The Laura Mulvey Theory

Who is Laura Mulvey?

Laura Mulvey, aged 75, is a British feminist film theorist. She was born is on the 15th of August 1941 and is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Film Theory

• Mulvey is best known for her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, which was written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory jorunal Screen.

• Her essay then appeared in a collection of her essays entitiled “Visual and Other Pleasures”, as well as in numerous other anthologies.

What is the Gaze?

• The gaze is the concept that the audience views the characters presented.

For feminists such as Laura Mulvey this can be thought of as:• How men look at women• How women look at themselves• How women look at other woman

Male Gaze Theory

• “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” included a term known as the ‘Male Gaze’ which then soon became a very well known and discussed theory.

• In this theory, Mulvey believes that the representation of woman in film and literature is dominated by the male point of view. She also believes that the world is a patriarchy and that men have the ‘active’ roles and women have the ‘passive’ roles.

• In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is made to see from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

• The scene may focus on the curves of a woman’s body, putting you (as the viewer) in the eyes of a male.

• However it is only the male gaze theory if these curves are highlighted. They could be highlighted with specific conventions eg. Slow motion effects, deliberate camera movements and angles.

Visual Pleasure

• Mulvey says the 2 roles of female characters includes:

1. As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view

2. As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinema to view