Laura Mulvey-Feminism Theory

Feminism

Feminism theorists

Laura Mulvey created the term ‘Male Gaze’, in 1975; which means that a film audience are to ‘view’ characters, from the perspective of a heterosexual male. The camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and the events that happen to the female character are represented from a males view to these events. The female characters are portrayed as objects, this is obviously very voyeuristic.

Mulvey theorised that the original Hollywood movies were created solely to provide men with visual pleasure and erotic impact. The typical male audience are normally aligned with the films protagonist/hero. The audience gains pleasure from identifying themselves with the films protagonist/hero. If the female character is not seen in a lower position of power or authority, a male would not feel as powerful; he may even think this unconsciously. The Unconscious idea is that a man’s power and dominance over a character is his penis. And dominance is threatened if not aroused.

Movie clip-analysis

In the movie Cabin in the Woods, the five characters, the Sportsmen, the Scholar, the idiot, the bimbo and the virgin all take part in a game of dare, the female bimbo character is dared to kiss the wolf. As she approaches it we see the camera slowly pan up her body, the camera slowly lingers over the curves of her body. We also see she is wearing tighter clothes, small hot pants.

Next we are looking at her, through the wolves’ point of view; this identifies us as a male audience. We also see her hair colour is blonde, and in many stereotypical horrors, there is always a dumb blonde. As the female character begins to kiss the wolf, she slows down and we linger on this scene. We then see some of the male characters watching her; this again identifies the audience as the male point of view.

In the story line for this movie, this character is portrayed as the stereotypical dumb blonde. And using characterization, she comes across as also quite a slut.

By Stuart Fuller