Study Task 3 : Triangulation

L. Mulvey, feminist film theorist, introduces the constructs of visual pleasure in cinema, formed unconsciously through patriarchal society. Mulvey argues that the separation of an audience from the characters onscreen through the cinematic experience plays to ‘voyeuristic’ (Mulvey, 1975) fantasies, and enables the passive objectification of the female form to the active ‘male gaze’ (Mulvey, 1975). R. Dyer and J. Storey in their writing are both referential to L. Mulvey’s argument. Storey summarises the key points within Mulvey’s text, emphasising her use of ‘psychoanalytical theory’ (Storey, 2001) as a ‘radical weapon’ to deconstruct and destroy constructs of visual pleasure in cinema. In contrast, Dyer criticises Mulvey’s argument as a means to develop and support his own.  He contradicts the foundations of Mulvey’s argument in depicting the audience as passive spectators, and therefore cinema purely as a visual pleasure, by arguing that ‘moviegoers also respond actively as individuals’ (Dyer, 1979) to the meanings represented onscreen (Dyer, 1979). Mulvey’s statement of, ‘the male figure can not bear the burden of sexual objectification’ (Mulvey, 1975), is contradicted through Dyers examples of objectification of the male body in cinema. He also provides an alternative view of Mulvey’s idea of cinema providing sadistic and voyeuristic pleasure, in arguing that there is also the opportunity of a ‘masochistic relationship’ (Dyer, 1979) in which the woman star is not so passively objectified. It is important to consider the years separating these two texts in terms of when they were written, and that we would have seen some changes in the way cinema is constructed as well as analysed. Certainly, Mulvey’s arguments may be true to some contemporary cinema today but also be considerably false when analysing strong females roles in films such as Frozen, and the objectification of the male form in others such as Magic Mike.