Feminist investigation of the image of women in mainstream Hollywood films argues that the discursive image of women projected on-screen is internalized by society. Mostly feminist theorization of women in films rests on the image shown of the women in the narration. However, Mulvey’s theorization of psychoanalysis rests on the image of women and theory of “visual pleasure” created through the male gaze. Mulvey uses psychoanalysis theory to show “the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form.” (833) Consequently, patriarchal influence on films ensures visual pleasure for the male spectators. In other words, films are enjoyable because of “the pleasure of looking” or using Freud’s terminology, “scopophilia” (Mulvey 834-5).
Therefore, the women we see on screen are basically what the male protagonists in the movies believe them to be. Female characters are objectified through the male gaze and then projected on a screen for the viewers. This trend remains unchanged even in movies based on strong female protagonists as the primary character (for example femme fatale movies). The movies allow us to see the female characters through male gaze, thus providing a biased, masculine perspective of the female characters. Hence, men in the movies judge the female characters and that is what is captured in the films.
I argue that the male protagonists in movies primarily based on the femme fatales are just the vehicle to establish the supremacy of the less-than-powerful heroes representing patriarchy over the dominant women characters who are nothing but objects of “visual pleasure” and male gaze. The male gaze is actually the male point of view and films project this male view. However, if the gaze can be reversed or made neutral this would create a completely different film. Thus, if the patriarchal control over cinema can be revealed, avenues to create a new form of cinema automatically open.
The theory of patriarchal control of cinema and the “male gaze” presented by Mulvey is largely dependent on the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Jacques Lacan. Many critics consider this return ironic. Mulvey uses “gaze” as a tool to look at the “male pleasure” in mainstream narrative cinema. However, Mulvey follows Lacan and accepts that the gaze is an innate form of subjectivity of the humans than the patriarchy. Though, the patriarchal subjectivity of the gaze is a very powerful tool, it is only a secondary manifestation of the cultural media. Thus, with the help of Lacan’s theory, Mulvey explains the difference between the “symbolic” and the “imaginary” and demonstrates the power of the eye, the visual nature of the “agency”, and the concept behind “spectatorship” (Manlove 84).
Mulvey’s theory of visual pleasure and her feminist deconstruction of mainstream narrative cinema have been influenced by many academic disciplines. The two concepts that widely define Mulvey’s present study, namely the “gaze” and “visual pleasure” have been applied in many multidisciplinary studies. Further, the theory draws from both western and non-western philosophers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Plato, Aristotle, Bhaba, etc. (Manlove 84).
The interdisciplinary application of the gaze theory usually demonstrates the hierarchical relationship between a group of people and an “object.” Usually studies into other cultural areas strive to understand the following: “”white” and “black” gazes, the “tourist” gaze, heterosexual and homosexual gazes, the “imperial” gaze, the “transatlantic” gaze, the “animal” gaze, and the “meta-fictional” gaze, to name but a few.” (Manlove 84) All these studies point out that the gaze indicates objectification from the point of the viewer.
For example, when we talk of the “white” gaze it shows what the “white” people perceive when they see a particular object. In our analysis, we study the male gaze objectifies a female protagonist in films and try to understand the result of the objectification on viewers.
Even though the theory has found acceptance in other cultural studies, application of Mulvey’s theory in film studies is limited. Therefore, understanding Mulvey’s theory and using it for analysis of the visual pleasure demonstrated in mainstream narrative cinema is important. In this paper, I will discuss three film sequences from Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Body of Evidence, using Mulvey’s theory as a model to prove how the theory of “visual pleasure” creates the genre of cinematic femme fatale and the masochistic gaze over the physical presence of these female protagonists on-screen.
These three films are exemplary films as they typically represent three female protagonists who are overtly dominant and control the male counterparts, otherwise termed as femme fatale. However, the representation of women in the film and objectification of their body can easily be explained using Mulvey’s theory of visual pleasure and gaze even with the presence of masochistic underpinnings present in the movies. In femme fatale films, the male protagonists are male point-of-view that judges the female characters and are used to establish the supremacy of the masculine characters, which represent patriarchy. Thus, the dominant female characters become objects of “visual pleasure” and male gaze.
In these films about femme fatale, the female body is a source of the greatest fetish, and the beauty of the women becomes an object. These films typify women as a symbol of sexuality. She is objectified as the perfect product, possessing beauty and glamour, to satisfy the male gaze. These films offer voyeuristic and sadistic pleasure for watching the female protagonists on-screen, objectified as a sexual icon, and directly giving pleasure to the male libido.
However, these films objectify the female figure as the shadow of the superior male protagonist is cocooned within the ideological correctness. The femme fatale is engaged in unlawful activities, while the male protagonist is the righteous upholder of law. These films relate the stories through the point of view of the male protagonists, allowing the spectators to identify with the male protagonist and making them “share his uneasy gaze” (Mulvey 841). Thus, spectators enjoy the visual pleasure of watching the femme fatale on the screen through the male protagonist. This paper discusses how these voyeuristic pleasures in the films about femme fatale mimics the theory presented by Mulvey about visual pleasure in cinema.
Mulvey’s theory of “Visual Pleasure”
Mulvey’s thesis rests on her argument that “visual pleasure” is embedded in the gaze within narrative cinema that allows (male) viewers to identify with the hero (male) in the cinema. The theory of “visual pleasure” described by Mulvey in her essay is based on Freud’s theory of sexuality. Freud contends, “scopophilia” as the primary instinct that drives sexuality is independent of the “erotogenic zones” implying, that the sexuality derived from the “pleasure of looking” is not related to the physical areas of heightened sensitivity (835). Freud believed that by objectifying other people though “curious” and “controlling” gaze contributed to scopophilia (835).
In other words, the “curious gaze” creates the perception of the object. The aim is to derive sexual pleasure through sight by employing “curious gaze” over the object. Thus, according to Mulvey, scopophilia helps control the “curious gaze” that objectifies other people (835). Freud’s study was originally based on children and their inherent curiosity about genital and bodily functions. Though Freud suggests that the gaze is associated with pre-oedipal stage observed among children, Mulvey extends the theory to the voyeuristic elements presented in narrative cinema. Thus, the argument rests on the viewer’s propensity to derive desire from unseen actions that unfold before us in a film.
The second source of “pleasure,” according to Mulvey, is from “scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect” (836). The pleasure that an infant derives from looking at itself in the mirror is the first sign of pleasure derived from watching. The infant perceives the image in the mirror as more real and perfect than its own body. Thus, the infant recognizes the image but also believes that the image is superior to its real self. This “mirror-image” escalates to form the child’s ego.
Lacan believes that idealization of the mirror image occurs in the pre-oedipal stage and therefore, precedes language. Mulvey argues that as the infant watches the mirror, it identifies its image as a superior creation than him, as he is not yet aware of the “self”. This results in a loss of ego, and identifies with the mirror image as the real self. This process of forgetting the self to identify with the image projected in the mirror, which shows a larger than life image of the self, is replicated in films.
Mulvey identifies the underlying tension presented by these two visual pleasures (837). Scopophilia implies that the self and the image of the other must be separated in order to create an object of sexual interest or pleasure. The narcissistic pleasure derived from watching the mirror arises from the pleasure of watching the mirror image of the other superior being and ultimately identifying with the image.
In films, Mulvey argues, the spectators identify with the male figure of the hero on-screen and therefore, through his gaze, separate the “erotic identity of the subject from the object on the screen (active scopophilia)” (837). As this identification takes place in the pre-oedipal stage, there is always a fear of “castration”: “Desire, born with language, allows the possibility of transcending the instinctual and the imaginary, but its point of reference continually returns to the traumatic moment of its birth: the castration complex.” (Mulvey 837) Presence of a woman on-screen crystalizes the threatening aspect of the pleasurable form (837).
This brings us to the portrayal of women in the films as an object for the “male gaze.” The “male gaze” in cinema is designed in such a way that it can be identified with the male fantasy. Mulvey argues that the women are displayed “as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to striptease… she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire” (837). This idea is present in all mainstream narrative films.
Presence of women on screen is important as it provides an “element of spectacle” within the narrative of the film. Though her physical presence is essential to enhance the spectacular image of the film, her visual presence often tends to become an obstacle to the “development of a story line” that restricts the “flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 237).
Mulvey states that the presence of women on-screen has served two purposes – first to serve as an erotic object for the main character or hero in the film and second, to serve as an erotic object for the viewers of the film (838). For instance, a showgirl shown in the movie unifies the two gazes. Therefore, the female protagonist acts within the storyline without disturbing the narrative or challenging the male gaze. Thus, the image of the woman on-screen becomes a zone outside the narrative structure of the film. Thus, this infuses a different level of eroticism within the narrative structure.
Narrative films create male and female characters differently. The male character becomes the ideal that one observes in the mirror while the woman is the “icon,” an object for the male characters and the spectators (Mulvey 840). The woman on screen is “isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualized” which changes to transform her as the secondary to the male protagonist delivered to the spectator through the power of the male gaze (840).
In most cinemas, the woman’s iconic image transforms to a lovelorn image that rotates around the larger than life image of the male protagonist. However, in “fetishistic scopophilia, builds up the physical beauty of the object” and then voyeuristic pleasure is associated with sadism that determines “pleasure” that “lies in ascertaining guilt (immediately associated with castration), asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness” (Mulvey 840). Thus, sadism is used in the film narrative as a tool to force a change within the female object through a “battle of will and strength” wherein the female is shown to succumb to the male prowess and accept “defeat” (840).
“Visual Pleasure” in Hollywood depiction of Femme Fatales
This paper studies three iconic movies about femme fatale as depicted in the Hollywood mainstream narrative. In the three femme fatale movies analyzed in this paper, an undeniable connection can be established between the three. All the women are obsessed with their sexuality and are found on the wrong side of the law. Alex Forrest, in Fatal Attraction (1987), shown as the mistress of a married lawyer and colleague, ends up deranged and murderous (Fatal Attraction).
In Basic Instinct (1992), Nick Curran, the main detective consciously places himself in the same situation as his murder victim and he is shown tied up to the bed poster by the seductive femme fatale, he believes to be the murderer (Basic Instinct). In the Body of Evidence (1993), Frank Dunley, a lawyer hired to defend a woman accused of murdering her lover, unwittingly falls for her charms and continues to doubt her innocence (Body of Evidence).
In all the three movies the female protagonists are iconic in terms of their depiction on-screen, their overt expression of uninhibited sexuality, and their dominance over the male protagonist. However, in the end the greedy, unholy, murderous, seductress femme fatales always are brought to justice by death, marriage, or incarceration (except in Basic Instinct where the female protagonist avoids any of the three).
The femme fatale genre of Hollywood movies is believed to pose a difficulty for feminist critique of the films as they reverse the gender roles presented by the feminist film theorists like Mulvey. However, I believe the role reversal is just another way of objectification of a specific type of female who are stereotyped in classic noir films as beautiful and manipulative, cold and calculating, and one who is overtly aware of her feminine beauty and uses it to coldly manipulate the male protagonist. The femme fatales in the Hollywood films are usually beautiful and charming, self-assured and in control. This is what attracts the male protagonists towards them.
However, in all these films, in the end, the female protagonists are shown as mentally disturbed, murderous, paranoiac, and culpable. They end up playing the villains antagonizing the innocuous and passive hero. The female character is projected as the evil counterpart who deserves punishment. My analysis of three sequences from Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Body of Evidence show women as the oversexed, manipulative creature that uses feminine charm to seduce the hero but their sexuality is dominated by the greater masculine power of the hero. Feminist argument lay in the objectification of the female body through the male gaze.
Some believe the genre of femme fatale in mainstream cinema deviates from this stressed victimization and masochism of female protagonists under the male gaze. However, the genre of the femme fatales is no different from the victimization theory developed by the feminist theories. The theory of visual pleasure and male gaze presented by Mulvey can very clearly analyze the degree of objectification of the female figures in these movies, which depict them in a stereotypical genre to satisfy the egotistical male gaze that accentuates the male fear of castration. This fear ultimately creates the victimized heroes, who in spite of their senses become prey to the seduction of these evil women.
The passivity of women is reversed to show overtly sexual, iconic female figures that use their feminine charm to satisfy their sadistic desire, which is narrated from the hero’s perspective. The overt victim is the hero who is righteous but falls prey to the female manipulation. As Mulvey pointed out, these female characters are essentially creations of the male gaze, figment of the male imagination.
The female protagonist in the three movies is seductive murderer. In Fatal Attraction, the female femme fatale, Alex Forrest is woman who seduces a married man, Dan, and when the latter ended the affair, she looses control and attacks his family and wife. At the beginning of the movie, the male protagonist, Dan is captivated by Alex and her “look”. Dan is shown as a victim of Alex’s glance. When the affair between Dan and Alex is over, she refuses to leave him alone. She becomes increasingly obsessive and intrusive, which takes a dangerous turn when she starts showing her violent streak. Blinded in her obsession, Alex continually tries to physically damage to Dan and his family.
Thus, Alex is the quintessential femme fatale – seductive and murderous. Similarly, Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct is seductive, manipulative, yet fearsome femme fatale who lures men for sexual gratification and expends with them when her need subsides. The focus of the movie is the interrogation scene, a classic example of objectification of the female body under the primacy of the male gaze.
Catharine Tramell is summoned for interrogation in the police station; she is put at the stand with a team of all-male police detectives to question her. But the sequence projects Catherine as a cool, seductive, and fearless woman, who intentionally crosses and uncrosses her legs to show her vagina in order to render the detectives speechless. Catherine, under the scrutiny of the male detectives, and especially, Nick who believes in her guilt, become a victim of the male gaze. The visual pleasure derived by the male characters and Nick is clear as they enjoy the dominating show of sexuality by Catharine.
They are attracted to her because of her self-assured sexuality. The male gaze of the spectators too assume the identity of the male characters and see Catharine as a beautiful sexual being who is definitely menacing, but need to be tamed to create male supremacy.
Similarly, in Body of Evidence, Rebecca Carlson is charged of murdering her lover using her body as a weapon. She is shown as a manipulative femme fatale who seduces her attorney to believe in her innocence only to reveal in the end her evil nature. Rebecca is again the portrayal of female sexuality and her obsession with male dominance through her animalistic sexual instincts. She seduces men and manipulates them to help her reach her goal. She to is dangerous to the patriarchal male world, like Alex in Fatal Attraction and Catharine in Basic Instinct.
In all the three movies the primary aim of the male protagonists, who are righteous victims of the female charm, is to control the dangerous femme fatales. In the movies, the male protagonists constantly try to gain control over the female characters. Mulvey points out that the presence of women on screen is enough to project the sexual difference around which the idea of visual pleasure and male gaze can be theorized (840).
Hence, the sexual difference that the sole presence of a woman on screen signifies “the absence of the penis as visually ascertainable, the material evidence on which is based the castration complex essential for the organization to the symbolic order and the law of he father.” (Mulvey 840) The aggressive and dominating presence of the femme fatale is a digression from the subjugation of stereotypical submissive women in classical films. Though the creation of the femme fatale can be a backlash of the Hollywood patriarchal production to the feminist criticism, they fail to become the figure of resistance.
However, the female protagonists in these type of movies place women outside the stereotypical depiction of women presented in the other classical narrative films, they created a separate genre of women who are typified as “desirable but dangerous” (Hanson 216). The femme fatales are stereotypical characters that are both repressed by the patriarchy, who constantly brand them as evil and malicious, and transcend the boundaries of the general film narrative to become a part of the male fantasy.
The development of the strong, independent, female characters enhance the sociocultural anxiety creating a tension for the male gaze. The women are not subverted to the male position. Instead, they become the dominating presence, engulfing the male attention. However, the subversion of these female characters comes through the presence of male gaze. These femme fatales are always narrated through the male gaze present on screen and usually the hero on the right side of the law, who sees the real, malicious nature of the woman. Thus, the woman’s character is not only presented as a stand-alone icon, but becomes the figment of the male fantasy (when she is the seductress) and male judgment (when she is the murderess).
The dominant women on screen accentuate the endemic male fear of castration. They become the symbol of the bearers of the wound caused by the lack of penis/phallus. Thus, the stress of these movies becomes the identification of the male spectators with the masochistic identification of the femme fatale and the object of male desire. The male spectators identify with the male protagonist’s controlling look depicted in these films. Mulvey points out, “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly” (337).
Objectification and submission of women continually on screen is reversed in these films wherein the controlling male gaze gains the upper hand. The spectators choose either the passive masochistic view or the dominating male gaze that controls the narrative, but feel castrated.
Fatal Attraction perfectly shows the castration anxiety of men that becomes the central argument of Mulvey’s psychoanalytic theory. Mulvey believes that the “The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the re-enactment of the original trauma … or else complete disavowal of castration by substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous” (339).
Forrest, with her seduction and charm, evokes that fear of castration in Dan, but he is able to investigate her, as suggested by Mulvey and demystify her charm as dangerous and deranged. Dan breaks into Alex’s apartment with the intention to understand her obsession and after going through her medicines, proclaims that she is “sick” as a male sanction for her mental imbalance and dominance (Fatal Attraction).
However, her dominance is just a projection of her sickness and hence she had to be fatally punished for her obsessive behavior and sufferings caused to his family. The film is a male projection of female dominance and independence as unnatural enforced by the castration fear embedded in the male gaze. Thus, when the spectators watches a “sick” deranged femme fatale destroying a “normal” family, they identify with the victimized male protagonist, who actually controls the events, and eventually punished the woman who threatened his male ego. The movie is a man’s film as it depicts a brilliant professional going mad in passion for a man with little accomplishments. Despite the presence of two strong female characters in the film – the mistress and the wife – the movie essentially centers on the male protagonist.
Body of Evidence and Basic Instinct follow similar pattern, but the investigation is more ingrained within the legal structure. In Body of Evidence, Rebecca’s object of desire is unclear, though she is projected as a willful male-hunter. Rebecca, who is on trial for the murder of her lover, a rich, older man, was going to inherit a large property from him. She initiates an affair with her lawyer, Dulaney, when the trial is in progress. She introduces him to masochistic practices.
All other lovers that Rebecca has are old, rich, and have ailing hearts while Dulaney is young, healthy, and belongs to the middle-income class. The underlying assumption of the film is Rebecca’s desire for her other lovers is just an act to manipulate them to leave her their money, while her desire for the young male protagonist was real. However, it is only at the end of the movie it is revealed that Rebecca’s desire for Dulaney too was not real.
This is because she believed her expression of passion would aid in his defending her in court. Similarly, in Basic Instinct, Catharine, like Rebecca, is a suspect of a sex crime. She was alleged of murdering her rock star lover with an ice pick while making love. The police investigate her, and Catharine seduces the detective in charge of the investigation, Nick Curran. Nick falls for her trap even though he was initially convinced of her guilt.
The movie spins a complex tale of jilted love, murder, framing, and bisexuality. Catherine ultimately frames her psychiatrist, and one time lesbian partner, Garner, who is believed to be the real murderer. However, the film ends with nick and Catherine making love, but making no promise of happily ever after, as the camera moves under the bed where the ice pick lay hidden. This film epitomizes lesbian desire at the heart of the murder mystery and the heterosexuality as the path towards the main goal.
In all the three films, the women are demonstrated as independent and in charge of their sexual desire. A man’s sexual desire is always depicted, as a woman while that of the woman is plural. She can gain gratification from sexual relation with either a man or a woman (example, Catherine in Fatal Attraction) or through self-gratification or masturbation (Rebecca does in Body of Evidence).
Catherine’s desire for Garner (or vice versa) created all the tension in the film but the film ultimately tried to satisfy the male ego by explicitly showing the Catherine has belittled her relationship with Garner and leaving Roxy (her female partner) when Nick came along. Similarly, in Body of Evidence when Rebecca lies on the floor and masturbates, Dulaney is rooted to the ground unable to move, even though he had lost faith in her innocence and wanted to end their affair. Threatened by Rebecca’s sexual autonomy, he handcuffs her and forcibly penetrates her reinstating his male supremacy, which is the primary function of the patriarchal sexual discourse. Thus, in both the movies, the male protagonist establishes male ego by subverting the female sexual independence.
Conclusion
The act of penetration is used as a male tool to establish the patriarchal control over the independent female body. In Basic Instinct, Catherine almost teases the group of detectives with her seductive charm and beauty that leaves an anxiety and unease among the men in the room. However, when Nick ensues a relationship with Catherine, he establishes his male supremacy by engaging in penetration, that helped him ease his castration anxiety.
When Dulaney watches Rebecca masturbate, he is rendered helpless and his castration anxiety can be overcome only by establishing his supremacy by one way that patriarchy has taught him, that is by penetrating the female body. Similarly, in Fatal Attraction, the seductive harm and independence of Alex is too alluring and her professional independence creates a sense of female supremacy that the male ego of Dan is unable to control.
Thus, he lets himself be seduced and ensues an affair to establish the male ego. However, the twist in all the three movies is that they project women as independent and beyond the control of men. The men in the films believe that they are the objects of the female desire but in reality, they are mere puppets. The women in the films render the male protagonists castrated in their inability to control the female body and independence. However, it must be argued that the visual pleasure that Mulvey theorizes pertinently points out that the women, though independent, are ultimately viewed through the patriarchal lenses devised by the male protagonists.
The women are objectified not as submissive victims but rather the opposite – fiercely aggressive, independent, manipulative, and evil. Thus, by creating the other female side, that is undesirable by the patriarchy, these films create a stereotypical image of a woman who is independent and beyond male control. Male ego is shown to be sexually aggressive and nonconsensual emphasizing on the supremacy of the male ego that the male gaze identifies.
The male gaze and visual pleasure is established in the beginning of the films when the body of the femme fatale is objectified as the body of male desire. The male gaze, as Mulvey argues, is designed in accordance with male fantasy of the women, in this respect as independent and aggressive women who are essentially evil. The depiction of women as an object of male desire is evident in all the three movies as the female protagonists’ physical beauty and sex appeal is emphasized throughout the movies. These women, who apparently seem independent and indifferent to male gaze, are essentially creations of male fantasies.
They serve the purpose of erotic object for the male protagonist as well as the spectators. The female protagonists in these three films are isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualized” as described by Mulvey (840). It is in the enactment of the male fantasies, through the recreation of an object of male desire, that pose a threat to their masculinity but ultimately are dominated and controlled by the male protagonist, that the visual pleasure for the aggressive femme fatales are created. The femme fatale is the object of male fantasies. Due to the former’s aggressive masculine nature, these women are considered threats to the male masculinity. Therefore, they are finally labeled evil or deranged by the patriarchy.
The films make the female viewers feel being scrutinized and judged by the ever-present “male gaze”. These films provide three characters of the femme fatale – they are overtly sexual and in control of their sexuality, they are murderous, and in the end must succumb to the male virility. These films make one feel that even when women are strong and in control, they are objects of male gaze or dominance. Further, discourse of femme fatale shows women of strength as unfit for society as they control, manipulate, and destroy families and lives. These movies actually endorse the patriarchal construction of women as passive partners.
Confidence and overt sexuality corrupt the concept of women creating monsters. Femme fatale movies endorse this patriarchal discourse. Women become object of male gaze in the films and that idea of the woman is projected on screen for the viewers. Thus, these films epitomize the objectification of women through the controlling male gaze that endorse and propagate the patriarchal concept of femininity.
Works Cited
Basic Instinct. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. Perf. Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas. TriStar Picture, 1992. DVD.
Body of Evidence. Dir. Uli Edel. Perf. Madonna and Willem Dafoe. Paramount PIcture, 1993. DVD.
Fatal Attraction. Dir. Adrian Lyne. Perf. Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. Dino De Laurentis Company, 1987. DVD.
Hanson, Helen. “The Big Seduction: Feminist Film Criticsm and the Femme Fatale.” The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts. Ed. Hanson, H. and C. O’Rawe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 214-227. Print.
Manlove, Clifford T. “Visual Drive and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock, and Mulvey.” Cinema Journal 46.3 (2007): 83-108. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism : Introductory Readings. Ed. Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 833-44. Print.