Summary
Mulvey begins her essay by establishing that she will be using psychoanalytic theory to analyze traditional Hollywood film, or narrative cinema. She notes that she has turned to psychoanalysis because it allows critics to see how the "unconscious of patriarchal society" has influenced representation on the screen (1). Mulvey therefore wants to use psychoanalysis for political ends, to contribute to feminist discourse on art and film specifically.
As the essay continues, Mulvey asserts that her intentions are to "destroy" pleasure and beauty in the traditional sense by interrogating whose pleasure and beauty, exactly, appear in film (805). She then goes on to determine two facets of psychoanalysis that speak to the generation of pleasure while watching a movie. Highlighting Freud's notion of scopophilia—the pleasure in looking—Mulvey argues that narrative film allows audiences to feel like a voyeur, or someone who watches a subject without the subject's knowledge. As an element of psychoanalysis, voyeurism is seminal to the development of human consciousness. It denotes using someone else as an object of sexual stimulation through visuality alone.
The second element of pleasure in film, Mulvey asserts, is the ego libido. That is, at the same time viewers are drawn to the erotic stimulus of voyeurism, they are also encouraged to identify with the main (male) protagonist, suggesting a paradox between "instinctual drives and self-preservation" (808). For Mulvey, it is the role of women in film—the image of woman on the screen—that best demonstrates this paradox of patriarchal pleasure structures.
Analysis
Mulvey dedicates the beginning of "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" largely to explaining her subject of interest as well as her methodology. She is one of the first critics credited with using psychoanalytic theory to critique the genre of film, and she announces early on in the essay why such an approach is warranted. Mulvey is fundamentally interested in the intersection of human psychology and cultural representation, and even more specifically interested in the relationships between eroticism, narrative, and power. That Mulvey draws on so many facets of psychoanalysis and popular culture renders the essay, from its outset, complex and challenging for even the most seasoned readers or cinephiles. However, she entreats her readers to see her aims as rather simple and straightforward: "Psychoanalytic theory is thus appropriate here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form" (803). In this frank conclusion to the introductory paragraph, Mulvey provides readers with a broad version of her argument that helps structure the more nuanced and complex arguments to follow: Hollywood films have themselves been born of patriarchal norms, and dissecting such films with psychoanalytic theory allows one to more easily see what is otherwise a quiet portrait of male power and control.
The beginning of the essay also introduces three key terms to which Mulvey will return throughout: scopophilia, voyeurism, and ego (all terms borrowed from Freud's psychoanalytic work). Scopophilia is a broad term for the pleasure one derives from looking; it, in general, explains why genres like visual art and film exist in the first place. Voyeurism is a type of scopophilia in which a spectator derives pleasure from the knowledge that their subject is unaware they are being looked at at all. As such, voyeurism is also associated with erotic satisfaction in the absence of physicality, the pleasure of looking being the ultimate reward. Finally, ego is the psychoanalytic term that describes one's sense of personal identity. For Mulvey, these terms enjoy no better dramatization than in the process of watching a movie: spectators are lured into a faux-voyeuristic scenario by the dimming of the theater lights and a quiet audience. They are also, she argues, inclined to identify with the film's protagonist as a projection of the ego. What Mulvey ultimately accomplishes in the beginning of the essay is an elucidation of how psychoanalytic theory manifests in film; she justifies her methodology by applying complex Freudian and Lacanian concepts to the common experience of movie-going. In so doing, Mulvey preemptively thwarts challenges to her political argument to come—that using psychoanalytic theory in cinematic discourse also reveals how latent sexism has influenced the way movies are made and viewed.
