Mulvey Theroy

Mulvey Film Theroy

Laura Mulvey is a British film theorist and avant garde film maker, her work explored a feminist approach towards film, often analysing and scrutinising film with psychoanalysis.

Laura Mulvey identified that Film fascinates its audience, it engages our emotions emotionally, intellectually and sometimes spiritually, Mulvey used psychoanalysis to discover where and ho the fascination of film is reinforced by pre existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject (essentially the spectator). As a prominont feminist she believed that Film can and should be used as a political weapon.

Mulberry hypothesised that the Hollywood/mainstream/narrative cinema manipulates visual pleasure to directly influence the audience, according to her theory it "codes the erotic into the language of the  dominant patriarchal order" A key aspect of her theory is the presence of scopophilia, which means pleasure in looking (this was first created by Sigmund Freud in "three essays" in 1905). In freud original piece he explains how scopophilia is when we or the individual gets sexual pleasure from looking at other people, however mulvey also noted that in Freuds three essays, he said that people feel guilty when getting pleasure in this way. From here Mulvey suggested that cinema was the ideal place to get scopophilic pleasure because;

. The people in the film aren't aware that the spectator or individual is watching (therefore removing the guilt associated when receiving sexual pleasure from looking at other people)

.No-one else can see the spectator getting pleasure from viewing others as traditionally, a Cinema or theatre is dark, and that all others will be watching the screen

Mulvey argued that cinema essentially provides voyeuristic pleasure (pleasure from watching others who dont know there being watched).

Mulvey and Lacan

Mulvey expanded on Lacans concept of The Mirror stage and the childs development of self and other by explaing the importance of seeing yourself visually reflected in film. This means that when we see a character on the screen that either looks, reminds, or acts like us, we identify with it, and seeing such a representation reinforces our sense of self and worth.

Mulveys conclusions

According to Mulvey, most mainstream hollywood films are made by male filmmakers for a male audience, and that female filmmakers were often shunned, left only to create in the avaunt Guarde scenes. This results in active male characters (protagonists of the film which use the narrative forward, so that the audience are encouraged to identify with them), whereas female characters are usually passive (prizes for the male characters, objects of desire that men fight for, characters that dont act or think for themselves)

Male Gaze

In Mulveys 1975 'Visual pleasure and Narrative cinema", she coined the term the male gaze, which is when the audience regardless of gender or sexuality is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male, for example, in a shot the camera might trace alongside the curves of a woman body, putting the viewer in the eyes of a heterosexual male.
However, it may only be classified as a male gaze if it uses certain camera techniques, editing techniques or audio cues. Such as:

.slow motion when viewing the curves of a woman
.deliberate camera moments
.cut aways

This theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity,relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical pleasure and nothing more. the theory also suggests that women can only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a mans perspective. Regardless of this, the presence of a woman in mainstream film texts is vital, often a female character in a film has no real importance herself, it is how she makes the male characters within the text fact or feel that is of importance, essentially, the female only exists in relation to the male.

Visual pleasures