Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema’  published in 1975, sparked a major discussion regarding the “interweaving of erotic pleasure within film, its meaning and in particular, the central place of the image of the woman” (2084). This essay was among the first to create a shift of film theory to a psychoanalytic framework, commonly influenced from the works of Freud and Lacan. Mulvey’s essay challenges the pleasure we experience from cinema by raising the concept of “women as an image and man as bearer of the look” (2088). 

Within cinematic displays, as a viewer we are “offered a number of possible pleasures” (2086). The first of pleasures we are offered is scopophilia or deriving pleasure from looking. “Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the component instincts of sexuality which exist as drives quite independently of the erotogenic zones. At this point, he associated scopophilia with taking other people in as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (2086). By participating in the cinema, a viewer is immediately cast into a scopophilia based environment. The cinema “portrays a hermetically concealed world which unwinds magically, indifferent to the presence of the audience, producing for them a sense of separation and playing on their voyeuristic fantasy” (2086). The darkness of the theatre contrasting with the brightness of the projection also helps to promote the illusion of a voyeuristic separation. 

The second of pleasures we are offered in cinematic viewings is scopophilia developed into a narcissistic aspect. Most mainstream films pay attention to the human form. The characters within a cinematic production are recognized with likeness of the “human face, body, the relationships between human form and its surroundings- the visible presence of the person in the world” (2087). As a movie goer, the male viewer connects with the male protagonist or hero of the story. The character who has the big muscles, the big house in hollywood, the sports car and hot babe on his arm. Sympathizing with a character in this way allows the viewer to “act out a complex process of likeness and difference or the glamourous impersonates the ordinary” (2087). 

This narcissistic aspect of scopophilia directly related to Lacan’s theory involving the mirror stage within child development. Lacan implements the concept that when a child first views themselves in a mirror, their self-image becomes more complete. Due to the lack of motor skills, when a young child sees themselves in a mirror, they feel a sense of perfection that isn’t felt from their own body. The same theory applies in the cinema. An image on the screen creates a sense of recognition and misrecognition for the viewer: the image recognized is conceived as the reflected body of the self, but its misrecognition as superior projects this body outside itself as an ideal ego, the alienated subject which, re-introjected as the ego ideal. The viewer can lose their sense of self and ego as they re-imagine themselves living the life of the protagonist. 

Mulvey contrasts these two concepts of scopophilia with a woman as the direct object of a viewer. Within films throughout hollywood, women have been objectified as an image of the determining male gaze. “The female figure possesses strong exhibitionist roles, in which women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so they can be said to connote a ‘looked-at-ness’”(2088). The place of a women in cinematic productions creates “an indispensable element of spectacle in a narrative film” (2088). Her presence often works against the storyline, to freeze the flow of action in erotic contemplation. “The female character provokes and represents an idea that spurs a will or inspires a fear/love within the hero. The woman causes the man to act the way he does- but, the woman herself has not the slightest importance” (2089). 

Mulvey published this essay in 1975, during a time where most films portrayed a male hero with a female love interest. Films and television have changed dramatically in the last 38 years. An example of this would be the popular HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’. This show portrays several different story lines revolving around a private sphere of family (Starks), blood rivalry (Lannisters), a female protagonist with a male love interest (Kahlessi), an orphan male with a traditional female love interest (Snow) among many others. I feel that this show demonstrates the concept of scopophilia to an endless degree on many different spectrums for every type of viewer. There are many other modern cinematic works that stray from her theory of a woman as an objective image; however, the conversation she struck at the time of this articles publication pressured hollywood to re-examine the filmic strategies of classical hollywood.

                In T.S. Eliot’s Tradition and the Individual Talent, he situates tradition as the hallmark of significant works of art rather than uniqueness. Tradition can be loosely defined in the framework of Eliot’s writing as related to the reconstruction of the past or “archaeological reconstruction” (955). Eliot highlights the affinity of people to emphasize the individuality of a work of art as opposed to evaluating it based on how it fits into the existing tradition of art. Eliot states, “We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors, […], we endeavor to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed” (956). This idea of isolating one component of a work underscores one of his major points which is that you can’t divorce the work of art from it context steeped in both the traditional past and the present. He states, “You cannot value [the artist] alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead” (956). According to Eliot, this is where a work of art finds its value and significance. However, Eliot doesn’t advocate for a mindless imitation of works past. He states, “novelty is better than repetition” (956). He promotes an active participation in tradition – in the learning and reproduction of it. He states, “[tradition] cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour” (956). He details the historical sense which he deems necessary to be a prolific artist past the years of one’s youth. He defines the historical sense as the perception of the “pastness of the past” coupled with a “feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order” (956). This simultaneous order isn’t depicted as static but constantly changing as new works of art are added to it which reorders the whole structure. In this way, the new and contemporary alters the past or more specifically our perception of the past. He states, “The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art towards the whole readjusted” (957). This idea of some sort of trans-historical gallery of works of art with values determined by their comparison to one another seems plausible enough – although perhaps a little problematic. It is in my opinion, human nature to order entities of any kind and to make groupings of classifications. However, Eliot asserts that this order is in no way hierarchial. Order and comparison, in a way, connotes judgments of value. He states, “[the poet] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but the material of art is never quite the same” (957). He speaks of a “refinement” rather than “improvement” but that also seems to suggest a progression and judgment. It is hard to situate what exactly the basis of this order is.

                Eliot states, “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry” (958). Eliot aims for art to be seen as a science with different elements that combine to make a new work of art. In order to do this he states that “the progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality” (958). This “depersonalization” divorces the artist from his work. As practical as this may be, it seems to be in opposition to his emphasis of context in the beginning of his argument in Tradition and the Individual Talent. He posits the more mature artist as a “more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations” (958). He states, “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material” (959). This suggests that writing should be less cathartic for the author and more directed towards eliciting a desired effect upon the audience. This requires a mastery over the author’s self and their emotions. This provides more mastery over the audience and the desired response. This discipline involved and degree of separation/removal from the writing is required, for example, in the editing process. He states, “The poet’s mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together” (959). He devalues the emotions and personality of the author in favor of “the intensity of the artistic process” and “technical excellence” (961).  For Eliot, this removal of the author creates a variety that would not be able to sustain itself otherwise.

Separate thoughts:

Can one actually divorce themselves from their writings? The artists and works he cites as good examples of that – do they continuously follow this pattern or do intrusions of their personalities always crop up in veiled ways?

(I could be interpreting this wrong but….)

His order of works of art and tradition might be seen as putting greater emphasis on “European” and “traditional” literature but he also states that “the poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations” (957). He emphasizes the “whole of literature” on several occasions. He also states that he has “suggested the conception of poetry as a living whole of all poetry that has ever been written” (958). Although he uses the male European writers in his examples and they are inextricably tied to what many think of as canonical or traditional writers/artist, he does speak of a whole that deviates from what is currently popular because what is popular today may be less so tomorrow. Perhaps we give him less credit for being inclusive because he doesn’t give specific examples of artists we think of as outside the standard conception of tradition such as female artists. When he says “all” he could mean “all”. Here again, context is valuable. He is perhaps writing from a context – a history that is exclusionary – and therefore we can’t really judge his theories as separate from that context.

Laura Mulvey: Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

• What is Scopophilia? In short, it is pleasure in looking. Mulvey uses Freud as her vehicle to explain his theory of scopophilia to further progress how scopophilia affects women: “..Freud isolated scopophilia as one of the compenent instincts of sexuality which exist as drives quite independently of the erotogenic zones… Although the instinct is modified by other factors, inparticular the constitution of the ego, it continues to exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as object. At the extreme, it can become fixated into a perversion, producing obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms whose onlu sexual satisfaction can come from watching, in an active controlling sense, and objectified other” (Mulvey 2086). Mulvey uses Freud’s point of scopophilia, being the pleasure of looking at others for satisfaction, to argue that women in movies have become the object to look at for pleasure.

  Is this point always true? In terms of the “peeping tom” I would have to agree. Peeping toms are mainly known to be committed by men, having the woman become the object. I think nowadays however, movies such as Magic Mike cast the male as the ‘eye candy’, or object to be looked at for pleasure. Channing Tatum stars in a movie that reflects his actual life as a stripper, while it is a fun comedy movie, we can see that the character Tatum plays is for sexual pleasure. Mulvery creates a great point that scopophilia occurs when watching a movie and that it can be transformed into objectifying women, but it can also happen to males as well. Although Mulvery does not say it can’t be possible for males, we can assume from her point that the main characters subjected in cinema are women.

• What is her intention for this essay? The title of section B is “Destruction of Pleasure as a Radical Weapon” I think this title is overdramatic, it’s a great title to capture the audience’s attention but it does not catch the exact intention of her essay. Destroy is not the correct word, I think she intends to bring attention to how cinema perpetuates patriarchy by objecting the female and making her our pleasure of looking (active scopophilia). “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen” (Mulvey 2089). She also mentions how the male character in a movie is the protagonist that advance the story while the female character is “his screen surrogate” (Mulvey 2089). The female becomes sexualized in the movie, making her the object of desire, but once she falls in love with the male protagonist her sexuality belongs to him and only him. This act exemplifies how women are expected to belong to a male.

• This essay reminds me of a TED talks video, where Colin Stokes argues that movies nowadays perpetuate masculinity by making the female character the person in need of saving and the prize to be claimed while the male character is the one who must do good to claim their prize and be the hero. He presented facts on sexual assaults (1/5 women in America have been sexuality assaulted), saying that it had nothing to do with pornography, but more to do with the movies we show younger kids. He raised the point saying that if 1/5 women in America are being sexuality assaulted, then there must be a lot of sexual assailants out there. His main question was “What are children’s movies teaching our kids?” and “Is girl power enough to prepare our daughters when we are simultaneously training our sons to maintain their boy power?” I think movies are one of the perfect ways to show hidden messages of patriarchy because not everyone would be able to notice the underlying messages, nor would much of the audience pay attention to it. I think we also must take into account who holds the leadership roles behind the camera, and according to ABC, it is still males. “The study looked beyond just on-camera roles, also finding that only 8 percent of directors, 13.6 percent of writers and 19.1 percent of producers were female.” (ABC news) Until the numbers change, we can only to see slow and steady progress and hope for it to change.

• Here are the links to some resources that might be useful in thinking about male leadership in the film industry:
• http://abcnews.go.com/US/men-dominate-film-industry-study/story?id=13439590
• http://www.ted.com/talks/colin_stokes_how_movies_teach_manhood.html

Hey guys! So I mentioned this article in class, but I thought I’d post it here in case anyone wants to check it out. It contemporarizes some of Mulvey’s points in a really interesting way. Hope you guys have a happy thanksgiving!

What Really Makes Katniss Stand Out? Peeta, Her Movie Girlfriend

There’s been a lot of talk about Katniss Everdeen as an unconventional heroine, but she’s also got a pretty unconventional love interest, in that he would be a more Hollywood-conventional girlfriend than boyfriend.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUcvlJmCVcI&w=560&h=315]

Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist who dedicated  much of his life’s work to dream interpretations and later become known as the father of psychoanalysis. In his essay ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ Freud discusses Sophocles’ story of Oedipus Rex. The story of Oedipus tends to move audiences quite deeply simply for the fact that Oedipus’ story “might have been ours” (816, Freud). The story of Oedipus follows the life of a young man who fulfills a tragic oracle, saying he would later kill his father and bring disaster on his family and city. The prophecy proves true- Oedipus kills his father, marries and has children with his mother- all beyond his knowledge.  Freud uses this tale and examined the patterns of young children who were passing through the five stages of  psychosexual development. He discovered that during the third stage, or phallic stage (ages 3-6), the child is unconsciously drawn to the opposite sex parent. Freud suggests that both sexes experience this complex differently- the boy in a form of castration anxiety and the girl’s in a form of penis envy. In this phase of development, the male child creates a competition with  the father for possession of the mother and a young female child will create competition with the mother for possession of the father. Freud casts the idea that all humans children will direct their first sexual impulses towards the mother and the first hatred/murderous wish against the father. The story of Oedipus shows us the confirmation of our own childhood wishes.

Freud notes that Shakespeare’s Hamlet has similar Oedipal messages as Sophocles’ Oedipus. He contrasts these texts due to the secular advance of repression and the emotional life of mankind. Although Oedipus and Hamlet behold the same root feelings for their father and mother- “In Oedipus, the child’s wishful fantasy that underlies it is brought into the open and realized as it would be in a dream. In Hamlet, (his emotions) remain repressed; and- just as the case is in neurosis- we only learn of its existence from its inhibiting consequences” (817, Freud).

I found the relationships between these two texts quite interesting. If young children hold primal desires towards the parent of the opposite text- I wonder if the experiences held with that parent would entirely determine the type of relationships that child will seek for the rest of its life? We know that Sophocles and Hamlet’s situations concluded bleakly.

In Lacan’s piece “The Mirror Stage as a Formative Function of the I”, he discusses what he refers to as the “mirror stage” in which an infant sees his or her image in a mirror and how this image relates to the child’s concept of “self”. Lacan challenges the Descartian idea: “I think, therefore I am”. He proposes instead that when an infant reaches 6-18 months of age, there is an instance where he or she realizes that the person staring back at them in the mirror is in fact his or herself. Lacan refers to this as the “Ideal-I” because it is an unadulterated sense of self. This pre-lingual image is not tainted with language or social constructs.

However, Lacan refers to this image as “fictional”. This is because this self that we establish as infants is in fact just an image in a mirror. It has no reflection of the other things that make up the self such as things that exist in our unconscious. This made me think of the concept of a life story which is something we have recently discussed in my personality psychology class. The life story is an internalized, evolving cognitive structure or script that we tell about our selves that gives our life meaning and helps us have a sense of identity. This story is not necessarily 100% fact. It is based on our skewed perspectives of all the things we have experienced. In this way, our life story could be considered fictional and so the image of our self, or our “Ideal-I” from the very beginning, becomes the protagonist of our life story.

Interestingly enough, Lacan also points out that this image infants see in the mirror does not entirely reflect who they are—the image seems whole and complete while they seem to be fragmented in the way that they are unable to control their limbs and hold themselves up properly. And so, the infant will strive to match the image they perceived in the mirror and this continues throughout his or her life even though this image is in fact a fantasy. This misrecognition (and the joke from the novel that Prof. Allred shared with the class) reminds me of the way bloggers on tumblr (a social blogging website) or other social networking sites will reblog/post an image (a screenshot from a movie/show, meme, etc) and tag it: #me, #about me, #gpoy (gratuitous picture of yourself), etc. That’s not to say that the image of an incompetent Patrick from Spongebob with a wooden board nailed to his head ( a silly but real example) is an actual photograph of themselves but that it reflects one aspect of their “self” as does the image in a mirror.

Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of dreams is significantly less revolutionary today than it was at the time of its release. In the modern day the principles of Freudian psychoanalysis are well assimilated into our thinking. We very often attempt to interpret our dreams, although our bases aren’t always linked in Freudian psychoanalysis, it’s definitely not uncommon for us. Freud’s ideas are still fascinating however because off their ability to compartmentalize the conscious mind and then involve those compartmentalization’s in the process of analysis.

I have so many questions about Freud’s methodology and his interpretations of dreams. The nature of dreams is something that I think is open to discussion just as much as their interpretation. Dreams vary from the unclear to the at times very obvious. I have very often had dreams that have few relatively few things that I believe are up for interpretation. There are no obscure signs, things get laid out very simple and very plainly.

In this particular writing Freud also sows the seeds that explain and constitute what would come to be known as Freudian psychoanalysis. From a purely literary standpoint that information makes this article worth analyzing. Understanding Freud’s prevalence in respects to the time period is implicit to understanding the effect that he would have until the present day. The body of work presented here becomes the basis for work in a ridiculous number of fields. It takes a seat at the table of psychology, innovating the field and as a result transcends into literary criticism. This transcendence provided a structure under which literature would be dissected and analyzed from then on. This analysis extends beyond the realm of dreams and follows the logic that in the same way our subconscious presents us with supplemental objects of our desires while dreaming that the same practices extend further into our daily lives, not surprisingly influencing writing as well. It is under this lens than many authors including Freud himself have been and still continue to be studied under.

With Freud’s compartmentalization of the conscious I think we must also ask, how much of the subconscious and how much of the conscious, the id, the ego or the super ego, is involved at any particular moment of dreaming? Out limited understandings tell us that some people have dreams in which their consciousnesses play very active roles such as in lucid dreaming. I guess I have much more question than analysis with the interpretation of something that to me is still very far from the realm of comprehension. While Freud is an excellent guide into what was at the time (and is still somewhat) a dark and incomprehensible field, it is still something that winds up asking many more questions than it answers, but I can only wonder if that was ever its intention.

                In Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, he outlines the premise of the Oedipus complex. Freud states that the difference between those children who develop normally and those who do not is that psychoneurotic children display “on a magnified scale feelings of love and hatred to their parents which occur less obviously and less intensely in the minds of most children” (814). It makes sense that parents would be influential in a child’s development. For better or worse, our parents are among our first and most persistent relationships. Freud evidences his hypothesis by drawing on the well-known play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. His relation of Oedipus Rex follows with his own analysis. He likens psychoanalysis to the unfolding of the plot. It unfolds in stops and starts and halting steps that approach a revelation (815). Freud defines psychoanalysis as the process of revealing parts of the unconscious (815). Alternately, this defines literature as embedded with secrets of the unconscious and therefore a fitting source to draw his evidence from.

He puts forth the traditional reading of Oedipus Rex as a “tragedy of destiny” where the major theme is the inescapable nature of one’s fate. He states, “the lesson which, it is said, the deeply moved spectator should learn from the tragedy is submission to the divine will and realization of his own impotence” (815). Freud questions this traditional reading of the text because of the failure of other tragedies of destiny (816). He supposes that the primary factor in the continued reception of these texts is a recognition in ourselves of the same “sexual impulses” and desires. Freud states that Oedipus “merely shows us the fulfillment of our own childhood wishes” (816). His theory of sexual desire towards a parent doesn’t seem so far-fetched because of the significance of our relationships with our parents but that the jealousy against the father should be so pervasive that “our first hatred and our first murderous wish [is] against our father” seems too extreme to be a typical case (816). If I understand correctly, it would seem to cast our most basic inner nature as something very dark.  Although I may not fully embrace the idea of all human beings coming into the world as “blank slates”, I also can’t embrace what seems to me to be an extreme alternative. This excerpt, providing only a partial explanation of Freud’s theories, I have to wonder if there are no shades of grey for Freud.

Freud further evidences the universality of Oedipus’s repressed sexual impulses through an excerpt of Oedipus Rex in which Jocasta, Oedipus’s unwitting mother and wife, assuages his fears by telling him that many men have dreamt of lying with their mothers but that it means nothing (817). This point to the importance of dreams in addition to literature as a source for the revelation of the unconscious. Freud notes that the same dreams Jocasta speaks of are present today.

Hamlet is analyzed under the same Oedipus theory. He states that the difference between Oedipus and Hamlet resides in their “mental life” which demonstrates “the secular advance of repression in the emotional life of mankind” (817). He portrays Hamlet’s story as the modern treatment of the same sexual impulses present in Oedipus Rex in which Hamlet’s desires are repressed and manifest in “its inhibiting consequences” (817). He again relates the traditional interpretation of the text through Hamlet’s character as an over thinker whose actions are “paralyzed” by thought. However, in order to negate this traditional reading, he highlights instances of both Hamlet’s impulsive and “premeditated” action in the text. He surmises that the “paralyzing” effect on Hamlet must therefore be inherent in the “nature” of the particular undertaking of exacting revenge against his uncle for killing his father and marrying his mother. He identifies with his uncle in much the same way that Freud states the audience identifies with Oedipus. His uncle is “the man who shows him the repressed wishes of his own childhood realized” (818). He uses Hamlet’s conversations with Ophelia to support this through his expression of “distaste for sexuality” (818). Freud also parallels this through what he sees as Shakespeare’s increasing distaste of sexuality apparent in some of his later works. He states, “for it can only be the poet’s own mind which confronts us in Hamlet” (818). Instead of divorcing the author from their work, Freud intertwines the author and his/her writings and effectively makes the author’s work a reflection of their own psyche.

Some thoughts on the Oedipus complex as outlined in the excerpt:

The usage of the binary of “normal” and “psychoneurotic” stands out. This might be nitpicky but “normal” is a relative term in my mind and these two terms appear to be extremes that leave little room for variation.

Is this theory only applicable to a “normative” family with a present mother and father as opposed to a family considered to be non-traditional such as one with one or both parents being absent? Did Freud delve into different family structures?

The revision of Freud’s Oedipus complex is perhaps a way of diluting the extreme nature of his hypothesis by deeming the incest symbolic. This might very well be our own way of dealing with the unconscious desires that Freud names. Transforming the nature of the incest is potentially the use of repression by adding degrees of separation between us and a very taboo subject… something similar to the displacement in dreams? However, I like some of the insights other classmates had in seeing the Oedipus Complex in action… in our choices of romantic partners. It’s a widely held belief that women with absent or damaging fathers look for men like their fathers and I’ve heard men say they are interested in a woman because she reminds them of their mothers so perhaps there’s some merit in these observations.