Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” 17 Jan. 2007. Brown Wiki.    
        <https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Visual+Pleasure+and+Narrative+Cinema>

 

        Laura Mulvey uses psychoanalysis to highlight the ways in which film reveals society’s view on sexual differences and desires. The paper explores the structured implementation of phallocentric themes which acknowledge the dominance of the male gender. Such an argument is centered around the image of a castrated woman. Mulvey states that “woman's desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it.” Without the male reproductive organ, the woman is at a loss. The sole meaning for a woman is to signify the existence of the better male version. Deriving their meaning solely from males, women passively submit themselves to the wants and obsessions of the imposing male. By analyzing this concept, Mulvey believes that feminists can find the true roots of female oppression. The paper explains that the magic of Hollywood is derived from its manipulation of visual pleasure. The article discusses the integration of erotic themes in film and the meaning of such undertones.
        Mulvey discusses the way that the male looks at the female in Vertigo. Scottie looks at Madeleine in a way that fluctuates between “voyeurism and fetishistic fascination.” Scottie’s desire to remake his lost love and Judy’s willingness to do so, is an example of his dominance over her. Through the use of camera techniques, Hitchcock allows the viewer to take Scottie’s perspective and thus take on his position. The paper relates Scottie’s drive to reconstruct Madeleine to a fetish. As a woman, Judy knows that her role is to submit, and realizes that such a role is necessary to retain his erotic interest in her.
        This paper affirms the feminist belief that Hollywood seeks to affirm male dominance by integrating it into its films. The oppressive manner in which men look at women, the “male gaze,” can be demonstrated through point of view shots. By making Madeleine the object of the camera’s desire (Scottie’s), the audience also experiences the possession. The paper is important as it serves as an example of feminist reaction to Hitchcock’s film.

            At first glance, this article appears to be a feminist piece about the representation of women when the narratives of women are told by men.  It is ironic and surprising that the author, Christopher J. Knight, is in fact a man and not a woman.  Knight asserts that representation in any form is inherently biased and subjective.  In addition, Knight explores what happens when, “the narrative that goes by the name of ‘women’ is told largely by men,” which he argues was a common happening until recently.  He quotes Laura Mulvey’s famous response to this question as fact.  Mulvey states, “the woman comes to stand as a ‘signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as a bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.”  At this point in the article, Knight takes an unexpected turn.  One would have expected him to continue to argue that there exists a male-dominated society in which the tendency for men to create and communicate narratives about women constructs women in a male-oriented frame.  Instead, Knight chooses to abandon that argument and reassert the purpose of his article, which is to look at Woody Allen’s Annie Hall in the context of such a framework.  Knight states that he wishes to “address the film in terms of the subtle and not so subtle ways that men impose meaning upon women.”  Despite the obvious element that since Woody Allen wrote and directed the film, the life and image of Annie Hall will inevitably have a man imposing meaning upon a woman, Knight contends that Annie Hall manages to resist this imposition.  Alvy Singer is the one who introduces and tells the viewer Annie’s story, and therefore everything that we know about Annie is told from Alvy’s point of view.  Knight argues, however, that the nature of the narrative and Alvy’s character allows the viewer to “accept Alvy’s representation as less perspectival than normative.”  This article provides a unique critical assessment of the film and, while it is somewhat narrow in scope, it provides insight into Woody Allen’s motivations as a narrator and the relationship between Alvy and Annie.