Laura, Mulvey (1975) ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’

In this article, Laura Mulvey uses psychoanalysis to investigate how classic Hollywood cinema has helped reinforce the patriarchal order and the objectification of women. . She argues the lack of willingness to take on the male gaze is due to cinematic entertainment value and visual pleasure. Mulvey uses scopophilia, the fascination with looking, to show how Hollywood cinema plays on this desire to look and satisfy our narcissistic and voyeuristic fantasy to view a private world. Mulvey further investigates the projection of oneself on the actor and how this relates to psychoanalysis theories of identification and ego.

She demonstrates how cinema plays with the male view of both the protagonist and the director, the audience views the narrative through their eyes, whether that of the male protagonist or the director framing the shot. She also notes that in cinema, the women are only subject to the gaze and play no other relevant part of the story than to assist the male character.

It is this act of female audiences viewing women in film and television through the male eyes and gaining satisfaction from this that has allowed the patriarchal system to sustain itself for so long. It is why the male gaze is still so present in cinema today. However, with the emergence of queer cinema, artist and directors, it will be interesting to see how and what queer audiences identify with when watching cinema, as well as how they may create a new style of gaze or how they play into the current dominant structures of cinema.

Even when watching straight couples’ interaction on screen, it is the identification of ourselves within a character and our projection onto them that enables queer people to enjoy cinema. The argument, however, becomes problematic filming gay/queer storylines and their interaction. Sometimes scenes can be over eroticised when directed by males, especially when portraying gay female relationships. It is especially prevalent in the film 4.3.2.1 (2010) by director Noel Clark where actors Susannah Fielding and Shanika Warren-Markland play a lesbian couple. However ground-breaking it was at the time to feature a lesbian couple in a movie, the film played on straight-male fantasies. I wonder if it would have had such an impact if it had not played into the male fantasy or featured a sex scene between the two and merely portrayed them as a genuine couple.