Feminist Film Theory and Audiences

Laura Mulvey

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975)

Laura Mulvey argues in this essay that we live in a male dominated society and that the patriarchal society we live in is reflected in cinema, meaning that films are shown from the male point of view. She also argues the theory of "The Gaze", where the camera is the male gaze and the male gaze is active ans the female passive.

Within the media texts the male characters direct their gaze towards the female characters, the spectator is made to identify with the male gaze, because the camera films from the optical as well as libdinal point of view of the male character. Therefore the audience is constructed as though everyone was male.

Thus there are three levels of the cinematic gaze that objectify women- camera, character, and spectator (triple gaze).