LAURA MULVEY

Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 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.

During the 2008-09 academic year, Mulvey was the Mary Cornille Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at Wellesley College. Professor Mulvey has been awarded three honorary degrees: in 2006 a Doctor of Letters from the University of East Anglia; in 2009 a Doctor of Law from Concordia University; in 2012 a Bloomsday Doctor of Literature from University College Dublin

LAURA MULVEY THEORY The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human

identity, Relegating them to the status of the objects to be admired for physical appearance.

It also suggests that women can more often than not only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a men’s perspective.

Fact: Only 16% of media creators are female!

LAURA MULVEY THEORY The male gaze leads to hegemonic

ideologies within our society. Mulvey argues for women the result of

media being presented from the perspective of men and through the male gaze. Women find themselves at times, taking of the male gaze, and they also gaze at other.

VISUAL PLEASURE Mulvey states that the role of a female

character in a narrative has two funtions:

1, As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view.

2, As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinema to view.

PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY Patriarchal society is the men

dominated society.Mulvey argued that we live in a society where men set the majority of the rules and construct and represent their ideal visions, roles and male dominance over women.

The worry is a passive audience will be influenced by this representation of reality, and copy it, which will eventually become reality, even if it wasn’t !!

FEATURES OF THE MALE GAZE Camera lingering on the female body. The gaze suggests that women are

weak and defenseless. Anything that happens to a woman is

presented largely in the man’s reaction.

Mulvey proposed that the camera angles could be used to fetishize the female body parts, which would sexualise them and objectify them in film. She believes Hollywood is guilty of objectifying women and making it acceptable for men to look at women in this way, and it is therefore responsible for lots of gender stereotyping. By doing this the women (and women in general) are objectified; the male gaze would cause them to not be represented as a person, but as an object. Her theory is that males in the cinema get to voyeuristically objectify and look at a woman in a way that is socially acceptable.

DISAGREEMENTS ON LAURA MULVEY THEORY There are some flaws and

disagreements with the theory however:  Some of the women may enjoy the

attention and like people to look at them There are videos and media products

which use men in the same light, for instance in Kelly Rowland’s Motivation the men have less clothes on than she does and she treats them as though they are objects.

REFERENCES

http://katiehamilton25.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-male-gaze-theory.html

http://lucytownsendasmedia.weebly.com/laura-mulveys-genderfeminism-and-male-gaze-theory.html

http://www.slideshare.net/fleckneymike/the-male-gaze-laura-mulvey

MADE BY SYED SHAN TARIQ AND ABDUL WASAY RAO. AS-F