Laura Mulvey is considered one of the most famous feminist film critics. According to Skjerdal (1997) her views regarding mainstream cinema is founded on Lacanian psychoanalysis wherein the important component is the difference between the spectatorship of the males and females. In her most popular article called the “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Laura Mulvey integrates the idea that the pleasurable forms of gazing in the usual cinematic situation to Freud’s scopohilia wherein it associates desire and the pleasure in utilising another individual as a subject of sexual stimulation by sight. In addition, the essay of Mulvey (1975) states that men and women are portrayed in the cinema differently, men as the subjects that progresses the narration of the film while women are objects for the desire and fetishes of men.
In the point of view of Mulvey, film is seen as a stimulus of traditional gender roles rather than reformatting the representations. Critical on her view is the idea that the interpretation of the film in behalf of the viewer takes place in an unconscious manner, therefore giving the foundations for gender oppression and ignorance.
The challenge for most film makers that wants to promote alternatives is to prevail over the patriarchal movie industry. As stated earlier, Laura Mulvey utilised psychoanalysis as a tool to interpret films. The main status of the psychoanalytic method of Freud and Lacan is that woman is at the mercy of social and social depression because she is not a man. It views the male as the dominant gender both symbolically and physically. In shifting this idea to film, Mulvey used the scopophilia, which means the control via gaze, as an explanation. Mulvey stated that it is very visible that scopophilia appears in the way films are viewed by the audience due to the fact that the films provide a good condition for looking at another individual as a subject for sexual motivation. The main element in the utilisation of Mulvey of Freud’s psychoanalysis in audience viewing of films is voyeurism. She stated that in a society wherein the male gender is dominant the pleasure in looking at an individual is divided into active male and passive female which is evident in the dominant types of films.
In the case of classical Hollywood Films wherein it emphasises males as the protagonists thus it promotes a sense of omnipotence of male spectators. Traditional Hollywood films show men as controlling and active individuals that treat the opposite gender as passive subjects of desire for males in both the film and in real life. This type of films regards women as object in association to the controlling gaze of men, wherein it shows that the women is an object to be desired for and the man as the one looking. Just like in the case of the movie Pretty Woman wherein the camera displays a close-up look on the legs of Julia Roberts as she pulls her stockings, according to Mulvey it is the result of the male gaze and how the attributes of females are viewed as passive in mainstream cinema.
According to Chandler (2007) Mulvey identified two forms of looking from the point of view of the audience and these are voyeuristic and fetishistic. According to Mulvey (1992) voyeuristic looking includes a controlling gaze which is correlated to sadism. On the other hand, Fetishistic looking includes substituting a fetish object in order to satisfy oneself. Mulvey argued that popular cinemas must rediscover the looks of the camera, audience and characters; she stated that in popular cinema only the point of view of the characters is presented while the other two are not which denies the audience of critical thinking and even subdues information. Smelik (2007) discussed that in psychoanalysis the image of a woman is ambiguous wherein it combines seduction and attraction. The appearance of females in cinema reminds male viewers the lack of penis thus it becomes a source of profound fears. The classical cinema solves this problem through fetishism. According to Modleski (1988) films of Alfred Hitchcock are the perfect examples of fetishism wherein the guilt of the woman can either be solved in two manners punishment like in the movie Pscho wherein the female dies or salvation just like in the Movie Marnie wherein the woman got married.
According to Smelik (2007) fetishishation is exhibited in classical films such as Josef Sternberg’s fetish of Marlene Dietrich, another is Marilyn Monroe wherein she is considered one of the fetishised female stars. Even today fetish still exists on film, wherein curvy women in scantily clad clothes are often times projected in films.
Clearly, Mulvey’s response to the challenge is to discard the traditional way of narrating stories on film and utilise alternative ways of telling a story. Feminist counter cinema is the avante-garde film practice. Some of the examples of films that have avante-garde themes are Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollens’ Riddle of the Sphinx and Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.
The article of Mulvey received praises and criticisms from various individuals and film theorists. However, some film theorists believe there are problems in application of psychoanalysis in the film. According to Pribram (1988) the Freudian and Lacanian theories on psychoanalysis has been a major subject for studying film because they link cultural modes of representations and the obtaining of subject identity among people. However, in the case of Mulvey she looks for a theory wherein it explains why Hollywood films are a threat to females. She views traditional and mainstream films as the one that forces women to submit to the patriarchal society.
In addition, Gledhill (1988) states that one of the weakness of the psychoanalytic film approach
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