Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

In this essay, Laura Mulvey describes the correlation between visual pleasure and narrative cinema by means of psychoanalysis. This view, stemming from the deduction that women are viewed on screen as unequal, challenges the way that the Hollywood film industry manipulates the “three points of male gaze”. The three points of male gaze are as follows: camera, audience, and characters. In closer detail, the three points specifically combine camera and angles, the look of or reaction of the audience and the interaction of characters.

Mulvey mentions that a producer or film director can anticipate exactly what the audience is expecting and thus, can play on what they want by way of visual manipulation.  One reason why using women strategically within film is so successful is due to the Freudian ideal of “scopophilia”. Scopophilia comes from Greek origin meaning to “look or examine”, specifically, scopophilia defines the sexual pleasure derived from looking or watching. By using women in film, it becomes a medium for sexual release. This is similar to how music is considered by many an emotional and mental release, except, using music as a form of mental and emotional release is more widely accepted than using film for sexual release.

Mulvey describes women as the” image” and men as “bearer of the look". Because images and film are not tangible in human form, it allows the people within them to be viewed as objects, rather than persons, subjecting them to a controlling gaze. When it comes to women in film specifically, Mulvey mentions that they are styled and displayed accordingly to “connote to-be-looked-at-ness”. By inviting a sexual and sensual atmosphere through aesthetic and angles, the film or image allows the infliction of the viewer’s personal thoughts and fantasies.

Freud believed that we are all by nature, sexual creatures, and the fact that sex is so intimate is also what makes it so thrilling. It is almost that “apple from the poisonous tree” doctrine. We feel the urge to individualize and add to the traditional form of sex and make it our own.

Mulvey's main argument in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is that Hollywood narrative films use women in order to provide a pleasurable visual experience for men. Pornography is a good example of this. The porn industry takes something intimate about the human condition and publicizes it, making it accessible to multiple audiences. But that is not what makes porn so popular and rampant… Taking a fantasy that a person might otherwise keep to themselves while watching a woman on a PG-13 rated movie, for instance, and bringing it to life births a new art and addiction.

I don’t believe that using women strategically in film is as sexist as it is lucrative. Sexualizing women within a film became popular in an era where being publicly sexual as a woman was frowned upon. As a result, taking a notion that was so widely rejected and making it accessible through a medium such as film, made it not only available but also desired. While there was never anyone who publicly said “Hey, lets take the perverted thoughts that we think about when we see a woman and incorporate them into a film!” it still was something that men longed for.