Triangulation Exercise Content

Mulvey, L (2009 [1975] Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Visual and Other Pleasures, Basingstoke, Palgrave

'quote' (Mulvey 2009 [1976] :pageno)


Contextual facts about L Mulvey:

- British feminist theorist

- Her early critical work investigated questions of spectatorial identification and its relationship to the male gaze

- Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study

- Mulvey was prominent as an avant-garde filmmaker in the 1970s and 1980s. 

- She co-wrote and co-directed 6 films with her husband

- Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was originally written in 1975 which she is famously known for - movement towards sexual equality, higher screening of men in films than women at this time 

- Her work is influenced by Freud and Lacan (psychoanalysis)

What is psychoanalysis?

1. a person's development is determined by often forgotten events in early childhood rather than by inherited traits alone
2. human attitude, mannerism, experience, and thought is largely influenced by irrational drives that are rooted in the unconscious
3. it is necessary to bypass psychological resistance in the form of defense mechanisms when bringing drives into awareness
4. conflicts between the conscious and the unconscious, or with repressed material can materialize in the form of mental or emotional disturbances, for example: neurosis, neurotic traits, anxiety, depression etc.
5. liberating the elements of the unconscious is achieved through bringing this material into the conscious mind (via e.g. skilled guidance, i.e. therapeutic intervention).

Key points from the text:

- Scopophilia - pleasure gained from the act of looking. The essay looks at this in relation to film and its audiences

- How culture reflects society and its inequalities

- Women are made to appear as sexual objects in the film rather than a part of the film itself

- Patriarchy

- To be looked at ness

- The text talks about the the objectification of women, how has this changed now? do we objectify men?


Quotes from the text:

- 'What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.' (Boetticher in Mulvey 2009 [1975] :20)

- 'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19)

- 'Woman displayed as sexual objects is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19)



J Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

Key points from the text:

- regurgitating Mulveys points made in her written work with supporting quotes from the text

- Outlining the argument made by Mulvey about; the 'male gaze', scopophilia, narcism 


D Ryer, Stars 

Key points from the text:

- contradictory arguments against Mulvey

- Critique of Mulvey's argument of the 'classic narrative cinema continually organises looks which centre on the woman as spectacle'. Ryer argues that 'narrative film continually includes looks directed at the male body and also between male characters'

- 'Steve Neale argues that looks between male characters on film are ade obviously threatening and aggressive in order to divert their erotic potential.'

'Laura Mulvey's use of Freudian/lacanian thinking leads her to conclude that the male gaze produces a sadistically voyeuristic pleasure. Gaylyn Studlar argues that the fetishisation of the female body has the potential for producing the alternative pleasure of a masochistic relationship between male moviegoer and female star' 

Write a 300 word summary triangulating the three texts discussing what is argued and how they relate to each other.

Laura Mulvey, a British feminist theorist whose work is mainly influenced by Freud and Lacan, argues that women are made to appear as sexual objects in film rather than a part of the film itself, 'Woman displayed as sexual objects is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19). She also expresses that the ‘cinema offers a number of possible pleasures’ on of these being ‘scopophilia (pleasure in looking)’. Her views on this topic were expressed in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema (1975). At the time of the essay, film involved the appearance of more men than women that supports but also contradicts Mulveys theory.

The view of Scopophilia (the pleasure gained from the act of looking) is said to be structured by ‘sexual imbalance’ (J Story :82) who concludes that ‘women are crucial to the pleasure of the (male) gaze.’ (J Story  :82)  This reinforces Mulveys theory that 'In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.' (Mulvey 2009[1875] :19). A contradiction to this has been written by R Dyer who suggests that ‘narrative film continually includes look directed at the male body and also looks between male characters’. (R Dyer, 1986:188) This is further argued by Steve Neale who suggests that ‘looks between male characters on film are made obviously threatening and aggressive in order to divert their erotic potential’. (R Dyer, 1986 :188). These views contradict each other in a way that Mulvey and Story argue that women are used as ‘erotic objects for the characters within the screen story and as erotic objects for the spectator within the auditorium’. (Mulvey 2009[1875] :20) however, Dyer looks into more depth of the ‘objectified male body’. ( D Ryer, 1986 :188) Although these views may be suitable for the time in which the essays were written, male and female actors are seen to be more of an equal status in modern film, with an attraction on both sexes being drawn upon.