Triangulation

Yesterday we were given 3 texts and asked to read one of them then as a group determine what was the common theme between them and how they relate to each other. We determined that the text 'Visual Pleasure and  Narrative Cinema' by Laura Mulvey was the primary text as it contained the most information about the common theme and it was referred back to in both the other texts. Laura Mulvey is a Cine-psychoanalyst, film theorist and feminist who is currently professor of film and media studies at Birbeck, university of London. This text in an analysis of the representation of gender in film. Mulvey addresses the ideas of phalocentism (the privileging of the masculine (phallus) in the construction of meaning), scopophilia ( sexual pleasure derived from looking at erotic objects), objectification (the act of treating a person, or sometimes an animal,
as an object or a thing), narcissism (the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes) and exhibitionism (behavior that is meant to attract attention to yourself). Mulvey proposes that women are always portrayed in film as passive because films are aimed at young straight men and an active female character would be emasculating. Mulvey believes the current structure of cinema should be torn down and replaced with a feminist avante-garde cinema. Mulvey obviously feels very strongly about her theories and analysis of gender roles within film and the cultural implications of this.

John Storeys text 'Cultural Theory and Popular culture' is in support of Laura Mulveys theroies and analysis. John Storey is a cultural studies theorist and professor at the University of Sunderland. in his text storey talks about the male gaze and how in film we are lead to view the world and women specifically from a heterosexual males point of view. he talks about the pleasure of sexual cinema needing to be destroyed which ties in to mulvey's idea of a feminist avante-garde cinema. Storey also talks about scopophilia and women being presented as sexual objects in film from the viewpoint of the male character. The male characters are meant to appear as idealised version of ourselves ( if you are a heterosexual male), the women are desirable and portrayed as sexual objects inviting the male viewer to put them selves in the place of the male lead character and to objectify women in the same way.

Richard Dyer is a Film studies professor at Kings College London specialising in cinema, queer theory and the relationship between race, sexuality and gender. Dyer's paper 'Stars and Audiences' is an analuysis of spectatorship theory addressing life mimicking film and how people identify with 'stars'. Dyer seems to have the least emotional investment in the subject, he references a large number of sources compared to the other texts and tries to put forward counter arguments to aspects of the theory and its research. Dyer addresses possible flaws in Mulvey's theories such as narrative film often including views of male characters bodies and looks between male characters. He then goes on to provide additional analysis of this from another source that says looks between male characters are purposely made threatening or aggressive to remove any possibility of them being interpreted as erotic. Dyer is approaching the subject from a different perspective incorporating queer theory which breaks down the simple male, female boundary. The text also addresses the direct effects of 'stars' on the spectator. Spectators mimic the characters they see in films whether it be pretending to them as children or trying to look and dress like them as adults. Dyer looks at the positive and negative aspects of this. He addresses the work of Jackie Stacey who argues that women are left in a "contradictory discourse" as the styles from movies where based on being an object of male desire but that they offered an escape from the material difficulties of women in Britain at the time. I don't think the latter is in any way a justification for the former but it does highlight the attempts by Richard dyer to produce a balanced perspective.