Mulvey Psychoanalysis

 Mulvey talks extensively about "the male gaze". The idea of the male gaze is that the women are seen as objects and a shown in films in a very sexualised way, the gaze refers to the gaze seen from the audience onto the screen where the film acts as a form of medium to make it ok to stare. She says that women have to watch themselves again in this sexualised fantasy on the screen again when men get to enjoy the look with no concern of it's connotations. Films in this style can display women in one of two ways, Voyeuristic is women being viewed as virtuous and beautiful or fetishistic where women are shown to exclusively sexual. The gaze is linked to this idea of power in relationships given men the idea it was fine to stare where women didn't have a choice. The idea of Scopophilia (the love of looking) which made it ok to stare at the screen and the love of doing it. The idea of loving this originates from being a child where there was no care whether it was right or wrong which links to how the audience enjoys the film, they are allowed to indulge in something that as a child however it is commonly masculine scopophilia.

A film that comes to mind would be James bond: gold finger it has numerous scenes where it sexualises the female side character along with James bond. This creates the idea of a perfect female character that gets the perfect male counter part. The idea that men want to be him and that women want to be her are clearly shown in the movie. Older James bond films typically used the women characters as side characters to look at rather than make an impact on the film. Female characters in Bond movies had very few lines and often ended up in sexualised clothing as they stood next to James bond while he did something heroic, this became the stereotype for most female Bond actors during the older films. This fits with Mulvey's analysis of them simply being there as spectacles rather than being involved in the actual plot of the film.

Within this scene from gold finger Mulvey's theory is very present the men in the shot are all wearing reasonable clothing however all of the women in the shot are wearing bikinis or other more showing clothing. In the scene the only two female characters that speak are the maid who is just used to gain access to the room and doesn't question it or resist in any way and jill who also just lets bond do whatever he wants despite just breaking into her room. The scene even says that jill is just there to be shown off when bond asks why she does it she responds "he pays me", bond asks is that all he pays you for to which she responds "and for being scene with him". Gold finger is a prime example of Mulvey's theory as the female actors are purely there to be eye candy and not provide any real importance to the story that is unfolding.