In the article Visual Pleasure & Narrative, Film Laura Mulvey uses film of the past, and that which is contemporary to this article to push her feminist agenda, and defends it with the Freud’s ideas of repression, sexuality, and the unconscious mind. In the Times Literary Supplement of May 23rd, 1997 one critic wrote that Freud was a "creator of a complex pseudo-science which should be recognized as one of the great follies of Western civilization". I will ad that this is not uncommon criticism of Freud, and I fear the same for Mulvey.
Mulvey writes that film uses two mechanisms in propagating the phallocentric point of view, the first being the visual pleasure of watching a film, and its relationship to scopophillia. Scopophillia is the love of watching. The second mechanism, the narrative, provides the ideal ego for man.
Mulvey uses scopophillia, with voyeuristic connotations (eroticizing the object), which again may relate to Freud’s anal stage. The audience member sits in the dark, and derives his pleasure from watching the female, as object, therefore possessing her, while remaining unseen. It is this gaze that helps continue the patriarchal manipulation of film.
Ideal ego concerns the relationship of the male viewer, and male protagonist. So when the object of sexual desire (woman) is possessed, the male audience member does not lose his dominance over her, because of relationship to the protagonist as the viewer’s ideal ego.
Both of these mechanisms by commodifying the female rob her of her humanity. I do understand, and agree that the commoditization of any person does remove humanity from all aspects of interaction. Commoditization of people occurs in all media and recently of all gender types.
What concerns me in this article is the methodology, in which Mulvey reaches this most basic point. How is it possible to quote a phallocentric thinker in sincerity to support an argument against a media based in this thought. Once Mulvey uses Freud’s beliefs she gives them substantiality within her world, and by doing that legitimizes the machine, which she is trying to destroy.
It is quite possible that I am misreading the article, and in fact she could be making fun of Freud’s unreasonable phallocentric theories, and it was just too tongue in cheek for me.
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I found the article by Laura Mulvey to be interesting and very true. The article suggests that men depend on portraying women as weak in order for them to be seen as powerful. The author states: “the paradox of phallocentrism in all its manifestation is that it depends on the image of the castrated women to give order and meaning to its world.” This statement is very true, in my opinion, because if we look at films throughout history women have always been portrayed as passive (weak) individuals that need men to protect and guide her because she is unable to do it herself. Film (cinema) has had a great impact on society and on how women and men behave. People accept what they see in films as true. The author says: “ women then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsession through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer, not maker, of meaning.” This is how women have been shown to be like and how they have been encouraged to behave like. This is the root of women oppression, by men.
I agree with what you said in your blog on how both of the mechanisms by commodifying the female and robbing her of her humanity. This is true because men take pleasure in looking at women, therefore, view women in films as objects; this gives Men a sense of power over women.
Mulvey does a great job portraying the relationship between male and female characters in film, as well as how the audience relates to them. The “alternative cinema” she discusses that emerged after film of the 1930s-1950s puts more into a film than what is scene in mise-en-scene (everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement), i.e., a manipulation of visual pleasure by destroying the initial attraction of it.
This is done through either scopophilia (the pleasure of looking at others in a voyeuristic fashion) or through audience ego as men identify their own desires with their doppelganger on the screen. Men are typically seen as the important ones who drive the plot and control the passive women, who are usually reduced to pure spectacle or whatever her effect on the male is.
Alfred Hitchcock is the best example for this pleasurable gaze in cinema. In his films, the male hero sees what the audience sees. Although men typically represent the law, power, and/or money, it is mostly the women who get them into some sort of trouble. However, his films typically end with the male on the right side of the law and the female on the wrong one. Psycho has the scene in which Norman Bates spies on Marion through a peephole as she undresses, objectifying her in such a way that only “mother” can fix. Vertigo uses the subjective camera of Scottie as he tracks Madeline’s movements, and the audience is drawn in more and more as he obsesses over her image (especially so later in the film when he hopes to make Judy, another woman, into Madeline’s image). Rear Window has Jeffries spying on his neighbors, taking interest in some more than others, particularly the wife-murdering husband.
This article shows how gender and cinema are intertwined so intricately in a way in which empowers men while diminishing the female role. I enjoyed how the Mulvey was able to use Freud's viewpoints to strengthen and legitimize her opinion. She explains that filmatic representation of gender roles perpetuates phallocentric, male perspective that only continues to grow by watching films and that narration that occurs within them. This relates to the power the filmmaker due to the large influence cinema has on our society. It has become a powerful tool that, in Mulvey's opinion, has often been used to represent phallic notions.
-Kelley
Laura Mulvey makes some good points about gender and the cinema in her aritcle "Visual pleasure and narrative cinema." Men like to be seen as powerful they also need to see women being portrayed as weak to feel even more powerful.(I agree with cjaquez). The cinema has a lot to do with how pepople view real life. Men go to films and see women in sexual ways as. They are viewed as an object or possession of the man. I defenitaly agree with Mulvey's opinions.
Well, her article does ring true. It is interesting how voyeuristic our culture has become. It ties into everything we've read. Voyeurism sort of leads to desensitization.
What I mean by this is that, similar to Adorno's message. We see something on television, lets say Hall's example of violence. We see this violence and we see it so many times, but we don't really know what it's like. So therefore it becomes glamorized, praised, exciting, but we never live it.
This relates because when we look at women on the screen, they become this 2D model, the dimensions are lost and they become this "castrated woman" because we understand it's a character. We know that there's no real emotions behind the beauty.
And then, women see this beauty, and they hear the men talk about it, and then they aspire to perform in that way.
This is not my opinion of course, I don't actually think this is the process we go through, but it's my connection of Adorno to Mulvey.
-James Dier
Cubbiestar
In this article it is talked about how men are portrayed more dominant than women. He states, "women then stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsession through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as beare, not maker, of meaning." This truly shows how women are inferior to men. Not only is this portrayed in the media, but it is still also done in todays society. For instance, the job situations. When you think of a police officer, you think of a man who is strong, and muscular, you dont think of a woman as being a police officer. Even though now there are woman police officers you still invision a masculine male.
-Michelle Fetky
I will argue that Mulvey's Freudian points fall a little bit flat compared to her engaging distinction in Hitchcock and Sternberg. Though I have been reading a lot of Freud lately and the basis of a lot of his points locates something of the unconscious kind, from dreams to mourning to the concept of civilization as a whole. It seems that films work as a clever medium subsuming all three of these things and more. It is hard for me to read this article and not agree with everything as I can relate entirely to this male dominance in film.
The phallocentricism that Mulvey discusses is modified later by this drawing of Hitchcock and Sternberg. It is really important to understand the dynamics of gender in film, as it reflects a certain precedence in society: a norm, an assumption, a role. When she connects the male actors to the spectators, I was rapidly nodding along with this idea of the surrogate screen. And then I noticed that the pronoun used was always "he" and it made me wonder. Mulvey delineates a scene in which a whole theater of men watch the protagonist man and his erotic subjugations or, the female parts. In doing so, it assents with a general male consensus, or a dominance in perception; in doing so, she is othering the women in the analysis of phallocentricism in film and the visual perfection/pleasure there of. Where are the female spectators of Hitchcock and Sternberg? Surely, they do exist-- but she doesn't acknowledge them because it's almost superfluous as it has no relevance to her male-oriented critique on film. In doing so, it seems that she is doing what you say: commodifying the female role in films.
She creates a paradox: the male otherness that she admonishingly points to only asserts and confirms that male fetishism were and are the norms in film. The otherness isn't explored; it's only further deepened and thrown into the ether.
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