Last Wednesday, during our group discussion we wrapped up talking about Laura Mulvey’s article, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In this oddly entertaining piece (let’s face it Freud and feminism always make a great combination), Mulvey argues that women in cinema serve only as scopophilic entities, objects from which men gain sexual stimulation through sight. Aside from this, the cinematic women, Mulvey claims, “[have] not the slightest importance” (203). Our T.A., Jim, asked us at the end of the discussion what our final thoughts were on this Freudian-feminist author, to which I responded, She’s nuts as hell. Care to qualify that? Jim responded lightheartedly. I laughed: at the time, I couldn’t.
And I still can’t. It was true; at the time I thought she was crazy. Women don’t just represent male desires. What about Angelina Jolie in Wanted (2008, Timur Bekmambetov), Uma Thurman in Kill Bill (2003, Quentin Tarantino), or Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta (2005, James McTeigue)? Each is sexy, smart, independent, and kicks ass! They are attractive, yes, but they are also strong-willed and capable. I thought Mulvey must have been at least a little bit full of it.
Then it hit me: times have
changed… a lot. The films Mulvey discussed were Alfred Hitchcock classics such as Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958). Looking at these, Mulvey is completely justified in her views.
Each of the films opens with the leading male in some state of physical emasculation. In Rear Window, we meet Jeffries (James Stewart) in a full lower-body cast, unable to walk or perform his previously adventurous job as a photographer. His accident has left him feeling powerless and dependent on his nurse caretaker, Stella (Thelma Ritter). Similarly, we find Scottie (also James Stewart) in a back brace, suffering from vertigo, unable to continue his job as a policeman—a job which traditionally represents power and strength. In both cases, the leading man is not feeling his manliest. But never fear: this is where the women come in.
Each of James Stewart’s characters has a female counterpart. In Rear Window, his partner in crime is the lovely Lisa Freemont (Grace Kelly). Jeffries, confined to his chair, has been driven to watch out his rear window, following the lives of his neighbors for entertainment. Lisa is his “love interest”, though this term is used very loosely in the film’s opening. Jefferies initially shows very little response to Lisa’s sexual advances, and instead focuses on the lives he is watching. The point at which Jeffries finally begins to pay attention to her is when she becomes involved in his scheme to investigate his potentially murderous neighbor. This increase in his interest coincides with Lisa’s transition from the traditional “passive role” (as Mulvey calls it) that women play to a more active one. However, her actions are not depicted as her own. She is not a free-acting female out to corner crime single-handedly. On the contrary, Hitchcock films the investigation scenes in such a way that it appears that Lisa is just a puppet for Jeffries. She is following his every wish and whim, as Jeffries watches her through binoculars, and as such, becomes not a person, but rather a tool through which Jeffries can regain his masculinity.
In Vertigo the use of women as tools for men is even more apparent. After watching his love interest, Madeline Ester (Kim Novak) hurl herself off of a church steeple, Scottie becomes transfixed on Judy Barton (Kim Novak), a woman who looks mysteriously like the suicidal blonde. Judy becomes so much of a moldable tool for Scottie’s pleasure that she actually allows him to dress her, change her hair and even her mannerisms in order to better suite his desires. Scottie does this in order to be able to recreate the circumstances under which Madeline died, but this time, overcome his acrophobia and save the girl he has built in his love’s image, thus saving and preserving his lost masculinity. In this case, Judy plays no greater role than to fulfill Scottie’s fantasy as the “perfect image of female beauty and mystery” (207).
In each of these films, the main women characters contribute little to the movie in terms of independence and ability to move the plot forward by their own will. Instead, they allow the leading men to realize their full, masculine abilities, while looking exceptionally good (which, let’s be honest, is apparently pretty important to Hitchcock). So while I really wanted to continue on thinking that Laura Mulvey was way off in claiming that women in cinema are only present for male entertainment, I have to say that she is right, at least with respect to the films of her time.
But what about today? Are the beautiful women on screens really here just for the sexual male gaze, or have we as a society progressed to a point where women can be both beautiful and meaningful? Let me know what you think.
