Spectatorship And The 'Male Gaze'.

Psychoanalysis Theory



Focuses on the oedipus complex, electra complex and phallic symbols.



Laura Mulvey- Visual Pleasure & Narrative cinema (1975)

• Women are seen as a sexual spectacle and objects of pleasure for characters and the audience.


• Men have the 'gaze' to avoid being castrated.


• Men fetishise women imbuing them with overvalued and unrealistic status fetishistic scopophillia.


• The 'gaze' is constructed through a camera man and a production team, establishing and framing a shot by the 'look' within the film of male characters objectifying females. Spectators gaze is thereby constructed through the mechanisms.

Flaws In The Psychoanalysis Theory:

• Anne Doone (1982) added, women have a marginal gaze within the film, just in patriarchal society.
• Suzanne Moore (1988) added, male body's are only on display in certain conditions- always in active poses as if they can walk away from the woman's gaze.
• Van Zoonen (1994) added, men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at.