Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey was a feminist film theorist who is known for her essay called "the visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" which was written in the 70's. This essay is very important as it includes many of the theories we recognise today. In the essay she discusses the impact that cinema has on the beliefs and views of society. As society is patriarchal she particularly focuses on the the way in which women are portrayed within the media industry. The main theories she discussed are: Erotic desire, the male gaze and agency.

Patriarchy refers to a social system in which males have primary power, they predominate in roles of political leadership and moral authority as well as social privilege and control of property. It implies that institutions of male domination entails female subordination.

Erotic Desire

Erotic desire is when the female character in a film seems to have no other purpose to the film other than to be an object of desire to the audience and the other characters in the film. She saw that the woman were seen more of an object as she had no power in the film and was only there for the desire of others. However, in rare cases some films display the male as the erotic desire. An example of which is the film Thelma and Louise in which Brad Pitt is displayed as the object of erotic desire. This is shown through many shots that focus on his body.

The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey believed that the camera is the gaze of the male eye. By this she means that the camera gaze is predominantly the eye of a male character. This makes the male gaze active and the female gaze passive. The audience are constructed in such a way that they are compelled to gaze from the male POV. This can sometime isolate the female audience as they are forced to see the woman though the male gaze which is usually quite sexual. Women are forced to look at the text as though they are a male member of the audience. This occurs through the process of suture. There are three levels of the cinematic gaze. These are camera, character and spectator. Mulvey argued that together they objectify the female character. This is known as the triple gaze. A good example of the triple gaze is the famous mango scene in Dr No. 

Audience Gaze

 

Camera Gaze

Sean Connery (Male Gaze)

Ursula Andress

Agency

Agency refers to the active and powerful role in a film. Mulvey acknowledged that the male protagonist has agency in classical Hollywood Cinema and that the female is mostly always passive and powerless; she is only the object of desire for the protagonist and audience. Relating back to her feminist views and the use of 'the gaze' in films, she talks about how the woman can not move the plot along. Again, the woman is shown as a mere object in the film with no power. Even in modern cinema, there are still very little films where females have agency. Some modern examples are: The hunger games and S.A.L.T.

Mulvey's argument about the male gaze is particularly relevant when considering music videos as a significant proportion of music videos feature women as objects of erotic desire. A good example of this is Rihanna's music video to Shut up and Drive. 

In this video Rihanna paints a negative view of women as she is presenting herself as purely an object of erotic desire. Throughout the video there is a constant male gaze where the women are being objectified and we are forced to see through the male eye. At around 30 seconds into the video she takes a cloth out of another woman's back pocket. This small action is perfect example of something a male would find appealing however a woman would not. Through out the video there is no real movement in plot which supports Mulvey's ideas about the woman not being able to move any story along and is only there for the male eye. Throughout this video Rihanna is showing off herself in a sexual way.For example, when she walks she emphasises the parts of her body that males would find attractive such as her chest and her lower body.