Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema - Laura Mulvey (1975)

Mulvey predicts and explores the idea upon how 'film fascinates us', through images and spectacle. She uses psychoanalysis 'to discover where and how the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject' (=spectator). She says using psychoanalytic theory 'is a political weapon'. She states that "Hollywood/mainstream/narrative cinema manipulaties visual pleasure, that codes the erotic into the language of the dominant partriachal order". Examples of the private and curious gaze: children's voyeurism, cinematic looking.

Important Notes and Quotes upon Theory:

"woman as image, man as bearer of the look" 

- pleasure in looking split between active/male and passive/female.

- women connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness'

- the visual presence of women "works against the development of a storyline, freezes the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation"

- the woman functions as both erotic object for the characters within the screen story and erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium (object of fantasy).

- the spectator is led to identify with the main male protagonist.

- "the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look".

Fetishistic Scopophilia:

- The image of the woman also carries a threat.

- There are two avenues of escape from fear of femininity for the male spectator.

   - Investigate the woman, demystify her mystery

   - Disavow (deny) castration by turning the woman into a reassuring fetish. The image of the woman>overvalued: this is the cult of the (beautiful) female star; e.g. Bridgette Bardot or Anna Karina for nouvelle vague.

Opposed Argument:
It can be argued that Mulvey's theory isn't all that true in the 21st century. As cinema has progressed in the past 40 years since Mulvey released "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" back in 1975, it can be found in some Hollywood blockbuster films that the male gaze cannot be applied. An example could be from 'Girls Trip' (2017), which explores the self identification of 4 college women, although there is intimate relations shown in this comedy, there is a lack of a male gaze shown. It can be the opposite in some cases, such as a female gaze, also found in 'Magic Mike' (2015) and 'Baywatch' (2017).