How can Mulvey's theory be useful to my independent study?

Although Mulvey's theory is not dominant in the film "crash" there are certain scenes in the film and also a variety of different female protagonists who conform to the theory of the male gaze. Certain female characters in the film can be portrayed to be attractive in a way and some scenes in the film do engage the auidence by fetishising certain parts of the feamle body.

In the film "crash" there is one dominant disturbing scene in which a male racist police officer sexually abuses a black women. This automaticaly conforms to the work of Laura Mulvey as the female is portrayed to be a weak and passive character as the male police officer has much more control and dominace over her therefore making him have a active role in the narrative of the film. When the weak women is getting sexually abused effective close up shots are used to fetishize her legs as the camera position moves up and down her legs on order to conform to the male gaze. Therefore we as the audience are constructed to be male as we are watching this scene in a voyeristic way. The term scopophila can aslo be applied to this scene as the male spectater is positioned in a way to have the a certain desire to look at something that they would not normally hace access to. This links to Mulvey's idea of sadism as we as the audience have the pleasure in looking at someone in inflicting pain. Overall this specific scene does conform to the work of Laura Mulvey as the theory of the male gaze does occur. The social issue of living in a patriarchal society is also raised in this scene as the female character is seen as the weaker object, as she can do nothing to protect herself and the male being more of a dominant and controlling figure.

Certain attractive female protagonists are also used in the film that do have the quality to-be looked-at-ness. For example Sandra Bullock does have the qualities of being an attractive female protagonist that straight away portrays her to be a sexual object conforming to the theory of the male gaze. Although none of her body parts are fetishized in an abrupt way the male audience can still objectify her as being a sexual object and are able to look at her in a scopophilic way. Therefore they will have the desire to look at her in a sexual way making them be members of voyerism. Overall one main argument could be that the film used attractive female characters to engage the audience throughout the film.

Sandra Bullock also is also dependent on her husbad(Brendan Fraser) towards the end of the film who is a successfull protagonist and also has a powerful role in the film. Therefore by her being dependent on her husband can conform to the social issue of a patriarchal society as she runs to her husband at the end of the film and realises her mistakes as her snobby friends let her down. Therefore again she can be seen as the passive female and her husband to be the active male.

Task 11...

Laura Mulvey argues that the dominant point of view within cinema is masculine when there is a women concerned. Therefore this shows that the main point Mulvey is arguing is that we as the audience are positioned to be of the male gender as we see everything from their point of view. This then shows the Female to be a passive object and the male to be more active in a way. This can also link to the fact that she believes we are living in a patriarchal society.

Examples of this can be seen is classical Hollywood films. This is becasue typically the film will focus on a male protagonist in the narrative of the film, and assume a male spectator.

Traditional Hollywood films present men as being active and also controlling subjetcs, therefore treating women as passive objects.

Mulvey also argues that films objectify women in a certain way, therefore conforming to the theory of the male gaze. The male gaze suggets that men do the looking and the women are there to be looked at(They have the quality to- be- looked-at-ness).

Mulvey looks at two different modes of looking for the film spectator. The first one is the term called "Voyeuristic" which involves a controlling gaze that has associations with Sadism-pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt-assertig control and subjecting the guilty person through punisment. Therefore we look and control things we wouldn't normally have access to.

The second term is called "Fetishistic". This term describes the way in which a womens body part is being fetishised in order to conform to the male gaze, where women are portrayed as sexual passive objects. She argues that the female body is displayed for the male gaze in order to provide erotic pleasure(voyeurism).

The process of looking at the women involves the process of scopophilia. Mulveys theory links to Freuds psychoanalysis as the scopophilia term suggests that we as the audience have a certain desire to look at something. Mulvey also adapted her ideas from frued as he argues that there is a product of complex male fears revolving around castration anxiety(the fear of boys loosing their penis as they think this has happened to a girl). Mulveys also developed the work of freuds study of the unconscious by the fact that the infant male who is attracted to his mother is jealous of his father(oedipus complex).