Upending the Male (Film) Gaze

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The film bro, a figure that haunts cinephile spaces both online and in real life, is a self-described movie nerd with limited, male-centered film taste. Film bros, who can be professional critics or simply amateur cinephiles, analyze films through an insufferable misogynistic lens, consistently looking down on and over-criticizing anything that doesn’t follow a traditionally male storytelling format (think Barbie versus Oppenheimer). Since Hollywood studios continue to cater primarily to white male audiences, film bros internalize the sense that their opinions are law in cinephile communities, leaving little space for marginalized voices to cut through to mainstream audiences.

Despite growing concerns about the lack of representation of women and people of color in the entertainment industry in the wake of the #MeToo movement, film criticism remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated field. According to a 2022 study, men account for 69% of critics across print, radio, television and online outlets, while women critics account for 31% and nonbinary people account for 0.3%. Although the number of films with female protagonists increased in 2024, the number of women behind the scenes is still low, with women comprising just 23% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the 250 top films of 2024. Given these facts, it’s unsurprising that film bros tend to make cinephile communities hostile to anybody who isn’t a cishet white man.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. New, intentionally inclusive grassroots cinephile communities have begun to model alternatives that could help pave the way for a future with better representation for the marginalized both on screen and off. Over the past few months, I spoke to cinephile community managers and founders attempting to build a more inclusive film culture. Their insights helped me understand more about how film bros exclude diverse audiences from conversations about film as well as what it would take to effect positive change in our male-centered movie culture.

In London, The Film Club was founded as a collective to foster a local movie-going culture that is casual, non-competitive, and inclusive of women and nonbinary cinema-goers, in direct opposition to the reigning film bro culture. The Film Club makes space for people usually excluded from film criticism and cinephilia to express themselves. Queer reviewers, Black writers, South Asian cinema lovers and all kinds of women get together for monthly meetups to discuss the latest mainstream releases and attend female-centered short film screenings with social workshops. The club is a reminder of what film bros often forget: that the world can be viewed through a kaleidoscope of perspectives they are willfully unfamiliar with.

Founder Oriana Gregorj describes the current landscape of film communities as “overly intellectual or competitive.” The Film Club, she says, was started with the intention of talking about film “without feeling like you had to prove yourself.” Although female-centric, men are not banned from participation. Still, a female focus has served to “protect the vibe and purpose” of the group, with little to no backlash thus far. Gregorj’s goal was intentional inclusion for everyone in “a dedicated space that meets the specific needs of this community.” The Film Club’s successful approach to designing a space for discussing diverse views expands the potential of film criticism.

Inviting a diverse audience to comment on film combats the gatekeeping that film bros are all too happy to enforce. Their entitlement is part of a patriarchal feedback loop between Hollywood, professional criticism, and the online and offline spaces where people discuss films. Given that a majority of critics are men, these critics will tend to review and uplift male-centric stories, which convinces prone-to-be-sexist cinephile nerds that only male-centric films are good. Reluctant to take financial risks, Hollywood studio executives then feel justified in continuing to produce mostly films they are confident will make major profits, which means they cater mainly to men in big budget productions. This leaves film bros feeling affirmed in avoiding the growing body of work from female directors and overvaluing movies about miserable men having breakdowns. Currently, film critics who are not cishet white men do not have the institutional influence or space to counter these tendencies.

“To me, film criticism shouldn’t be some intimidating boys’ club. It can be soft, varied, and full of perspectives that don’t always get heard,” Gregorj said.

To address this issue, Gregorj and her team have created a new platform for criticism in their online publication, Soft Serve. “I’ve heard so many fresh, insightful takes on film during our events, discussions covering everything from feelings and character motivations to technical stuff, that I don’t often see reflected in mainstream media,” Gregorj said. “Soft Serve became a way to share these unique perspectives with a wider audience, especially since our physical space is currently London-based.”

The initiative is still small, but with a bright pink logo and unapologetic femininity, Soft Serve seeks to actively reframe criticism as an opportunity to learn rather than gatekeep. Where the film bro is blinded by a heteronormative view of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, Soft Serve reflected on the film’s place in sports cinema and the bisexual canon simultaneously. Wes Anderson’s latest The Phoenician Scheme was both praised and criticised for the reuse of his iconic aesthetic, but Soft Serve saw past the surface and wrote about its commentary on dysfunctional families instead. Most recently, to complement their in-person discussion on Sinners, they chose to centre director Ryan Coogler’s underreported comments on the film’s women with a piece on female independence.

“To me, film criticism shouldn’t be some intimidating boys’ club. It can be soft, varied, and full of perspectives that don’t always get heard,” Gregorj said. “Plus, I’m very biased, but honestly we have way more fun and interesting insights.”

Why Can’t We Have Fun Things?

The problem is, of course, systemic. When the big budgets of blockbuster cinema are directed to projects by male filmmakers, for male audiences, with male film critics sharing their thoughts on platforms catered to them, the collective cinematic palate of the online man starts to coagulate into one narrow-minded, boring, and often hateful little blob. And when studios try to increase female representation, a hateful wave of misogynistic crying against “woke” culture is almost certain across social media platforms. Who can forget the spectacular tantrum about the 2016 female-led remake of Ghostbusters, where men took to the internet to claim the reboot would ruin their childhoods?

Dismissive of Greta Gerwig’s cultural impact, misunderstanding Chloe Zhao’s narratives, or shunning Celine Sciamma’s status as a potential director of legend, film bros often despise fun and lighthearted films, preferring to glorify depictions of violence without deeper criticality. Pressured by studio executives, screenwriters understand that more supposedly ‘masculine’ narrative structures like the three-act-formula, the gritty anti-hero, or the damsel-in-distress stereotypes tend to perform well on opening weekend–reinforcing underlying toxic masculinity in the process. Approaches that stray from this are met with almost instant criticism, paired with often critically low ticket sales in comparison. A closer look at the newly-trained cinematographer’s toolkit exposes the burdening influence of the patriarchy on auteur theory: cold framing, detached female characters, basic emotional resonance. Not only have men built the framework for how we criticize films, but also how we make them.

The most obvious disadvantage of a male-dominated body of criticism is the absence of representation. As a Pakistani, as a Muslim, and as a young woman, the early days of my film criticism career were marred by constant comparisons to the insidiously covert film bro-isms around me. I could not find any versions of me on screen, nor in print. But cinephile culture is the poison I have picked, with no simple antidote to the exclusion I feel as a viewer and critic.

Centering “masculine” cinema removes opportunities for non-normative films to thrive or for other genres to be explored, limiting cinema’s expansion and diversity, and withdrawing the possibility for male exploration of different perspectives and cinematic worlds.

Domee Shi’s Turning Red is one of my favourite animated films, but I recall being embarrassed to rate it so highly on Letterboxd when my then-favorite male critics dumped various accusations of “wokeness” onto it. When I began reviewing South Asian films to stand out in this monotonal industry, my four-star review of Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen Of My Dreams and my five-star review of Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls were rejected in favor of more scathing one—and two-star reviews from men who didn’t understand the cultural nuances lining every frame—a language they could learn about, should they so wish. Centering “masculine” cinema removes opportunities for non-normative films to thrive or for other genres to be explored, limiting cinema’s expansion and diversity, and withdrawing the possibility for male exploration of different perspectives and cinematic worlds.

Despite film bros’ persistence, cinema is not male. Film criticism may have been brutally colonised by the exclusivity of the male gaze and its accompanying branches of misogyny, ignorance, and intolerance, but the temples to which they flock have—if haltingly and imperfectly—begun to cater to an alternative cinema audience more than ever before. Programmers like Rógan Graham curate world-first selections of Black female features at the British Film Institute (BFI); critics like Clarisse Loughrey, Amon Warmann, and Hanna Flint combat the man-with-a-mic epidemic with their podcast Fade To Black; and I bring South Asian film recommendations to an often unaware majority-white audience on BBC Radio. It’s a struggle to subvert the white male critic, but it isn’t impossible.

Building Inclusivity From The Belly of The Beast

What is the true distinction between a cinephile and a film bro? At the IMAX Vanguard community, founder Rayhaan Sabir has always opposed the limitations of film bro culture, instead building connections around the passion cinephiles have for films, no matter who they are.

A UK-wide group of self-described IMAX nerds, Sabir’s community has been shaped by institutions like the BFI’s Southbank and IMAX locations, which meant attracting a predominantly male audience. “I didn’t want it to become an echo chamber,” Sabir said. “From the very beginning, I tried to foster a space that embraced diversity–highlighting Eid and Holi celebrations with IMAX, supporting trans awareness events with the Prince Charles Cinema, and making sure every voice felt welcome, regardless of background.”

Despite film bros’ persistence, cinema is not male.

The members of Sabir’s community are united by a mission to enrich casual criticism, rather than exclude others from it. Sabir’s interpretation of a film critic’s utopia felt hopeful, arguing that the best criticism comes from “true inclusivity” by “allowing people from all walks of life to have a voice.”

“I’ve found that the appetite for nuanced, respectful conversation is very real,” he said.

Besides including more diverse moviegoers, communities like IMAX Vanguard also help break down the film bro stereotype through real life connections. Men that I’d be afraid to engage with ordinarily have shown me that they can be normal, inviting and curious. I’ve even met them for a cinema trip or two.

Spaces like The Film Club and IMAX Vanguard, carefully cultivated and moderated to ensure the expansion of film criticism, have become essential in the context of an industry that is mostly interested in catering to (male) profit. Only with the existence of film clubs, group cinema trips, local programming, and in-person interactions can the film bro unlearn his habits and make conscious efforts to embrace new ideas–and the rest of us can build the film culture we want for ourselves.

This piece was edited by Nicole Froio and copyedited by Chrissy Stroop.

Jannat Suleman is a British-Pakistani film critic, writer and programmer based in Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom. With a vested interest in spotlighting South Asian talent, uplifting the underrepresented and expanding cinema to communities often closed off from the big screen, Jannat has worked with community organizations and media outlets in both the UK and US to tell stories about film and its surrounding culture. She’s curated for the BFI, programmed for Showroom Cinema, spoken on BBC Asian Network, and written for Dazed, A Rabbit’s Foot, Polyester Zine, Movie Marker, The People’s Movies, Cinerama and more. Her website can be found here and her Instagram here.