gaze **(le regard)
** A concept used by both Sartre, Jean-Paul and Lacan, Jacques, though with slightly different meanings, to formulate the existentialism problem of being looked at by another (for this reason, it is also sometimes translated as âthe lookâ). Simply put, the problematic is this: If âIâ as an observing subject have consciousness and the object âIâ gaze at does not, then what does that mean to âmeâ when another gazes upon me, thus transforming âmeâ into an object of their consciousness? The gaze of the other inevitably degrades âmyâ being-for-oneself and transforms it into a being-for-others. In other words, it is the gaze that enables the subject to recognize that the Other is also a subject. Commenting on Sartreâs work, in a very early seminar, Lacan twists this problem further and argues that in fact it is the object that gazes at âusâ and not the other way round. The gaze is not âmeâ looking at the other, but rather the other looking at me. Film theorists, particularly Metz, Christian and Laura Mulvey have used this concept to great effect in their analysis of the function of cinema. Further Reading: J. Rose Sexuality in the Field of Vision (1986).