Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) was extremely influential in the development of a feminist film criticism.
(1) [6 points] Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) was extremely influential in the development of a feminist film criticism. Her argument, in a vastly oversimplified nutshell, is that “by orchestrating the ‘three looks’ of spectator, camera, and character, the cinematic apparatus naturalized a masculine gaze in the service of patriarchal ideology”. In other words, the camera’s gaze is implicitly male, because it objectifies the female characters it records, and the gazes of the (implicitly male) spectator and the male protagonist follow suit; the relationship is reinforced by a process of identification between the spectator and male protagonist in the film, who share the same “look”.
Describe onemovie (excluding Rear Window) for which this claim seems to be accurate in your opinion, and two more that present problems for this theory.
(2) [2 points] Briefly explain the castration complex.
(3) [2 points] Why is it important to critique “mainstream cinema,” according to Mulvey.
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