The Male Gaze in Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
In her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” British film/media studies professor Laura Mulvey examines cinema’s phenomenal impact, this mirror into society, and in particular, societal perceptions/norms on gender role. Psychoanalysis and feminism play integral roles in Mulvey’s exploration as she attempts to understand why mainstream cinema focuses its lens so intently on the male gaze while at the same time marginalizing the female form. She turns to famed director Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo as a primary example of how “the look” works to disempower women both on and off screen.