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.