LAURA MULVEYS ESSAY.

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Laura Mulvey is a feminist film theorist and is best known for her essay on visual pleasure and narrative cinema. Mulvey is greatly known for her theory on the subject, sexual objectification on women in the field of media. It was more commonly known as the male gaze theory. being one of the most renowned film theorist in the world, her views and clear proof of misogyny in film opened up the eye of many. Mulvey's theory on the male gaze help identify issues with gender in the film industry. Mulvey's theory simply means that the male viewer is the target audience, there their needs pleasure are met first, which is basically known as visual pleasure. The essay is based on how women are portrayedNN in films and the media which is still prevalent and dominated in todays world. the idea brings in the thought of "men do the looking, and women are to be looked at". It is also where women in the media are viewed from the eyes of a man, and that women are represented as passive objects of male desire.

Motivation is a song sung by the American singer Normani. The video begins with young Normani watching a music video countdown show 106 and Park and she daydreams about getting the title 'number 1 video in the world'. As "motivation" starts playing in the background, the viewers are taken to be a transition of Normani from a young girl to a grown woman walking in the middle of the road. The song is particularly Normani addressing a man with whom she wants to have passionate bedroom fun. She is trying to motivate her man and not beg for his attention. The last scene in the song where Normani dances in the rain, her clothing, her dance steps and her angle of the camera for the particular scene proves that it was meant to arouse the one who watches the videos. However, the dance steos in the song are clearly noted to be hook steps that will bring visual pleasure to those who watch the video, and also that the male gaze is definitely present. 

According to Mulvey, the female cinematic figure is a paradoxical one. She combines attraction with the playing on deep fears of castration. The male subconscious has two ways of escaping his fear of castration. One is the demystifucation of the male figure is the dismantinling of her mysteries. The other way to escape fear of being castrated by the woman is trough the fetishization of her. Films, according to Mulvey, attempts to resolve the tension between being attracted to the woman and fearing her, and therefore they provided for the needs of the masculine form of desire.
Mulvey's "Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema" was criticized on one hand for reinforcing heterosexuality and on the other hand for assuming a passive, unnegotiating viewer. 

 

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