Summary
Turning to her feminist application of psychoanalytic theory, Mulvey cites the regularity with which women are displayed simply to be looked at. This representation of women, she argues, embodies the "sexual imbalance" in which men actively look while women are the passive recipients of that look (808). In conventional film, Mulvey argues, women actually work against the concept of narrative, slowing down the plot in moments of "erotic contemplation" for the protagonist (809).
It is this arresting quality of women on the screen that renders them, Mulvey says, ultimately void of any real significance in traditional films. Rather, women become the canvas onto which male heroes project their fears, desires, and convictions. The woman by herself, Mulvey asserts, is meaningless, as she becomes only a vessel through which male protagonists can evolve.
In psychoanalytic terms, Mulvey continues, women's lack of phallus signifies the threat of castration for male characters and male viewers who instinctively identify with the protagonist. This threat leads to the subsequent desire to control or possess the woman onto which the anxiety of castration has been projected. Mulvey labels this desire as that of sadism, which she argues aligns well with narrative itself (as sadism depends on making something happen). Mulvey then turns to two directors, Sternberg and Hitchcock, to illustrate her points.
Analysis
In this section of her essay, Mulvey uses psychoanalytic theory to reframe the readers' understanding of what women in film signify. Her argument relies on the concept of the "male gaze," or an artistic perspective in which women are depicted for male pleasure and erotic satisfaction alone. First used by John Berger in Ways of Seeing (1972), the term "male gaze" originally denotes a phenomenon in Western art in which male subjects appear to be aware of the viewer while female subjects do not. Mulvey, in this essay, is credited with using the concept of the male gaze for feminist ends, showcasing how this same gaze is operative in Hollywood film. According to Mulvey, the camera adopts the male gaze and, like pin-ups or strip-teases, presents female characters as objects for male pleasure devoid of any real significance to the narrative itself. In fact, Mulvey argues that women in Hollywood films are markedly anti-narrative: with the use of freeze-frames, slow-motion, and fragmented close-ups, women are often portrayed as halting the forward movement of the hero's plot altogether, instead appearing in moments of frozen "erotic contemplation" (809). The effect of these conventions, she suggests, strips female characters of their personhood and agency, rendering them wholly as objects to be admired and ultimately possessed.
A second important concept for Mulvey in this portion of the essay is that of the castration complex. Mulvey once again borrows from psychoanalytic theory here, as the castration complex is Freud's explanation for unconscious male anxiety and fear—not of women, but of women's distinct lack of phallus that signifies "castration and hence unpleasure" (811). For Mulvey, the castration complex is where camera work and plot collide, as the male gaze projected onto the woman reveals the threat of castration and therefore must be mitigated in some way. This mitigation, Mulvey suggests, comes often in the form of narrative itself: male characters interact with female characters in ways that are distinctly aimed at quelling anxiety over women's lack of phallus. Mulvey provides three examples of narrative conventions that demonstrate this response: (1) investigating the woman as a way of re-enacting the "original trauma" of castration (811); (2) punishing the woman as a guilty party, and (3) transforming the woman wholly into an object so the threat of castration cannot be taken seriously. This is one of the most complex parts of Mulvey's essay, as it relies heavily on readers' knowledge of psychoanalytic world order. However, as Mulvey continues, she grounds readers in this theoretical argument by offering concrete (and what, at the time, would have been well-known) examples of particular films.
