Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Flashcards about Laura Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Laura Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.

Male Gaze

Males take pleasure in looking, while women are there to-be-looked-at; males assume an active role while women assume a passive role; women exist in order to satisfy the desires and pleasures of men.

Scopophilia

Pleasure in looking.

Sexual Nature of Looking

The activity of looking in the cinema produces pleasure of a specifically sexual nature.

Identification

Recognizing a character who is like oneself (or what one would like to be).

Male Hero vs. Female Object

The hero of a film is never the object of the spectator's look as an erotic object; the spectator identifies with the male hero of a film while the females in a film are the objects of a scopophilic pleasure-in-looking; the male hero of the film drives the narrative while women are associated with spectacle.

Male Hero as Subject vs. Female as Object

The male hero is a coherent entity and the woman is external

Woman as Signifier of Lack

Woman is the sign of castration (sexual difference) - she arouses not just pleasure for the man, but also castration anxiety; two ways of dealing with this: Voyeurism and Fetishistic scopophilia.

Voyeurism

The female figure can be tamed, unveiled, demystified and punished.

Fetishistic Scopophilia

An idealized figure of incomparable beauty and virtue.