Countering the Male Gaze and Phallocentricism
"...the effect is to unfix the gaze, to render it inoperable. Because there are so many points of view, Mona cannot be caught in any of them. In this criss-crossing of gazes, Mona has already moved on or has not yet arrived. Varda represents this phenomenon visually through the contrasting images of Mona's wanderings and her speculators' immobilism..." (Hayward 288).
In the movie Vegabond, the main character Mona is not followed by the male gaze, nor does she seem to be bound by phallocentricism like some of the women in other movies we have seen. Rather, Mona is an independent, lone woman who feels the need to take her show on the road. The viewer does not know necessarily what she left behind, but the viewers does get to see that wherever she travels, she is playing by her own rules, not by those of the male characters around her. Every stop that Mona made along the way, it was almost as if she was looking for a place to permantely settle, but the minute she was given direction or criticism of her lifestyle, she was on her way again. It was as if she desired to be off the road, but only if she was the one who in charge. The road, in a way, gave Mona her independence from phallocentricism.
The male gaze was also missing from this film. Mona's character was dirty; she never bathed throughout the entire movie. In fact, there were numerous comments from both female and male characters talking about her lack of cleanliness. Mona travelled the road alone. She had nobody to impress, and even if she did, I still do not think she would have washed herself up. I took that as another sign of her independence. The other characters took it as a sign of disgust and no male character really had the desire to 'gaze' at her.
Mona did not follow the typical feminine mold of what a woman is supposed to be and as a result, she was able to rid herself from phallocentricism and the male gaze.