Laura Mulvey - The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey (born August 15, 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She worked at the British Film Institute for many years before taking up her current position.

Mulvey's ideas were first expressed in an article written in Screen in 1975. It was then a highly theoretical cinema journal. The article which became a seminal one is called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
Laure Mulvey coined the term ‘male gaze’ in 1975. She believes that in film audiences have to ‘view’ from the perspective from a heterosexual male.

 The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented for feminists it can be thought of in three ways:

·         How men look at women

·         How women look at themselves

·         How women look at other women

Laure Mulvey describe the male gaze as

·         Looking at women for visual pleasure and narrative cinemas (1975)

·         Active male / passive female

·         Women as images/ men as ‘better of the look’

·         How men look at women as sexual objects

·         Fetishistic

Criticisms of Mulvey’s theory

·         She doesn’t consider female spectators

·         Her views are that only heterosexual males are the spectators

·         Since 1980’s there has been a large increase in sexualisation and display of the male body