feminist film theory

[ Category - Film ][ contemporary film theory ]

After the rise of Lacan and the rise of psychoanalytic film theory, feminists began to take notice that the pleasures of cinema were arranged for the male.

The idea of the male gaze was popularized by the feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey who first identified the gaze in her landmark essay Rear window.

She looked at the pleasures of looking in cinema: who get to look, and why?

Almost always men. They are the ones who carry the look. We are their look. Eyeline match the men.

The audience, because of this binary narrative, only identifies the men because in suture, the filmmaker decides who you identify with, not you.

And so, Moudy claims, we are encouraged to look at women and be men.