Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey is a professor of film and media studies. She is a feminist would came up with the Male Gaze theory. She believed all women are seen as eye candy in films. She came up with identification and an objectification of how women are portrayed.

Identification is all about how with the male lead, his actions become surrogate for our own part in the narrative and we psychologically align ourselves with his point of view he is the ideal ego.

Objectification is to do with the male’s romantic interest. The male lead desires the female form and because we are aligned with his point of view, the audience too desire the female lead also.

As well as this women are also split into two categories; the Madonna and the Whore. The Madonna character is seen as the woman with class, who is well respected and is knowledgeable. She would usually wear clothes which would cover her up and not seen so much as sexually attainable in the male’s eye. However the Whore character is the opposite, she is usually pretty and we see her use her looks to get what she wants. She is often shown wearing revealing clothes and is the one who is sexually attainable for the men.

But does her theory still work in more modern times? Think about Lara Croft for example. Using Mulvey’s theory can you tell whether she is the Madonna or Whore of the film? Is Mulvey’s theory being challenged?