraying woman in films. Film theorist’s Laura Mulvey writes about the ‘male gaze,’ explaining that woman are often represented in film through a patriarchal lens that encourages the objectification of woman in films for the enjoyment of male viewers (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema). However, Dirty Pretty Things is a film that uses conservative costume design to prevent its female characters from being seen as sex objects and instead protects the female characters from the objectification and therefore violence created by the male gaze.

There are two main female characters in Dirty Pretty Things, Senay and Juliette. The costume design used for both is far more concealing than the attire worn by women in other modern films. For example, even though Juliette’s character is a prostitute, the outfits she wears throughout the film are hardly scandalously revealing. In fact, the most provocative clothing of her outfits is her bra straps which are always visible (0:06:40). Otherwise, her body remains mostly covered, her shirts do not have plunging necklines nor are her skirts or dresses unimaginably short. By keeping her body at least moderately covered, the film negates the normal expectations of prostitutes as a sexual object for the male gaze. A notable character to juxtapose her with is Vivian Ward from Pretty Woman. In her opening scene Vivian, also a prostitute, is wearing a tube top connected to a mini skirt that exposes much of her midriff, along with thigh high boots (0:05:19). Here the costume design very obviously adheres to the ideology of woman, specifically prostitute, as sexual objects subject to the male gaze.

Furthermore, even in her sex scene with the doorman, Juliette appears mostly dressed. She is seen in her tank top with her bra on, straps showing, her skirt is on (though only shown briefly), and Juliette is even still wearing her shoes (0:32:00). Again the film sets up false expectations by having Juliette explicitly say she is going to have sex with the doorman, but the sex scene is anything but a sexually charged display of female nudity. This false expectation humanizes Juliette in a way that protects her from the objectifying male gaze.

Senay’s costume design is also used to promote her as a person not an object. Throughout the film Senay is portrayed in layers; she wears not only a shirt but also a sweater or a jacket on top of the shirt (0:05:26, 0:18:49, 0:26:19). These layers work as protection against the male gaze; her body is not there to be stared at or sexualized, it is wrapped beneath layers of modest clothing. Additionally, even when there are opportunities for the film to dress Senay more provocatively the director does not. For example in the bathroom scene where Okwe’s use of the kitchen sink prevents her bathtub from filling, Senay is seen in a large white robe which does not expose more of her body than a tee shirt would (0:18:00). The director could have chosen to show Senay in only a towel that barely covered her body; instead, the robe is used leaving her far more covered than exposed. Each of these instances presents Senay a woman, not an object, who seeks to be protected from the male gaze.

In fact, when Senay is forced to perform oral sex on her boss at the clothing factory, she is surrounded by hundreds of clothes (0:48:00). The set is literally enclosed with clothing, emphasizing the completely de-sensualized atmosphere of this sexual abuse. Senay bites her boss the next time he tries to force her to perform oral sex and afterwards steals some of the clothes that are hanging (0:59:16). She steals a coat that covers her up entirely; the coat is an attempt to shield her body from other assaults, both from the viewers through the male gaze and from the characters within the film.

However Senay is again sexually assaulted, yet she continues to seek to protect her body from the male gaze. In the scene with Sneaky, Senay is once more shown in a full body covering robe. She tells Sneaky, “You do not see me, you just do; take it or leave it” (1:11:53). The importance here is placed on Senay negating from the very start that the viewers will see an explicit sex scene. Senay is protecting her body from Sneaky’s gaze and also the male gaze that Mulvey argues films seek to gratify. Here, not only conservative clothing but also Senay’s words work to protect her from the male gaze and the violence it causes by objectifying woman.

The film’s use of costume design that strives to be concealing instead of revealing makes it hard for the woman in the film to be viewed as sexual objects. By doing so, the male gaze, as constructed by Laura Mulvey, is rejected by the film as its characters seek protection from the violence the male gaze can cause. The male gaze is dangerous because it prompts the objectification of women by mass audiences for the gratification of male desires. Dirty Pretty Things is aware of these expectations and thereby works against them even though this is a film that deals with sexual violence against women.