Media Theory - Psychoanalytic Theory & Psychoanalytic Gaze : Week 5

Psychoanalytic Criticism

Study of conscious and unconscious mental processes.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis; developed concept of the unconscious

The Interpretation of Dreams

Freud's 1899 publication on dream analysis.

Freud's Iceberg

Model illustrating the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious

Oedipus Complex

Every human being passes through a stage in which they desire the parent of the opposite sex -unconsciously.

Jocasta Complex

Mother's abnormal attachment to her son.

Bruno Bettelheim

Argued fairy tales help resolve Oedipal complexes.

ID

Instinctual part of the mind seeking instant gratification

Ego

Operates on the reality principle and works to balance the ID and superego.

Superego

Moral conscience regulating behavior and desires. Works to moderate the ID

Freud on Aggression and Guilt

Freud believed that aggression is inherent in humans. He also believed that humour allows us to enjoy certain kinds of aggression by masking them, and hence evading guilt.

Jacques Lacan

French Post-Structuralist, structural linguistics. Language is central to his theories, unlike Freud who is more interested in the body.

The 3 Stages of Lacan's Order

1. The Imaginary Stage

2. The Mirror Stage

3. The Symbolic Stage

The Imaginary Stage

Before language, a baby thinks in images, with no distinction between self and the external world

Eg. when a baby is with their mother, they don't separate each other from the mother and think of themselves as the same entity

Mirror Stage

The moment when the infant learns to identify with their image in a mirror, forming an ego, sense of a self, and identity

The Symbolic Stage

Child begins to learn the inherited system of linguistic differences (eg. male/female, father/son, mother/daughter)

Desire of the Other

Developing Freud's theorization of sexuality, Lacan's contention is that human beings need to learn how and what to desire.

Carl Jung

Psychoanalytic theorist known for collective unconscious.

Jungian Archetypes

a universal theme found in dreams, myths, religions, and works of art

Collective Unconscious

Jung's theory that we all share an inherited memory that contains our culture's most basic elements

Psychoanalytic Gaze

Exchange of looks in cinema, influenced by Freud and Lacan

Three Directions of the Look

1. The Camera's Gaze

2. The Male Character's Gaze

3. The Spectator's Gaze

The Camera's Gaze

Perspective of the camera capturing the filmic event.

The Male Character's Gaze

Diegetic gaze directed at female characters.

The Spectator's Gaze

Imitates the camera and male character's looks.

Feminist Critique

Challenge dominant cinema's sexism and misogyny.

Recuperation

Restoration of women's lost contributions in cinema.

Revision

Women embrace film as a tool for agency (claim own subjectivity) and resistance (counter patriarchal oppression)

Laura Mulvey

Coined the term "male gaze" in film theory. Mulvey attacked the popular cinema for its dependence on scopophilia (pleasure derived from looking, often objectifying.)

Woman's to-be-looked-at-ness

Woman is the erotic object that the male spectator, character, and director enjoy looking at

Vertigo (1958)

Hitchcock film exemplifying male gaze but not critically. Long sequences remodel the female character as an object

Female Spectator

Women view films through a male perspective.

Dorothy Arzner

A female and queer hollywood director who made films with female-driven narratives featuring independent women

Carol J Clover

Writer who examines 1970s and 80s slasher films through a feminist lens. Coined the term "the final girl"

The Final Girl

The final girl is the last survivor in a slasher horror movie. She is virginal but also smart and resourceful