Jacques Lacan brought into focus the psychoanalytical term “Gaze”, to refer to the state in which a mature unique subject sees an observation of his/ her own self in a mirror. In the mind of the subject, the uniqueness of their identity is explained by what they see on the mirror stage. The gaze is often distinguished by the viewer. Under this, we can categorize the gaze into the following; the spectator gaze, which refers to the spectator viewing the material in question, the intra-diegetic gaze, which involves two characters gazing at each other in a text or material, both of who are part of the material, the extra-diegetic gaze, which is where a textual character directly addresses the spectator or viewer and lastly the camera gaze which is explicitly the film director’s gaze in which case applies to film only, while the editorial gaze is purely based on emphasis given to textual aspects which direct the reader to a specific place or object in the text. We can classify gaze as being either direct or indirect on the basis of its source. It is direct if a subject demands to be gazed at and indirect if the spectator offers to gaze, in which case the spectator does willingly.
Laura Mulvey in her works ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, presents the male gaze as an aspect of power symmetry which has highly influenced feminist film theory and the media. According to her, the male gaze precedes the female gaze, where identifying a woman subjectively is faster than a woman subjectively identifying a male. Women are therefore classified as objects, with the woman viewer taking the man’s perspective when it comes to her own experience, for instance in a film.
While analyzing a female gaze, Laura argues that, when a woman viewer assumes the role of the man, she feels that the male cannot stand the idea of sexual objectification. According to her, “Man is reluctant to gaze”. The feminist view of the gaze holds that, man imposes a gaze upon a woman which sees her as an object. However, we can also argue that, the woman has also resigned to the norms- conformed to hegemonic norms, best set to satisfy the interests of men, making her a form for practiced exhibitionism (Sturken 155).
Lacan, in his argument, presents the gaze concept as a useful tool in monitoring psychological development in children. It is through looking at their images into the mirror that they are able to develop their physical movements; they hence learn how to coordinate these movements just for the image of themselves that they already have. This grows to the mature person developing the ideal-ego and the ego-ideal. The ideal-ego is what a person would like to be. These are the person’s aspirations which include one’s dreams of a later date which will give him/her an identifying image. On the other hand, the ego-ideal is an unrealistic gaze of a person gazing on the ideal-ego. A prominent public figure, for instance, would secretly wish their bully in elementary school is now aware of their great fame, exemplifying the ego-ideal concept. Lacan also argues that, the gaze belongs to the object of the gaze and not to the subject (Lacan 215).
A 1967 American comedy-drama, The Graduate film is based on the novel the Graduate by Charles Webb and is deemed to have cultural and aesthetic significance to America. “The Graduate” brings insight into gaze in various dimensions. It centers on the life of Benjamin who has graduated and is not sure of where he should go afterwards. He is very uncomfortable when friends and relatives probe this, during his graduation ceremony. He offers to take Mrs. Robinson home after the party. Mrs. Robinson is wife to Benjamin’s father business associate. The older woman seduces Benjamin but the husband arrives home in the ensuing antics. Benjamin arranges a rendezvous with the woman and an affair follows. He becomes a more confident man after this. As the film progresses, Benjamin’s parents are keen on making their son’s life productive, to which they arrange him to date Elaine who is Robinson’s daughter. Mrs. Robinson is strictly against the idea especially after the two youngsters fall in love. She exposes the affair they had and Mr. Robinson takes his daughter from Benjamin’s life to be married to Carl, someone Elaine had been dating before. On the wedding day, Benjamin rushes to stop the wedding in the hope of taking Elaine, with whom they seem to be so much in love. Though he is disadvantaged when his car runs out of gas and consequently has to sprint to get to the venue, he manages to find them just before the groom “kisses the bride”. Drama follows with Elaine recognizing him and abandoning her groom and the visitors. The two happily run and board a bus, although they both doubt if the decision was right after all (Milligan 1).
Subjectivity and hegemony are the main portrayals of gaze in this film. Benjamin’s and Elaine’s lives are purely directed by their parents. That is why the parents willfully choose them for each other, and again disprove their union, demonstrated in Elaine’s father disapproving their marriage.
Mrs. Robinson’s marriage was as a result of her pregnancy which has made her a disillusioned and dissatisfied woman who then seeks pleasure in life regardless of the moral implications. She interferes with Benjamin’s life, by seducing and threatening to tell the truth. Eventually, she blows up the story but that does not in any way alter Benjamin’s goals of.
Elaine’s life is an effect of other people’s decisions. She is first hurt by Benjamin’s meanness on their first date, just because the later was doing it to please his parents. She then has to drop out of school to marry Carl because her father had decided that she should do so. She eventually follows Benjamin without knowing their next plan of action.
In conclusion, Mrs. Robinson’s acts of seducing Benjamin exemplify scopophilic instincts- the male viewer sees her antics, like pictures of her bare chest, as a source of pleasure and hence an erotic object, something that makes Benjamin want to see her at night and ‘launch’ by the pool during the day (Laura 9).The male ego is not bruised in the film, they have their goals met; sympathy goes to the women. For a female viewer to enjoy this film, she has to be in the shoes of the male viewer.
Works Cited
Lacan, Jacques. Seminar One: Freud’s Papers on Technique. 1988. Web.
Laura, Mulvey. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. 1975. Web.
Milligan, Kyle. “The Graduate”. The Internet Movie Database 1999. Web.
Sturken, Marita. Cartwright, Lisa. “Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture”. 2009. New York and London: Oxford University Press.