afterthoughts on visual pleasure and narrative cinema pdf

The unification of these two looks allows for women to be displayed as erotic objects for the diegetic characters and for spectators (20-26). Mulvey proceeds to explain that the make figure cannot be sexually objectified as it marks the line between spectacle (woman) and narrative.įilms are entirely structured around the male lead’s power of driving the plot forward and on his controlling point of view that allows the audience to identify with him. In Hollywood mainstream cinema, the objectification of women’s exhibitionist roles had become – and, unfortunately, still is – a leitmotif, to the point where their performances seemed more suitable for cinema of attractions rather than for narrative, as their presence on screen actually froze the action to allow contemplation of the spectacle of the female body (Mulvey, 14-26). She states that the established societal order, which sees a hegemonic type of masculinity at the top of the hierarchy (Connell and Messerschmidt, 832-833), has shaped the dynamics of the seeing and been seen on film, legitimising the role of men as bearer of the looks and the women’s as a passive object on which men can project their own fantasy.

In Visual Pleasure, Mulvey focuses on how cinema reflects how an unconsciously patriarchal society has influenced the development of a phallocentric narrative cinema, in which the role of women is merely that of a passive eye-candy or the threat of castration (14-26).

It is also essential to notice how her earlier conception of the gaze evolved through time, as it is visible from the following essay Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ and account the relevance of her studies within her field, considering the criticism it attracted as well. Her work is important in terms of feminist studies because it stressed how cinema produced meaning rather than being concerned with the content itself (Kaplan, 1).

Laura Mulvey’s essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) is considered a ground- breaking piece in terms of feminist film theory, as it provides a political and sociological analysis of the way in which women are represented and looked at in mainstream cinema, using Freud’s studies of psychoanalysis to uncover the dynamics that are taking place on the screen and their relation to the spectators.

Afterthoughts on visual pleasure and narrative cinema pdf