Gaze types are typically categorised by who is doing the
looking. There are three key areas, look of camera at action, look of
audience/look of spectators at the screen and look of actors at each other.
Mulvey's essay ("Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema") proved highly interesting and informative in relation to "The Male Gaze." She discusses how the subconscious of our patriarchal society has shaped our film watching experience. "Unchallenged, mainstream film coded the erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order." (Mulvey, 1975, p.8)
She argues that the plot of Hollywood films manipulates
women in order to provide a pleasurable experience for men. Films create
identification with the male character by structuring their gaze as masculine,
with women typically the object of the gaze.
Mulvey distinguishes two manners in which cinema produces
pleasure, both representing the psychological desire of the male subject. The
first relates to scopophilia, pleasure derived from subjecting someone to one's
gaze whilst the second involves identification with the character.
Women are given two basic character types: sexually active
or powerless female. Important female
characters were more likely to show fear and were still objectified sexually.
"Women in any fully human form have almost completely been left out of
film." (Smith, 1972, p.13)
However, I feel Mulvey does not take into account female
protagonists, although admittedly they were less prevalent then than they are
now. Movies with a female protagonist are now commonplace (Alien, Terminator.) (pictured)
The female figure combines attraction with deep fears of
castration "Woman symbolises the castration threat by a real absence of a
penis." (Mulvey, 1975, p.6) The male subconscious deals with this fear by
dismantling the female mysteries (punishing or saving her) or through
fetishisation of her (as the unobtainable star.) Films resolve the tension by
providing the masculine term of desire.
As it is a hetero-patriarchal society, the male body cannot explicitly be the object of another male look, it must be repressed. Today, men’s bodies are regularly portrayed as objects of the gaze, particularly in advertising.
In Mary Ann Doane’s book (Film and Masquerade) Masquerade is
described as a type of representation, unravelling male systems of viewing,
effectively manufacturing a distance from the image to make it decipherable to
women. She refers to it as "realignment of femininity", the
simulation of the missing gap or distance. "To masquerade is to
manufacture a lack in the form of a certain distance between oneself and one's
image." (Doane, 1982, p.82)
Female spectatorship theories are rare and usually confront
problems in conceptualisation. What is there to stop the female from reversing
the gaze for her own pleasure? The woman becomes a man in order to attain the
necessary distance from the image whilst men have a much harder time doing
this.
I have often wondered why women are objectified in movies, which I've now realised is due to the assumption that heterosexual males are the default target audience. From personal viewing experience, I know that this still applies today.
Cinema can be viewed as a liberating experience, providing
the spectator freedom from the surveillance of others whilst focusing on the
movie. The darkness isolates spectators
and serves as a great contrast to the bright screen, promoting 'voyeuristic
separation.'
One movie we examined was "Who Framed Roger
Rabbit?" which showed great examples of “The Male Gaze” through Jessica
Rabbit. She is designed to be the stereotype of a man’s perfect woman. Her
features show this clearly with her long hair, perfect body and beautiful
appearance. Whilst Jessica speaks, Eddie looks over her like he is yearning to
know her sexually showing her as nothing more than a sexual object. She speaks
to Eddie over her shoulder, whilst pouting her lips using sexuality as a weapon
which she exploits in order to get her way.
This week I studied Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo"
in relation to the "Male Gaze." The movie is very extraordinary in its
examination of the obsession and desire associated with the subject. The look
is central to the plot and alternates between voyeurism and fetishistic
fascination. "In Vertigo, erotic involvement with the look is disorientating: the spectators fascination is turned against him as the narrative carries him through and entwines him with the processes that he is himself exercising," (Coates, 1991, p.185)
Scottie's erotic drive leads him into compromised situations, his vertiginous, and hopeless longing is expressed through the desire for the ideal fantasised woman. This particular woman (Madeleine) is both mysterious and troubled.
The movie has a very subjective camera, which dominates the
film and shares Scotties uneasy gaze. His voyeurism is blatant, as he falls for
a woman who he then spies on, without ever speaking with her.
When Scottie first actually sees Madeleine, there's a long,
slow pan as she comes into the restaurant and passes him. As he sits and
stares, it seems to represent the fascinated stare of all men throughout
history who have watched a beautiful woman. It is very primal and hints at the
mystery of females. Hitchcock seems to have knowledge of woman's un-knowability,
un-reachability and enormous beauty.
His gaze, desire and indeed his obsession, is for something
that cannot be attained because it does not exist. Madeleine isn’t real, she is
designed only to seduce and use him.
Reference List
Mulvey, L., 1975. Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen 16, no. 3: Oxford University Press.
Smith, S., 1972. The Image of Women in Film: Some Suggestions
for Future Research in Women & Film, no.1:
Doane, M A., Film and
the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator, Screen 23, no. 3-4: Oxford University Press.
Coates, P., 1991. The
Gorgons Gaze: German Cinema, Expressionism and the Image of Horror,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment