Feminist Film Theory & Audiences

• Laura Mulvey
• Visual pleasure and narrative cinema (1975)

The Theory

• Cinema reflects society
• Therefore cinema reflects a partiarchal society
• How does a patriarchal society manifest itself in cinema?
• FOR EXAMPLE: patriarchy and phallocentrism are linked.
• The phallus is the symbol of power
• Note how guns are used in films
• Gun = phallus = power

The Gaze

• The gaze of the camera is the male gaze
• The male gaze is active, the female gaze is passive
• Within the narrative, amle characters dorects their gaze towards female characters

Theory

• The spectator is made to identify with the male look, because the camera films from the optical, as well as the libidinal point of view of the male character
• There are three levels of the cinematic gaze - camera gaze, character gaze and spectator gaze, that objectify (sexual character) the female character (triple gaze)
• Therefore the audience is constructed as thpugh everyone was male
• women are forced to look as though they were a male audience member

Agency

• In the classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency - he is active and powerful
• He is the agent around whom the dramatic action unfolds
• The female character is passive and powerless - she is the object of desire for protagonist and audience

Erotic Disire

• Mulvey argues that women have two roles in film:

1. an object of erotic desire for the characters
2. as an object of erotic desire for the audience