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VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA

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by Laura Mulvey (1975)

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A critical analysis of the twentieth century Hollywood film. Which remains the product of the dominant ideological structures that exist within American society. As much as any Hollywood film is also the material realisation of significant capitalist investment. American society is distinctly patriarchal. Hollywood film has developed a “way of seeing” which denies woman her power to be separate and active. Instead, subjecting woman to a “male gaze” that the audience can identify with and draw pleasure from. Mulvey argues for the development of a new film industry that can deliver an alternative to the dominant patriarchal view but also acknowledges that such alternative films can only exist as counterpoint. This is because patriarchy and the “male gaze” are deeply entrenched within American society and therefore desirable change must arrive socially and culturally if there is to be a break with the past. Non-fiction. 13 pages.

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DETAILS:

Title: Visual pleasure and narrative cinema

Journal: Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3, Autumn 1975, Pages 6-18

Year: 1975

Author: Laura Mulvey

Pages: 13

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Book review by Keith Salter