Psychoanalysis & the Gaze

Mary Cassatt, In the Loge, 1878

When learning about psychoanalysis and the gaze, many things spiraled in my mind. The first thing, which just was interesting to me, is the idea of film and theaters. 

 

“Although the film is really being shown, is there to
be seen, conditions of screening and narrative conventions give the
spectator an illusion of looking in on a private world. Among other things,
the position of the spectators in the cinema is blatantly one of repression
of their exhibitionism and projection of the repressed desire onto the performer.”

-Laura Mulvey

 

This quote from Laura Mulvey describes the idea of the theater. It had never occurred to me that watching a film can be considered viewing a private world. Scenes between actors and actresses that involve personal topics may be private to them, but for the viewer, they are open. When a viewer of a film sits in a dark theater where no one can see them might be seen as watching beyond just the film. You can see the actors; the actors cannot see you. I had never seen it that way. It also brings up the idea of scopophilia. The love of looking. I notice this can go from viewing films and watching reality TV shows, to watching in person as well. It can become an obsession. The painting I chose represents this. In the painting you can see a woman viewing a stage presence from a box in a theater. Her attention is focused on whatever is on stage. In the background, you see a man. This man is not focused on the stage, but on the woman. He is directly watching her. It goes to show that people love watching. Gawking. Women especially are impacted by the lack of respect men have towards them in regard to watching. Men lurk after women consistently, and this painting demonstrates that exactly. Even if the woman thinks she is protected in a safe theater, and she is simply watching a show, there is no safety when people are always watching. 

 

Another topic we had discussed was the role of women in film. 

 

“What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She
is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the
concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the
woman has not the slightest importance.”

-Budd Boetticher

 

“The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a storyline, to freeze the flow of
action in moments of erotic contemplation.”

-Laura Mulvey

 

Mulvey includes a quote from Boetticher, and then follows it up with her own analysis. Boetticher states that women in films have no importance. Except for how she makes the viewer feel. She does not have a purpose or meaning other than visual pleasure. Mulvey states that women work against a storyline. They essentially stop the story and provide a visual break. Women more often than not are entirely oversexualized in films to be desirable for the viewers. One example I can think of is Margot Robbie. 

Margot Robbie is an actress who has had many popular roles in a wide range of movies. Her most recent work was the Barbie Movie. In this movie she was a self-discovered character, she had emotions, feelings, thoughts, and a sense of development. Many women loved this movie as it had been inspiring for them. Men, however, did not find her role in the Barbie movie to be “inspirational.” Men have argued that the Barbie movie is one of Margot Robbie’s worst films ever. They personally love her in Wolf of Wallstreet more. Why might this be? Let’s review the role Margot Robbie played in the Wolf of Wallstreet. She was a dumb blonde, she wore skimpy clothes, she had an amazing body, and she was the hot girlfriend. Let’s review her role in the Barbie movie. She wore covering clothes, you did not see her body, she had thoughts and feelings, and she became no one’s girlfriend but her own. These roles are different. Men loved Margot in the Wolf of Wallstreet because she was sexually and visually appealing to them. She was pretty to look at. Which follows Mulvey’s idea that the role of a woman is just to stop the narrative at hand. When Margot was a character who was not sexually appealing to men, they hated her, they claimed that character to be “her worst yet.” Funny how that works. 

 

“… that of the spectator in direct scopophilic contact with the female form displayed for his enjoyment (connoting male fantasy) and that of the spectator fascinated with the image of his like set in an illusion of natural space, and through him gaining control and possession of the woman within the diegesis.” 

-Laura Mulvey

 

This quote from Mulvey follows my previous statement. When men find themselves identifying with the male lead, by putting themselves in the lead’s shoes, they essentially possess the woman on screen. It’s entirely a fascination. Back to the Wolf of Wallstreet, the male lead, Jordan Belfort, is a man who becomes unfathomably rich, he has the hot girl (Margot Robbie), and he is living the life men want and thrive for. When men viewers identify themselves with Jordan Belfort, they see themselves possessing Margot Robbie as well. They see her sexually and aesthetically, rather than a thinking feeling woman. This is the idea Mulvey explains. Which is why the roles of women in movies and films have evolved so much since the old days. Women in films nowadays more often than not are fully developed characters, who are more than just a pretty face on screen. 

Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Screen (London: Palgrave Macmillian, 1975)