The Male Gaze

The film theory of Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey (1941-) University of London

British Institute of Film (BFI)

“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1973)

One of first to interpret film in psychological and feminist context

Believes Western cinema has been structured by “the unconscious of patriarchal society”

Film as Political Weapon

The Male Gaze

Three different “looks”

The camera as it records the scene

Voyeuristic act of the audience watching the film

The interacting “looks” of characters within the film

Laura Mulvey

The Male Gaze Three different “looks”

The camera as it records the scene

Voyeuristic act of the audience watching the film

The interacting “looks” of characters within the film

“Looking” is an active male role

Being looked at is a passive female role

Laura Mulvey

The Male Gaze

Purpose of article:

To encourage the creation of new feminist advant-garde films that would “rupture the magic and pleasure of the patriarchal Hollywood system”

Laura Mulvey

Lacanian Theory

“ The function of woman in forming the patriarchal unconscious is two-fold, she first symbolises the castration threat by her real absence of a penis and second thereby raises her child into the symbolic. Once this has been achieved, her meaning in the process is at an end, it does not last into the world of law and language except as a memory which oscillates between memory of maternal plenitude and memory of lack.”

Laura Mulvey

Lacanian Theory

“ Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.

Laura Mulvey

Lacanian Theory “ Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as

signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.”

TRANSLATION:

Men view women as mothers or whores.

Laura Mulvey

Freudian Theory

“The Hollywood style…arose…from its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure. Unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order.”

Laura Mulvey

Freudian Theory “ The cinema offers a number of possible

pleasures. One is scopophilia. There are circumstances in which looking itself is a source of pleasure, just as, in the reverse formulation, there is pleasure in being looked at. Originally, in his Three Essays on Sexuality, Freud… associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze.”

Laura Mulvey

Freudian Theory

“ The position of the spectators in the cinema is blatantly one of repression of their exhibitionism and projection of the repressed desire on to the performer. .”

Laura Mulvey

Lacan’s Mirror Stage

“ [In] the mirror phase … the child is joyous in that he imagines his mirror image to be more complete, more perfect than he experiences his own body .”

Laura Mulvey

Lacan’s Mirror Stage“ …the cinema has structures of fascination strong

enough to allow temporary loss of ego while simultaneously reinforcing the ego. The sense of forgetting the world as the ego has subsequently come to perceive it (I forgot who I am and where I was) is nostalgically reminiscent of that pre-subjective moment of image recognition. At the same time the cinema has distinguished itself in the production of ego ideals as expressed in particular in the star system.”

Laura Mulvey

Lacan’s Mirror Stage“ …the cinema has structures of fascination strong

enough to allow temporary loss of ego while simultaneously reinforcing the ego. The sense of forgetting the world as the ego has subsequently come to perceive it (I forgot who I am and where I was) is nostalgically reminiscent of that pre-subjective moment of image recognition. At the same time the cinema has distinguished itself in the production of ego ideals as expressed in particular in the star system.”

These two pleasures (scopophilia and identification) are rooted in the castration complex and are a threat to men.

Laura Mulvey

The Male Gaze“…the man’s role…as the active one of

forwarding the story, making things happen.”

Women as passive spectacles, acted upon

Spectators indirectly possess women in films via participation with and identification with male stars.

“…her lack of a penis, implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasure…”

Laura Mulvey

Two Options (to deal with castration anxiety)

VOYEURISTISTIC SADISM

“…pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness. This sadistic side fits in well with narrative. Sadism demands a story, depends on making something happen, forcing a change in another person, a battle of will and strength, victory / defeat, all occurring in a linear time with a beginning and an end.

Fetishistic scopophilia

Laura Mulvey

Two Options (to deal with castration anxiety)

FETISHISTIC SCOPOPHILIA

“…builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself .

“Hitchcock…takes fascination with an image through scopophilic eroticism as the subject of the film… the hero portrays the contradictions and tensions experienced by the spectator… the look is central to the plot, oscillating between voyeurism and fetishistic fascination .”

Laura Mulvey

Criticisms Supposes spectator is heterosexual male

Cynical about prospect for feminist films

Spectator’s perspectives and “projections” are more complex

What about homosexuals?

Man can enjoy feminist point-of-view

Overplays the psychology card (is it really all about castration?)

She revised some views in follow-up article

Laura Mulvey

Significance A provocative feminist “manifesto,” rather than a reasoned academic

article

One of first to apply feminist theory to film

Deconstructed patriarchal bias of Hollywood system (1930s-60s)

One of first to analyze how we experience and find pleasure in films

One of first to develop a theory of spectatorship

Postmodern approach to film criticism

Understood we bring our own cultural and emotion baggage to the viewing experience which may be in conflict with the symbolic code of the film

Laura Mulvey