OUGD501 - Studio Brief 01 - Study Task 01: Triangulation Task

Laura Mulvey

◦ Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, written by Laura Mulvey, created the known term 'male gaze'.
◦ She criticises cinema for giving women an 'erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness', inferring that women are solely used in films as objects.
◦ Another point she makes is that 'a woman performs within the narrative; the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined', highlighting that women are received differently from the male characters and audience.

Richard Dyer

◦ Richard Dyer is an academic film critic. He challenges Mulvey’s views by stating that male stars are erotically objectified too.
◦ He argues that ‘male pin-ups’ are able ‘to be looking in ways which suggest they are not an erotic object’ - this insinuates that male stars are more capable of diverting an audience's attention.
◦ Dyer's argument has been written in the perspective of a homosexual male, which highlights that Mulvey's views can be challenged and aren't definitely right.

John Storey

◦ John Storey talks about Laura's views on cinema in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture.
◦ He immediately refers to Mulvey as 'from the perspective of feminist psychoanalysis', which highlights how her essay is from her point of view and not considered from an audience's perspective.

My Triangulation:

Laura Mulvey is a British film theorist and feminist. Her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema created the well-known term 'male gaze', which criticises cinema for portraying women from a male’s perspective. Mulvey highlights that women are given an 'erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness', inferring that women are solely used in films as objects. This is further backed by her point that 'a woman performs within the narrative; the gaze of the spectator and that of the male characters in the film are neatly combined'. Richard Dyer, an academic film critic, challenges Mulvey’s views by stating that male stars are erotically objectified too. However, he argues that ‘male pin-ups’ are able ‘to be looking in ways which suggest they are not an erotic object’, including ways such as ‘looking off as if disinterested in the viewer’. Whilst this brings to light the point that female stars are not the only gender to be objectified, Dyer is insinuating that the male stars are more capable of diverting an audience's attention.

John Storey talks about Laura's views on cinema in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. He immediately refers to her essay as being 'from the perspective of feminist psychoanalysis', which highlights how her essay is from her point of view and not considered from an audience's perspective. This is important to remember; Richard Dyer's argument has been written in the perspective of a homosexual male, which highlights that Mulvey's views can be challenged and aren't definitely right. Overall, it is clear that there are contradicting views on the erotic perspectives on females and males in cinema. However, it is even more evident that stars in cinema, no matter what their gender, are frequently objectified.