Critical Approaches to Film
Film & Feminism
14th March
Feminist Film Theory part 2
The Virgin Suicides
Introduction to class test
21st March
Intro to film and ethnicity & screening of
Do The Right Thing
28th March
Preparation for class test
4th April
Mock class test
11th April
Class Test
Easter Break !!!!
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30% of Module Mark
11th April
Multiple choice questions
1 question on ideology (with reference to Cinema/
Ideology/ Criticism reading)
• 1 question on film and feminism (with reference to
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema reading)
• 1. Question on colonialism, Racism and
Representation’ (with reference to ‘Race, ethnicity
& Film reading)
• Link to films studied on course
Film & Feminism
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Hollywood’s portrayal as women:
Mother
Girl next door
Women in film = socially inferior
Stereotypes & stock characters
Glamorous sex goddesses, femme fatales,
self-sacrificing mothers
Men’s fantasies
Excluded from genres
Submissive characters
‘Woman’s film’ invented to compensate
They are sweet,
kind, smart,
simple,
sometimes
tough and
tomboyish, but
never vulgar
Link to
website
Feminism & Film
3 concerns
1. Role of women in narrative
of a film
2. Women’s physical
appearance through the
visual scheme of a film
3. How a film communicates
with the ideal spectator
Adopted by feminists as mean of
understanding way women are represented on
screen.
Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema (Laura Mulvey 1975)
Key Terms in Mulvey’s text stemming
from Psychoanalysis
Scopophilia = Freudian term - pleasure taken in
looking. ‘The love of looking’
Scopophilic instinct occurs when people/ images viewed as erotic
objects. Spectators get a sense of power from being able to do this
Voyeurism
=
Pleasure is voyeuristic when it is dependent on
the object of the gaze being unaware.
In cinema we are voyeurs, watching people on
screen who are ignorant that we are watching
them. We derive pleasure from this. Camera is
also voyeur.
Fetishism
= An object becomes a fetish when it is the
focus of sexual desire.
In film the audience may notice an excessive objectification of female body,
numerous shots of breasts and legs. The intense concentration on parts of the
female body in the cinema is a prime example of fetishism.
Narcissism
= This is erotic pleasure
derived from looking at one’s own body.
Both Freud and Lacan say it was a natural stage in childhood.
In film: audience’s identification with the image on screen e.g.
mirror stage.
Narcissus –
Greek God fell
in love with his
own reflection!
Key points: Visual Pleasure & Narrative
Cinema
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Concerned with relationship between film &
viewer
Way classical film language constructed speaks to
implied male viewer
How films appeal to spectator
Pleasure from viewing films & characters
Looked at how men & women are represented in
film.
Used psychoanalytic film theory (ideas of Lacan &
Freud)
Spectatorship & act of looking provided a form of
sexual gratification
Used Freud’s notion of scopophilia (getting sexual
pleasure from looking at others (Freud noted
guilty feelings)
Cinema perfect place to get ‘scopophilic’ pleasure
– film characters not aware of being watched –
not made to feel guilty.
No one can see spectator getting pleasure
(darkened room)
Key Points continued…
• Cinema provides voyeuristic
pleasure
• Uses Lacan’s mirror stage: idea
of seeing yourself visually
reflected.
• Used this to explain why people
like films
• Spectator identifies with what’s
on screen (like in the mirror)
• Most mainstream films made by
male filmmakers for male
spectators (according to Mulvey)
What pleasures does male
spectator get?
• Women seen as spectacle
• Women to be looked at
• Narcissistic identification – sees hero & wants to
be like him
• Admires male characters on screen
• Voyeuristic objectification – gets pleasure from
women on scren
Audience/ viewer put into perspective of heterosexual male
How an audience view women on screen
Women seen as objects
Not possessors of gaze
Control of the camera (and thus gaze) comes from male as audience of most
film genres
Female is passive/ Male is active
Sofia Coppola (b. 1971)