People had a habit of looking at me as if I was some kind of mirror instead of a person.

They didn't see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one. - Marilyn Monroe -

VISUAL PLEASURE & NARRATIVE CINEMA

Laura Mulvey

A POLITICAL USE OF

PSYCHOANALYSIS
Unconscious

Penis / Phallus
Castration complex

A POLITICAL USE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS:

UNCONSCIOUS
The motives behind our actions are mostly unconscious

Freud

Mulvey

Patriarchal unconscious structures film form

The unconscious is structured like a language

A POLITICAL USE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS:

PENIS/PHALLUS

Penis
Actualy bodily organ

Phallus
Signifier of lack

A POLITICAL USE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS:

CASTRATION COMPLEX

Boys

Fear of castration

Girls

Penis envy

Woman as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.

How to fight the unconscious structured like a language, while still caught within the language of the patriarchy?

Destruction of Pleasure!

PLEASURE IN

LOOKING
Scopophilia (Sexual instinct)

Narcissistic (Identification)

PLEASURE IN LOOKING

SCOPOPHILIA

Taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze, e.g. voyeuristic activity of children Spectator as voyeur (Peeping Toms)

PLEASURE IN LOOKING

NARCISSISTIC

Mirror stage: identification with the image seen; constitution of the ego The spectator identifies with the glamorous stars on the screen their ego ideals

WOMAN AS IMAGE, MAN AS BEARER OF THE LOOK

WOMAN AS I M A G E MAN AS BEARER OF THE LOOK

Women are simultaneous-ly looked at and displayed, they connote to-be-lookedat-ness Women displayed on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator

Active
Male

Passive
Female

WOMAN AS IMAGE MAN AS B E A R E R OF THE LOOK

The man on screen controls the film phantasy. He is the agent of the look with whom spectators identify to enjoy vicarious control and possession of the woman.

WOMAN AS IMAGE, MAN AS BEARER OF THE LOOK

CASTRATION THREAT

Voyeurism
Reenacting the trauma Investigating the woman and revealing her guilt, then either punishing/saving her

Fetishism
Disavowing castration Endowing womans body with extreme aesthetics perfection, makes her reassuring rather than dangerous

voyeurism

fetishism