Objectification Of Women In Film Essay

A woman walks down the streets of New York City. She is wearing an average outfit; jeans and a t-shirt, nothing too revealing. Yet, although she does nothing to call attention to herself, besides being of the female gender, the woman is repeatedly catcalled. This could be description could be of any woman walking down the streets of NYC. Not trying to call attention to herself, but simply trying to get where she has to go. In this case however, this is not just any woman. She is an actress being filmed by a hidden camera for the YouTube video 10 Hours of Walking in NYC and the video is to document the street harassment that women experience.
This street harassment, however unfortunately, is not the only harassment a woman faces in her daily life. A woman is constantly objectified, as is evident in the article “Visual Pleasure”, where Laura Mulvey discusses the existence of women in film as sexual objects. Even when a woman is …show more content…
Mulvey claims that women in film only exist for the viewing pleasure of men. The women offer little to the storyline except for their looks and sexual appeal. The woman walking down the streets of NYC is likely seen in the same fashion by the men catcalling her. The woman exists purely for them to look at, nevermind that there are other attributes to her besides her looks. As far as Mulvey’s research goes, she also claims that women act as a sort of opposite to the men; a delicate female as opposed to a strong male. The female makes the man look stronger. Perhaps in the same vein, the catcallers on the streets feel that their comments give them a more masculine air. Like with the woman existing as a foil to men in film, perhaps the men see their actions against the more “delicate” gender as acting as a masculinity pump in this dichotomy where the male is purely allowed to make the comments and the woman is expected to ignore