(855) 4-ESSAYS

Type a new keyword(s) and press Enter to search

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey

            Laura Mulvey's take on the "male gaze" in cinema in her essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" relies on psychoanalytic theory to highlight the role of the patriarchal subconscious of society in films, as well as the threat of castration in the presence of a female character in the midst of a male-dominant storyline. Her main argument centers on the assertion of the objectification of women in Hollywood narrative films. Mulvey writes that the characterization of female characters in these films is solely based on the opportunity to provide a pleasurable object of viewing for male spectators, whether through the eyes of the male characters, or through the eyes of the actual male audience. She goes on to state that the cinematic gaze that is presented to the audience is always a masculine gaze, and women are always the object of viewing, but never portrayed to be the bearer of the gaze.
             Mulvey addresses Freud's theory of scopophilia to supplement her arguments on the mechanism of objectifying the images on the screen. The pleasure that arises from subjecting someone to one's private gaze is utilized and provided by cinema to satisfy such urges. Additionally, the Freudian theory on the Ego plays a relevant part in Mulvey's article when she mentions the developmental period in which the child develops the self-awareness that is achieved from recognizing itself in a mirror, thus constituting the crucial ego. The pleasurable phenomenon of identifying with the character shown on screen is rooted in these underlying narcissistic needs. Mulvey's article and its statement on the psychoanalytic side of spectatorship highlight the fundamental role of the spectator in Hollywood cinema. Based on this idea, the presentation of the characters in film is arguably developed with the spectator in mind.


Essays Related to Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey

1. The Male Gaze

According to Mulvey: "In a world of sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. ... Usually the woman portrays herself on two levels: First being an erotic object for the characters with the narrative, and secondly being an erotic object for the spectator in the auditorium (Mulvey, 1975). ... With the vamp being exported from Europe and integrated into the Hollywood cinema, it revitalizes the female spectator the pleasure experience of the mother as the love object in early childhood. ... This made a good example of which the woman is an indispe...

  • Word Count: 3430
  • Approx Pages: 14
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

2. THE GAZE IS OFTEN LINKED TO POWER AND GENDER IN VISUAL CULTU

I have chosen to look at the attempted rape scene in "Thelma and Louise" in relation to Laura Mulvey's gaze theory. ... ARGUMENT The gaze theory was written by Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist, in an essay called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". ... Mulvey argues that men gain pleasure in two ways by looking at women in cinema. ... Laura Mulveys ideas are very out dated (1975). ... Laura Mulvey still stands by her original paper even though she has rewritten it since. ...

  • Word Count: 2044
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Voyeurism In Rear Window And The "Post-War Crisis of Masculinity"

This paper will examine key arguments put forward by leading theorists such as Laura Mulvey, Elise Lemire, John Belton and Tania Modleski to elaborate upon the intentions and complications of voyeurism in Rear Window. ... Laura Mulvey has played a key part in the discussions about the psychodynamics of cinematic spectatorship, with the publication of her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in 1975. ... Although Mulvey acknowledges that the images portrayed on screen in the cinema are not forbidden, she argues that the whole point of film is that "the conditions of screening and narr...

  • Word Count: 2405
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Movies - Women through the Eyes of Men

In Laura Mulvey's essay, she discusses how we as a society must eliminate the modern film process and how this will be the only way we can finally free women from being sexually objectified. ... In Laura Mulvey's The Male Gaze, she describes this in her article, saying that "it faces us with the ultimate challenge: how to fight the unconscious structured like a languagewhile still caught within the language of the patriarchy. There is no way in which we can produce an alternative out of the blue" (Laura Mulvey, 2009). ... New movies which allow for men to be a visual plea...

  • Word Count: 1485
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. Pure Cinema

This paper will examine the complex parameters of Pure Cinema in the modern age of narrative cinema, it will derive a clear definition of what Pure Cinema is based on those parameters and many examples from many movies and authors of cinema. These complex parameters of Pure Cinema will be examined through the films of the great narrative filmmaker Alfred Hitch cock, among others. ... With the invention of cinema came new hope and exiting aspirations for visual art and documentation. What sets the cinema apart from all other visual arts is its ability to exhibit the motion picture. ... Fort...

  • Word Count: 2543
  • Approx Pages: 10
  • Has Bibliography

6. Ways of Seeing

The role of women in cinema and in society is analyzed by various writers: Berger, Doane, and Mulvey. ... Speaking on the patriarchal structures of cinema and society, Mulvey, along with the other writers, states that women are objects of the male sex. ... As Laura Mulvey states in her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,"" females are the focus of attention in cinema; however, The Truman Show contradicts this idea. ... In her essay, Laura Mulvey affirms that, "A male movie star's glamorous characteristics are thus not those of the erotic object of the gaze, but those of the m...

  • Word Count: 1574
  • Approx Pages: 6

7. Spectatorship Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

He is placed as the viewer-surrogate, whose preoccupation with his neighbors mirrors the spectator's fascination with the narrative unfolding on the screen. ... Hitchcock employs symbols which point to icons of cinema to convey the parallels between film spectatorship and voyeurism. ... The darkness of the cinema against the brightness of the movie screen provides isolation, similar to that of voyeuristic separation (Mulvey 312). ... Utilizing Laura Mulvey's essay, "Visual Pleasures of Cinema", film's scopophilic allure is outlined. Mulvey draws upon psychoanalytic theory and po...

  • Word Count: 960
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

8. What function does the Star system play in Hollywood cinema?

By the 1940's to 60's, with the advent of sound cinema and dominance of the "Classical Hollywood Style" film had a definite method of storytelling. ... As such, one can see a star's persona as representing meanings central to a films narrative. ... As such, narrative time is conserved and can be spent on the more important events of the "The Searchers". ... The stars presence in a movie, according to Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure of Narrative Cinema"(1974), the interaction between viewer and star constitutes two processes. Firstly Scopophilic pleasure, or the sexual pleas...

  • Word Count: 1483
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

9. Feminism in Film - The Piano

Laura Mulvey in her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema states that 'in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female' (Mulvey, 1975, 9) whereby men look and women are looked at. In order to break down the patriarchal hierarchy the 'active controller of the look' (Mulvey, 1975, 11) must be changed. ...

  • Word Count: 1029
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

Got a writing question? Ask our professional writer!
Submit My Question