Stewart's Study Log

Thursday, 4 August 2011

Project 20: Gendering the Gaze (Laura Mulvey)

Project 20: Gendering the Gaze (Laura Mulvey)

How would I explain the Gaze? The Gaze would be the practice of looking which form a system of relationships; then a gaze would a singular instance. The gaze, the act of conscious looking, is given a gendered difference which Laura Mulvey illustrates in the conventions of the cinema.

This has to been one of the projects I have enjoyed the most and have taken very detailed notes of the set text and supplementary ones so I will only try and some up a few key areas that I focused on. I don’t want to go off on a tangent.

Nature of this project was to consider the concept of the gaze in relation to the article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) by Laura Mulvey. The article critiques classical Hollywood cinema in that it is patriarchal in the structure of its form and thus centred towards male viewing pleasure; the male gaze. Ultimately, the spectator is gendered as a heterosexual male or is looking from a masculine gender perspective.

The article is from a broadly feminist perspective and uses psychoanalysis as a discourse for classical Hollywood cinema. This project has links to OCA project two (‘Fetishising the object of the eye’), project seventeen (‘Freud, Oedipus and castration) and project eighteen (‘the mirror phase’) because Mulvey directly addresses some of the concepts they explore.

Mulvey argues that it is through the cinema offers two types of pleasure: voyeurism and narcissism. These are both integrated into the image and narrative through structures. Voyeuristic visual pleasure is produced by looking at another our object. This is usually through the female form and is usually done for the audience through the objectifying gaze of his male on-screen surrogate, the male protagonist; this self-identification constitutes as the narcissistic visual pleasure.

In consideration of Freudian psychoanalysis, the lack of a penis renders the female characters as fearful; which allows for their punishment within the diegesis. Women within film, because of the gaze, become passive of objects of desire. On the other hand, the fetishisation (i.e. repeated close-ups – fragments – of a particular part of a woman) of a female character deflects attention away from the lack and this pacifies the castration anxiety; especially of the audience.

Not only cinema that genders the gaze. It seems through the majority of art history that the gaze has been assumed to be that of male. In a patriarchal society this is not surprising but has lead to many conventional modes of representation that tend to go unremarked, for example the female nude. Does the possession of one signify ones ownership of her?

Task One: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1958)

This is a summary of the notes I took when watching Vertigo.

Vertigo does stand up to Mulvey’s analysis of it. Voyeurism is embedded in the structure of Vertigo; Scottie falls in a love with a woman that is under his surveillance. When Judy is reconstructed as Madeline and becomes a fetish, she is eventually punished for her treatment of Scottie.

The Male Gaze is rendered natural – almost invisible – through the deigesis and verisimilitude of the film. Self-identification with the ideal ego is confirmed by the use of the subjective camera; the narrative is centred on what Scottie sees, or miss-sees. The audience – through the employment of the Male Gaze – is thus implicated in Scottie’s obsession through the use of point-of-view.

Not only is sadistic voyeurism a matter for Scottie within the diegesis, we as audience members are also implicated in it through self-identification.

Task Two: ‘How does the portrayal of R&B music in video match up to Mulvey’s insight?’

From watching several R&B music videos it is clear that some of them almost celebrate the Male Gaze. Women are objectified by the males within the video and thus act as surrogates for audience self-identification. This is also the case for female acts; through exhibitionism they offer themselves as spectacle.

It is interesting to note that in some of the Hip-Hop videos the female body is fragmented in close-ups; causing fetishisation. This then disavows the castration anxiety of the male gendered audience.

Task Three: Manet’s Olmypia

Manet, E. 1863. Olympia [Painting]. Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France.

Although the image is geared towards a male viewer, the male ownership of the artwork could suggest the physical possession of the female nude. The woman is defiant though, her non-passive direct stare at the spectator challenges the male gaze.

The social context of the painting is represented by the second figure within the painting. The servant’s eyes are cast down. She is denied the power of the gaze and is subservient to her mistress.

Further Reading

Bellour, R. (1979). Hitchcock the enunciator. Camera Obscura. 2 (1).

Doane, M. A. (1982). Film and the masquerade: theorizing the female spectator. In: Hollows, J., Hutchings, P. & Jancovich, M. (eds). (2000) The Film Studies Reader. London: Arnold, pp. 147-154.

Kaplan, A. E. (1983). The struggle for control over the female discourse and female sexuality in Welles’s Lady from Shanghai (1946). In: Women and Film. Both Sides of the Camera. London: Routledge, pp. 60-72.

Mulvey, L. (1999) Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ inspired by King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946). In: Thornham, S. (ed). Feminist Film Theory: a Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 122-130.

Mulvey, L. (1996) Fetishism and Curiosity. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Mulvey, L. (1989). The Oedipus myth: beyond the riddles of the Sphinx. In: Visual and Other Pleasures. Macmillan: London, pp. 177-201.

Further Screening

Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, The Selznick Studio/Vanguard Films, USA, 1946)

The Devil is a Woman (Josef von Sternberg, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1935)

Gilda (Charles Vidor, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1946)

The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, Columbia Pictures Corporation/Mercury Productions, USA 1946)

Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Pictures/Geoffrey Stanley, USA, 1964)

The Seven Year Itch (Billy Wilder, Charles K. Feldman Group, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, USA, 1955)

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions/Paramount Pictures, USA, 1958)

Reference List

Mulvey, L. (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In: Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual culture: a reader. (1999) London: Sage Publications pp. 381-389.

Bibliography

Andrew, D. (1984) Concepts in film theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

D’Alleva, A. (2005) Methods & theories of art history. London: Laurence King Publishing.

Cartwright, L., Sturken, M. (2001) Practices of looking: an introduction to visual culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cook, P. (ed.) (2007) The Cinema Book. (3^rd ed.) London: British Film Institute.

Creed, B. (1998) Film and Psychoanalysis. In: J. Hill & P. Church Gibson eds. Oxford guide to film studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Hayward, S. (1996) Cinema studies: the key concepts. Abingdon: Routledge.

Hollows, J. & Jancovich, M. (1995) Approaches to Popular Film. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Filmography

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1958)

Wednesday, 3 August 2011

Project 19: Looking, observation or surveillance? (Michel Foucault)

This project was to read to read chapter five from the course reader, Panopticism by Michel Foucault, and make notes from it. This is extracted from Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish (1977), about the criminal justice system and power, has been influential to post-structuralist and postmodern art theory thus having implications for visual culture. For example, from an online article, Shannon Leigh O’ Neil writes:

“What does the panoptic schema have to do with art? There are several applications for this concept: from the way we receive information in the Digital Age, to issues concerning individual rights in society, to the display / manipulation of images, to the ways museums are set up, and so on. Reality television, webcams, and digital cameras are more popular than ever, while traffic light surveillance and national identity cards are controversial threats to our privacy... what are we seeing and who is manipulating the images? Since the advent of photography, film, television, and other media, the voyeur is the third entity within the realm of the seer and the seen” (Leigh O’Neil, S.)

Harou-Romain, N. (1840) Plan for a Penitentiary. From: (1840) N.P. Project de Penitencier.

Foucault reconceptualised Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the panopticon so for Foucault panopticism becomes a metaphor. According to Foucault modern societies are structured around relationship between power and knowledge; power relations are structured to produce citizens who will actively participate in self-regulatory behaviour. The systems that are in place encourage us to self-regulate do so without any active threat of punishment makes us behaviour and conform; this is the nature of panopticism. It is not active surveillance that can affect behaviour, it is the structure of the surveillance itself, whether active or not, that produces conforming behaviour through an internalisation of the concept.

Task One: Video Artists and the Panopticism

As well as reading and making notes from Foucault’s Panopticism we have been asked to consider Foucault’s argument in regard to video artists. This was concerning the practice of using themselves as their subjects and this relationship to panopticism.

The example given was the video artist Lindsay Seers. After considering Seers work I can see a relation between the work of a video artist and the panopticism. The use of themselves as subjects could be seen as a representation of the power dynamic central to modern society: they are externally represented the internalised oversight which we enact in a self-regulatory manner. Ultimately, it is the imagined visible presence of an inspecting gaze that has the potential affect on our behaviour.

Personally, I would align this with the Freudian notion of the super-ego. More significantly I believe the artist becoming of the subject of his own artwork has a greater relationship with Lacan’s concept of the mirror phase.

Task Two: Looking, Observation and Surveillance

I was then asked find six images: two of which are the result of looking, two of observing and two of surveillance. I will be explaining the examples and be accrediting the images over the next few days.

Looking

‘Looking’ example one:
Still from Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, Paramount Pictures/Patron Inc., USA, 1954).


‘Looking’ example two: Weegee (1941) Their First Murder. [Gelatin Silver Print] Los Angeles: The John Paul Getty Museum.

The photograph, Their First Murder, emphasises the process of looking because it makes the observers of the murder – we do not see their subject – the subjects of the photograph. The photograph is macabre as it focuses on the crowd’s reaction to the dead body of the murder victim. Consequently, it leaves in the mind of the viewer questions of the sight in which the photographed spectators are witness too.

I’ve chosen the image form Rear Window as it a film about looking. Scopohilia is a theme in the film. The film progresses from looking, observation and surveillance into active participation.

Observation

‘Observation’ example one:

Muybridge, E. (1887) Plate 187 (Dancing, Fancy)

‘Observation’ example two:

Evans, W. (1938) Subway Passengers [Gelatin Silver Print] San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The image by Muybridge was chosen as it is an observation of a woman dancing. It’s sequential arrangement represents movement. The camera is objective.

The camera also takes an objective stance in Walker Evan’s Subway Passengers. The photographer is unseen so the subjects don not artificially pose for the camera; they are captured unaware.

Surveillance


‘Surveillance’ example one Olley J. (1988) Grosvenor Road RUC Police Station, Grosvenor Road, Central Belfast.

‘Surveillance’ example two:

Long, L. (1998) Compact from The Dating Surveillance Project. [Video Tape] San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Jonathan Olley’s Grosvenor Road RUC Police Station takes surveillance as its subject. The security camera is prevalent and thus, by turning the camera upon itself; become self-reflexive. This also reinforces the meaning created by this image being captured in Northern Ireland.

Lisa Long’s image concerns direct surveillance of one’s own actions.

Further Reading

Foucault, M. (1970) The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences, London: Routledge, pp78-92.

Tagg, J. (1987) Evidence, truth, and order: a means of surveillance. In: Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual culture: a reader. (1999) London: Sage Publications, pp. 244-273.