Both Coward's 'The Look' and Mulvey's 'Visual Pleasure' essays highlight the importance the camera has on the gaze at women in the Media. The gaze predominantly caters to men, and is enhanced through films, photography, advertising and most forms of visual media cementing the idea that 'men's scrutiny of women is just part of the natural order' (Coward). Whereas Coward investigates the effects this has on women in society Mulvey chooses to focus more on the nature of how it is executed.
Both argue that the power of this male gaze and it's lack of retaliation, as women have an 'inability to return such a critical and aggressive look' (Coward), causes women to be seen as passive and subordinate. Coward goes further to suggest that this has a powerful effect on women which, whether consciously or unconsciously, creates an anxiety in them and therefore a willingness to conform towards striving to become the unrealistic images presented. The sexualisation of women, which reinforces an acceptance in society to voyeuristically view women as objects, is enhanced through the media and can be controlled through choices of camera work.
Mulvey points out that in a film the 'conventional close-ups of legs or a face' of a woman give the narrative eroticism. She argues that 'one part of a fragmented body destroys the illusion of depth' and 'gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon'. This is a technique used quite frequently in films, by introducing a female character through close-ups of her body the film is inviting, and somewhat forcing, the audience to view her as a cut-out instead of a character. For example this is seen in quite a few 'action' films, where the lead is a strong male character and the female's only roll is as the 'eye candy' to be gazed at by the viewer. Any guilt the viewer may feel for watching her, perverse or otherwise, is minimised by the fact the protagonist (and usually male character) of the film is also being a voyeur. The female character offers little to the film other than to enhance the male characters narrative, as put by Budd Boetticher: 'What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance'. These techniques highlight an underlining theme that is pressed upon women, which is that their worth is directly connected to their aesthetic.
This is obviously something which concerns Coward who argues against the suggestion that women are naturally vain and identify with this kind of imagery. Instead she draws attention to the growing discontent woman have in themselves 'in the pursuit of 'the feminine ideal ' - exemplified by voluptuous film stars and skinny fashion models'. The media which enhances these views, whether knowingly or not, is an incredibly powerful thing and as both texts discuss, the gaze it supports has the ability to effect how we view others as well as ourselves.
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| Lecture Notes |
Coward, R., The Look, in Thomas, J. (ed) (2000), Reading Images, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema cited In Badmington, N. and Tomas, J (eds) (2008) The Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, London and New York,
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