SummAry of VisuAL PleasUre anD NarrATIve CineMA

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey was published in 1975 is widely known as one of the most critical theory on contemporary film theory. The arguments that she presents are as followed:

• Scopophilia- The pleasure you recieve from looking at certain body parts and are being fetishized by the camera such as the womens breasts, legs or bum. Scopophilia is also, when you look at another person in the cinema without them knowing you are looking at them. Freud has covered this aspect aswell
• Women are also, seen as "process of objectification of female characters whcih means women bing reduced to being objects of the male gaze but also, the narcissistic pleasure you recieve from identification. The audience may feel closure because they feel they can relate to a certain character in the text..
• Mulvey has "declared that in patriarchal society 'pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female'. You as the audience are gendered as males and relate to certain characters from a male perspective.
• Women have the ability to be looked at as sexual desires and if they are near a certain object that could be tall or big they would be referring to a phallic symbol.