VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA-LAURA MULVEY

 “It is helpful to understand what the cinema has been, how its magic has worked in the past, while attempting a theory and a practice which will challenge this cinema of the past. Psychoanalytic Theory is thus appropriate here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured the film form.”(Mulvey 803)

One of the major revolutionary moments in Film Theory came about when Psychoanalysis  amalgamated with  Feminism to question the status quo of the Phallocentric Mainstream. The seminal text which brought about this radical advancement is Laura Mulvey’s  path-breaking essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Mulvey  constructed her arguments by grounding them on the foundations established by certain other theorists like Christian Metz and Jean-Louis Baudry. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was originally written in 1973 and was subsequently published by a leading British journal Screen in 1975. Mulvey also draws upon Freud and Lacan in theorizing how the spectator identifies with the image on the screen. Mulvey, a Professor of Film and Media Studies at Birkbeck College, published various other works which include Fetishism and Curiosity(1996), Death 24×a second: Stillness and the Moving Image(2006) etc. She also has a few movies including The Riddles of the Sphinx(1977) to her credit. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema contributed the term ‘Male Gaze’ to the critical vocabulary of Film Theory.

     Psychoanalysis in Film Theory intends to delineate the relationship between the structure of mind and the cinematic experience as propounded by Hugo Munsterberg in his work The Photoplay: A Psychological Study (1916). Nevertheless, this analysis was confined to the workings of conscious mind unlike the later film theories which focused primarily on  the unconscious. Film Theorists, initially, began scrutinizing the unconscious  mind of the director by ascertaining instances in the film which reflected the film maker’s psyche. This was followed by another group of scholars who ventured to unravel the unconscious of the characters. The latter attempt was refuted by a few critics who claimed that since characters are imaginary beings they neither have a conscious nor an unconscious. Yet, the same argument was defended by another sect on the grounds that examining the unconscious manifestations of the character can give us an insight into the unconscious mind of the viewer who gets molded into a potential cinematic spectator during the filmic process.  Subsequent film theorists formulated their theoretical norms  by taking inspiration from Lacan and his mirror stage. According to Lacan, a child identifies himself with his fragmented image in the mirror. This misrecognition becomes significant in the creation of the child’s ego. Thus Lacan questions the credulity and authenticity of ego formation in infants. The child would be under the delusion of his imaginary autonomy over the body which he actually does not possess. Film Theorists tried to draw parallels between Lacan’s child and the film goer.

“Jacques Lacan has described how the moment when the child recognizes its own image in the mirror is crucial for the constitution of the ego…The mirror phase occurs at a time when the child’s physical ambitions outstrip his motor capacity, with the result that his recognition of himself is joyous in that he imagines his mirror image to be more complete ,more perfect than he experiences his own body.(Mulvey 807)

    Christian Metz and allies likened the cinematic screen to a mirror which engenders the formation of the film viewer’s ego. The spectator, at the onset, identifies himself with the camera. This identification gives him a sense of unbounded autonomy. The resultant false sense of power would make him oblivious of his passivity in the theatre and the individual revels in the invisibility of the dark room. This illusion lasts till the spectator remains in the delusion of his being omniscient and omnipotent. The fantasy ends when the epiphany of his torpor dawns upon him and the spectator loses this professed autonomy. By employing editing and other filmic techniques, Hollywood tries to perpetrate this illusory fantasy of the spectator. Mainstream Cinema also represents Commodity Fetishism by concealing the toil which has gone into the making of this commercial product.  The primary identification of the spectator with the apparatus is followed by a secondary one with the protagonist which is the main focus of Mulvey. The sexual politics lies in gendering the protagonist male. This identification with the potent  male character imbues a sense of masculine power in the viewer while the female character is stripped of her autonomy and subjectivity and made into a commodity to be looked at by the viewer and the character. This phenomenon which deprives her of her subjectivity is termed as ‘Gaze.’

“…intends to use psychoanalysis to discover where and how the fascination of films is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject and the social formations that have moulded him.”(Mulvey 803)

      Mulvey argues that every individual possesses his own  peculiar desires which are framed by his social conditions and individual attributes. She tries to ascertain how movies deepen these already existing passions within an individual. Mulvey uses psychoanalysis to explain the ways in which the dominant phallocentric formations have molded cinematic art form and  our cinematic experiences. Mulvey argues that in a patriarchal society where the entire power is wielded  by man, woman is always expected to remain in the imaginary realm (never to ascend the symbolic) by becoming the bearer of meaning. She is seldom given the autonomy to create meaning. Mulvey opines that Psychoanalytic Theory opens avenues for us to deconstruct the patriarchal unconscious and glean the forces which act in the subjugation of women. Phallocentric society privileges the male sexual organ phallus as its central principle and the absence of the same in a woman places her at the disadvantaged position of a castrated being. She is not allowed to define or develop herself beyond this identity of “lacking.”

“The paradox of Phallocentrism in all its manifestations is that it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world.” (Mulvey 803)

     From Mulvey’s standpoint, phallocentrism is inherently paradoxical since the significance or centrality of Phallocentric system is built upon the castrated image of a woman. The realization of the woman regarding her lack prompts her to submit herself to this structure which oppresses her. Therefore, the male domination is upheld by the inability and the ensued craving of a woman to acquire phallus. This inability transmutes her desire to acquire phallus to a wish to beget a child which might pave way for her to enter into the symbolic universe of a man. Mulvey says that women who are caught in this labyrinth of phallocentric society, cannot make weapons to dismantle it from outside. They are supposed to avail the armaments offered by patriarchy itself.

 “…how to fight the unconscious structured like a language while still caught within the language of the patriarchy… make a break by examining patriarchy with the tools it provides.”(Mulvey 804)

      Mulvey holds that  Hollywood has always worked as an apparatus strengthening the patriarchal notions perpetrated by the status quo. She also talks about ‘alternative cinema’ which can pose threat to the conventional films. In Mulvey’s view  Hollywood films exercised their alchemy by “its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure.” Mulvey also divulges the codification of the erotic into the linguistic realm of the patriarchal system. Mulvey’s prime intention in penning this essay is to analyse  how the erotic is embedded into movies by  unearthing its implications and also to look into how a woman is portrayed therein. She also voices her avowed intent to deconstruct and demolish the entire patriarchal narrative of film. Traditional Hollywood movies always exhort the audience to identify themselves with the protagonist-who is always already male. The main purpose behind exhibiting women in the film is to enhance the visual pleasure of the male viewer. This reiterates the role of women as sexual objects. She proclaims that the main intention of the essay is to destroy the pleasure by analysing it.

     Mulvey documents two types of pleasures evoked by movies. “The first Scopophilic, arises from pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight. The second, developed through narcissism and the constitution of the ego; comes from identification with the image seen.”(Mulvey 808). Scopophilia takes its origin from Freud’s theories. It functions in two veins. Firstly, by arousing pleasure by looking at a person as a mere object. Secondly, by deriving auto erotic pleasure by  viewing. Scopophilia has nothing to do with erotogenic zones since the stimulation comes from outside. Woman is structured in film according to the fantasies of the male. She is commodified and projected on screen such a way as to please the ‘male gaze’ of the spectator. Women has little or nothing to contribute to the narrative. The significance of woman lies in the emotions and feelings she arouses in the male.  She lacks inherent importance. The objectification of women can be understood in the  ways she is portrayed in films. Various erotogenic zones of a woman are depicted instead of representing her as an independent entity

“The extreme contrast between the darkness in the auditorium  (which also isolates the spectators from one another) and the brilliance of the shifting patterns of light and shade on the screen helps to promote the illusion of voyeuristic separation.”(Mulvey 806)

     Scopophilic pleasure is derived by submitting people to our gaze and exerting absolute abstract control over them. It is not merely a method of deriving pleasure, rather it is a crucial part in the formation of a person’s ego. If scopophilia crosses bounds it can lead to perverted sexual strivings and end up in “producing voyeurs and peeping toms.” Theatre is quite often deemed to be a public realm where people gather and watch movies together yet, contrary to this, the darkened rooms create an ambience of a secluded and isolated area perfectly suitable for voyeuristic activities. Thence, the spectator can give vent to his repressed desires and direct his wishes  towards the cinematic images on screen. Mulvey draws upon Lacanian Mirror stage and states that the spectator, like Lacanian infant, jubilates in identifying himself with his alter ego or the image on the screen. Subsequently, the cinematic structure, at once, weakens and intensifies a person’s ego. Desire sprouts in an individual when he enters the symbolic realm of language and laws.  The entry into the symbolic implies a simultaneous exit from the imaginary which traumatizes the subject. Both of these pleasures-(Scopophilic and Narcissistic) separate the person from his actual reality and takes him to a fantastic world.

“Male figures cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like.”(Mulvey 810)

 “In their traditional exhibitionist role 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 809)

     Mulvey proposes that one man cannot subject another male to his gaze i.e, he cannot look at another man with a sexual instinct. She  calls a woman ‘extra diegetic’ because she is outside the plot and has no role in the flow of the narrative. Mulvey also argues that  in conventional films woman has always been passive and the male has perpetually been actively structuring, defining and manipulating the narrative. She is always represented such a way as to be aesthetically pleasing to man. A woman is styled as per the caprices of the camera, protagonist and spectator-all of whom embody the male gaze.

“The scopophilic instinct (pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object), and in contradistinction, ego libido(forming identification processes) act as formations, mechanisms, which this cinema has played on. The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze  of man takes the argument a  step further into the structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out in its favourite cinematic form -Illusionistic Narrative Film. The argument turns again to the psychoanalytic background   in that women as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic/ fetishistic mechanisms to circumvent her threat.”(Mulvey 815)

The male protagonist controls the entire film and by identifying with him, the spectator becomes autonomous as well. The female character embodies glamour and covetousness only to succumb to the hero’s love. Thus the woman, who was hitherto the paragon of desire becomes a property of the hero. The viewer who identifies himself with the protagonist possesses the woman and thus acquiring  unmitigated power and pleasure. Mulvey also discusses how movies work as apparatus to reiterate the accepted social roles and how people internalize these norms of women’s passivity and a man’s rigorous activity. Mulvey also talks about three types of gazes viz. “that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion.”(Mulvey 816) According to Mulvey, the sole way to deconstruct this Conventional Phallocentric Mainstream is to bring forth an insurgent counter culture in Film Industry. She also anticipates a ‘feminist avant garde’ which can function as a threat to the Patriarchal Show Business.

REFERENCES:

Babu.N.M,et al. Introducing Film Studies. Mainspring Publishers,2015.

“Laura Mulvey.” Women Make Movie, Accessed On-11 Apr.2022,www.wmm.com/filmmaker/Laura+Mulvey/

Nambrol,Nasrullah. “Lacan’s Concept of Mirror Stage.” Literariness, Literary Theory and Criticism, Accessed On-10 Apr.2022. literariness.org/2016/04/22/lacans-concept-of-mirror-stage/

“Psychological Film Theory.” Film Theory, 7 Jun.2014,www.filmtheory.org/psychological-film-theory/

 “Suddenly,A Woman Spectator:An Interview with Laura Mulvey.” Another Gaze, Essays, 15 Aug.2018,www.anothergaze.com/suddenly-woman-spectator-conversation-interview-feminism-laura-mulvey/ 

“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Study Guide, Grade Saver,Accessed On-10 Apr.2022,www.gradesaver.com/visual-pleasure-and-narrative-cinema

-Santhwana Thomas

.