Laura Mulvey

The idea of Spectatorship in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) : We don’t stop here! Abstract Films have always been a medium of great importance and still continue to amuse and interest its audience. Films of different languages and different genres are released worldwide over a year. Some of them grab the attention of a large audience while some others go even unnoticed. The success and greatness of a film is usually connected with its ability to influence and transform the audience.…

- a cage that forces females to focus on cosmetics, beauty aids, and exercise fanaticism to become ideal female (324). This beauty myth then portrays women as objects whose worth comes from the beholder: the male gaze. This was first used by Laura Mulvey in film studies, but is now used in sociology to explain how people (of all genders and sexual orientations) look at women in the way a desiring heterosexual male would look to assess women’s sexual desirability, and it portrays women as…

Ramona’s body seems to be specifically highlighted in these moments, her face being absent to the reader. Additionally, there are multiple scenes where Ramona’s buttocks is shown and she is completely unaware of the audience seeing this2, creating what Mulvey would call a voyeuristic character. However, the genre of the comic is somewhat slice-of-life, and the scenes are reminiscent of a typical situation where couples are only in underwear together, so this could justify the images. Ultimately,…

The Technological Medium and Reality Programming Right now, as I speak, there is a world full of people binge watching their favorite reality television shows, tuning into season premieres, and setting their DVR so they can watch their shows after the reality of real life. It is important to note, these actions are done through a variety of different technological mediums: the television, tablet, cell phone, and laptop. However, on a global scale, the television is used as a primary medium of…

The Skin I Live In (2011) is a psychological thriller and horror film once again written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Almodóvar describes this film as a horror story without screams or frights.It is based on the novel “Tarantula”. This film consists of identity issues and acceptance followed by horrific sexual scenes. Robert is a doctor who emphasis in the skin field, he presents his results in a medical symposium but when he secretly admits that he indeed has conducted illegal experiments…

primarily associate with masculinity. Butler supports this idea in her book ‘Gender Trouble’ , asserting that it is ‘possible to have a designated “female” body and not to display traits generally considered as “feminine” . In contrast to this, Laura Mulvey asserts that a woman ‘holds the look, and plays to and signifies the male desire’ , supporting the idea that females conform to the role proposed upon them. Butler believes that we only think of ourselves as coherent, as a ‘coherence’ of…

describing this objectification in TV shows and movies is what’s called the Male Gaze. The term was coined by Laura Mulvey in 1999 in her text, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. She explains that in media, “women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 837). Normalizing the objectification of women is damaging because it suggests that a woman’s place is…

Alfred of Hitchcock once said, "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it." Hitchcock was an English and American film director and producer. He was best known as the "Master of Suspense;" and one of his masterpieces, the 1954 film "Rear Window," truly deserved him the title. The film starred James Stewart, who played as the travel photojournalist L.B Jeffries; and Grace Kelley who played as Lisa Carol Freemont, Jeffries' Manhattan socialite girlfriend. The story surrounded…

interactions. Throughout the film, L.B. Jeffries, played by James Stewart, is bound to his wheelchair and finds himself peering into the lives of his neighbors as a form of entertainment and a means to escape his own problems. The cinema, according to Laura Mulvey, derives its pleasure from “scopophilia,” where looking becomes the source of one’s pleasure. Jefferies’ action of looking out of…

We see sorority sisters working out in sports bras, glowing sweat, and getting ready for the day putting on makeup in lingerie. In Laura Mulvey’s article, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, she breaks down the understanding of cinema and the portrayal of women in cinema for the “scopophilic instinct”. The scopophilic instinct is the “pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic…