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

Vertigo

Vertigo is one of the films we are looking at for are collective identity project. We are mostly looking at how women are presented in this film as Alfred Hitchcock the director was typically known for stereotyping women into his ideal women. 

This is the background of the film I found out from the IMBD:

• Made in : 1958
• Genre : Mystery, Romance, Thriller
• Director : Alfred Hitchcock
• Country : USA
• Release Date : 21 July 1958
• Budget : $2,479,000
• Grossed : $ 25,000,000
• Run Time : 128 minutes
• Continuity : The ice cubes in Gavin and Scottie's drinks disappear  

Opening sequence

I thought the opening sequence of Vertigo was very dramatic and striking, it definitely caught my attention. It starts with an extreme close up of a womens lips in black and white, this itself is a very dramatic camera shot. The music is also striking and flows with the opening it creates a worried and curious sense to the film. The close up flows the womens face up to her eys wear she looks slightly worried looking back and forth. 

The extremem close up them zooms more in to a single eye, then the screen turning a red colour. possibly showing a sign of danger and warning but also showing the wide use of colours Alfred Hitchock uses in the this film. A swirl appear in the pupil of the eye and I beieve this is the represent the films title 'Vertigo' as it means a condition in which somebody feels a sensation of whirling or titling that causes a loss of balance. 

The eye disappers and the swirl is left it starts to get bigger and bigger, changing shape, colour. I think this creates a visual effect of vertigo but it seems dangerous as if there is going to be a hazard. 

Collage

This is a collage that represents me and my identity with things I like.

My Multiple Identities