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| Laura Mulvey |
In 1975 film feminist Laura
Mulvey coined the term “the male gaze” which took a psychological approach to
looking at women. Mulvey suggested that the male gaze can be recognised in film
theory when the camera puts the audience into the
perspective of a heterosexual man. In agreement with Berger, Mulvey also
suggests that “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, the pleasure of looking
has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Humm, 1992: 348).
However, Mulvey’s approach of the concept differs slightly due to her emphasis
on film.
Mulvey drew on Freud’s
concept of ‘scopophilia’ in order to reinforce a political argument about the
treatment of women through a psychological approach. The term scopophialia can
be defined as “the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as
objects” (Chandler, 2000: lines 12-13). The concept also highlights the
Lacanian concept of the ‘mirror-phrase’ as it deals with the idea that a
woman’s physical beauty is a true reflection of her soul.
Furthermore, with the
application of Freud’s scopophilia, Mulvey suggested that the male gaze can be
broken down into “two [different] modes of looking... [these are the] voyeuristic
and fetishistic” (Chandler, 2000: line 26). Voyeuristic looking is said to involve
a controlling gaze from the male participant in which the woman is surveyed but
cannot look back (Brooker, 1999: 83). Voyeurism is also largely associated with
sadism as “the pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt-asserting control and
subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness” (lines 27-28).
Whereas “fetishistic looking...involves the substitution of a fetish so that it
becomes reassuring rather than dangerous” (lines 29-31). Therefore, in this
case the spectator’s obsession with a particular part of the woman’s body
becomes sexualised and as a result the woman is then viewed as an object of
desire (Brooker, 1999: 83).
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| David - Michelangelo (1501) The Phallus |
According to Mulvey the gaze
must be male as ideology shows that “the male figure cannot bear the burden of
sexual objectification” (Humm, 1992: 350). Whereas, the female body is designed
to be exploited due to her passive nature but more importantly due to the
threat of castration which she is said to hold over men. In Freudian theory
woman signifies castration, as the lack of the phallus threats masculinity due
to her narcissistic expression.
The threat of masculinity is
an idea which I will further explore in my reading of ‘The Tiger’s Bride’ by
questioning whether it is always men that hold the gaze. This argument is also
debated in Anna E. Kaplan’s essay “Is The Gaze Male?” which I critically
analyse in my final theoretical investigation.
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