Laura Mulvey

 Laura Mulvey (born August 15, 1941) is
a British film and media studies professor
at Birkbeck, University of London and has worked
at the British Film Institute for many years.
 Mulvey is best known for her essay, Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, written in 1973
and published in 1975 in the influential British film
theory journal Screen.
 Mulvey's combative text, inaugurated the
intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis and
feminism.
 This article is an analysis of Hollywood cinema
narratives, based on the theories of Sigmund
Freud as formulated in his Three essays on
Sexuality (1905) and Jacques Lacan in The Mirror
Stage as Formative of the Function of the I (1966)

As a filmmaker she co-wrote and co-directed
with her husband PeterWollen:
 Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974)
 Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) Perhaps their most influential film)
 AMY! (1980)
 Crystal Gazing (1982)
 Frida Kahlo andTina Modotti (1982)
 The Bad Sister.
Other films
 Disgraced Monuments (1991), documentary film co-directed
with Mark Lewis.

 Mulvey is best known for her
essay, Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema, written in
1973 and published in 1975 in
the influential British film
theory journal Screen. It later
appeared in a collection of her
essays entitled Visual and Other
Pleasures, as well as in
numerous other anthologies.

Is a feminist theory that looks at representation
of women and how this is perceived by the
audience.
For Laura Mulvey, this can be thought of in
three different ways:
 How men look at women
 How women look at themselves
 How women look at other women

 Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis
Baudry and Christian Metz used psychoanalytic ideas in their
theoretical accounts of the cinema.
 Her article is one of the first major essays that helped shift the
orientation of film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework.
 Mulvey's combative text, however, inaugurated the intersection
of film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism.
 This article is based on the theories of Sigmund Freud as
formulated in his Three essays on Sexuality (1905) and Jacques
Lacan in The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I
(1966),

 Use of semiotic analysis and psychoanalysis (Freud and
Lacan) to elaborate a feminist thesis about traditional
narrative fiction cinema (“Psychoanalysis as a political
weapon”)
 Proposes an alternative avant-garde cinema which will
differ politically and aesthetically from the mainstream
Hollywood film

 Symbolic order of society is dominated by the heterosexual
male gaze.
 Dichotomy and sexual imbalance in that symbolic order:
male-active/female-passive.
 Objectification of women as representation / signifier of
male desires and fears.
 Audience are forced to identify with the heterosexual male
gaze of the male protagonist, even if they are homosexual
males or women.

 Scopophilia (Freud) Love to look at.
 From Greek Scopo (Mirror), scopein (to look at) and
philia/philein (love to/ to love)
 Voyeurism (from French voyeur):
 A person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others
when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity.
 A person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others
 Diegesis vs. Mimesis (Aristotle)

 Here is an illustrated example of this theory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUcvlJmCVcI

GQ’s Men of the year GQ’s Woman of the year
Objectification of women as representation / signifier of male desires.

Audience are forced to identify with the heterosexual male gaze, even if
they are homosexual males or women.

 All (C grade): will identify the male gaze in
music videos.
 Most (B grade): will identify and analyse the
‘male gaze’ and apply it to examples of music
videos.
 Some (A grade): will identify, analyse and
evaluate the ‘male gaze’ and apply it to
examples of music video, discussing female
representation in detail .

Starter
1) How do you think heterosexual men look at these women?
2) How do you think these women look at themselves?
3) How do you think other women look at these women?
3 minutes to DISCUSS these questions in groups of three.
EXT: what role does the gender of the audience have on the way these women are
represented?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8
 https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/12/28/my-two-cents-on-feminism-and-miley-cyrus/

 https://vimeo.com/72954787
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwT6DZCQi9k

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) was
published in the context of the Second Wave of
Feminism and the arrival of a structured feminist
theory.
 Active gaze male/passive gaze female
 Men look at women for visual pleasure, derived
from their fears and desires (Scopophilia (Freud)-
pleasure in looking)
 Audiences ‘look at’ characters from the
perspective of a heterosexual male.
 Women look at other women from the point of
view of the heterosexual male’s gaze.
 “The determining male gaze projects its fantasy
onto the female figure”
 “Cinema screen acts as distorting mirror (Lacan)
for spectators who then (mis)recognise
themselves”

 Symbolic order of a patriarchal society is dominated by the heterosexual male gaze.
 Dichotomy and sexual imbalance in that symbolic order: male-active/female-passive.
 Objectification of women as representation / signifier of male desires and fears.
 Audience are forced to identify with the heterosexual male gaze of the male
protagonist, even if they are homosexual males or women.
Terminology:
 Scopophilia (Freud) Love to look at. From Greek Scopo (Mirror), scopein (to look at) and
philia/philein (love to/ to love)
 Voyeurism (from French voyeur):
 A person who enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others.
 A person who gains sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or
engaged in sexual activity.
 Diegesis vs. Mimesis (Aristotle)

 Using your case of study, identify why/how your chosen video conforms to
Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’theory.
 Justify your reasons by referring to specific examples from the video and the
main points from the lesson.
 Illustrate your post with images taken from the video.
Your case of study

 How do you think women are
represented in this clip? Refer to an
example.
 Discuss the use of cinematography
and the representation of women.
Refer to an example.
 What do you think is being connoted
by the way women are represented?
Analysis of your case of study
Success criteria:
• Point (thesis)
• Illustrate with clear references
to the video (example)
• Explain what those examples
represent (analysis)
• Evaluate the impact that this
female representation has on
the audience (refer to Mulvey’s
theory)
• Terminology (use specific
media terminology:
representation, connotation,
denotation, sign, signifier,
symbol, hegemonic ideology,
male gaze, etc.
• Conclusion (summarise your
arguments, linking them to
your thesis)

 Intro: Explanation of Mulvey’s theory.
 Case of study: Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ analysis of a music
video.
 Thesis (the main point of your argumentation)
 Evidence/Examples from your case of study
 Analysis (refer to Mulvey’s theory)
 Conclusion

Discuss whether the
genre you have chosen
relates to Mulvey’s
‘Male Gaze’ theory and,
if so, to what extent:
• Is this representation
an isolated example
or is it more a
convention?
Pop
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