feminist film theory

Laura Mulvey is a feminist film theorist. In 1975 she wrote an essay called 'visual pleasure and Narrative cinema'. Mulvey explains that media text specifically film show relations and reflects our society as patriarchal. The essay talks and questions the way the patriarchal society develops itself within the world of cinema. 


Mulvey's theory;
The Male Gaze  is where the gaze of the camera is predominately shot from the males gaze. Mulvey concludes that the male gaze is active and the female gaze is passive. Within film text the male character put their gaze towards the female characters. One argument that Mulvey persist is that men view women different to how women view men as the male gaze as the male characters within a narrative guides their gaze towards the female characters. 
The speculator is made to identify within the male gaze as the camera films only the male gaze, this is the males character's point of view. This is known as the cinematic gaze which is the camera, the character and then the audience; Mulvey says that all three are made to objectify the female character in others words we perceive women as objects in film media text. 


AUDIENCE
 



CAMERA'S GAZE 
 






EXAMPLE OF MALE GAZE


Agency 
In classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency as he is the one with the power and has all control of how the plots are perceived within an narrative. He is the agent around whom the dramatic unfolds. The characters are passive and powerless and she is looked at as an object of desire by the audience and the male protagonist. 


Erotic Desire  
Mulvey proceeds to argue that women only have two roles within film text which are: 
An object of erotic desire for the male characters
An object of erotic desire for the spectator 

An example for this is Megan Fox in the film Transformers she is seen getting off a bike in an unusual way which men would become lustful over.