In Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she discusses the idea of scopophilia in cinema and how cinema plays a role in sexual pleasure. According to Mulvey, scopophilia is the pleasure of looking where the person gains sexual pleasure from the use of sight, very similar to the concept of vouyerism. Cinema allows for the concept of scopophilia flourish due to the fact that cinema allows the viewer an opportunity to be in this anonymous space where they can watch the others, others being the people on the screen, without them knowing so. Typically, in cinema, this sexual pleasure is established through the female roles within the film. These women are then labeled as the temptress for both the male characters and the viewers to draw a larger audience to the film. This normalizes in today’s films that women in cinema are always portrayed as a love interest or an object of the leading man’s desires. A great example of this is Sofia Vergara. An incredibly gorgeous Latina actress that is well known for her looks in film. Historically in cinema, women roles tend to exist to make the leading male character appear “good” and add to his social status, in the film, by essentially acting as a trophy that emphasizes his masculinity.  Mulvey discusses that another way women are illustrated as inferior to men is through the phallocentric system. This suggests that women envy men because we physiologically lack a “penis” thus we are unable to have a fetish. However, in media this portrayal of inferiority in women is adopted and continues to be carried on as a tradition.

Additionally, Mulvey relates scopophilia to Lacan’s Mirror Stage. Mulvey explains Lacan’s idea of recognition and misrecognition. According to Lacan, misrecognition is where we as the person looking at our image in the mirror, although we aspire to be that image that we see, we tend to mistake ourselves to be that image. Mulvey applies this concept to cinema by stating, “… demands identification of the ego with the object on the screen through the spectator’s fascination with and recognition of his like” (1958). This supports my belief of sexual desires being rooted from the ego, meaning in my opinion the sexual desires of men are stimulated through the ego of men because their ego is boosted through the validation and praise that is gained through winning over a girl way out of their league. Essentially, ego and sexual desires have a common ability to produce this form of fantasy for men as their sexual impulses are projected onto the actors in a film. This now allows for the spectator to have an experience where a sense of control and satisfaction through the actions of the protagonist as if they, the spectators, were to be performing the acts themselves. The characteristics of a male actor now represents an idealized version of themself, rather than merely serving as a figment of imagination. 

In Michel Foucault’s “Society Must be Defended”, Foucault discusses the underlying differences of power functions within society, which through his study, he called “biopolitics” and “disciplinary” power. The primary differences between these two types of power are found in their methods and subjects of control. According to Foucault the first form, disciplinary power, is the careful control of people through establishments that pertain to to the individual’s self, or physical body (like hospitals or jails for instance). Disciplinary power uses the processes of monitoring, standardizing, and individualization to shape the bodies, minds, and behaviors of the individual person. Disciplinary authority works in a manner where it shapes and manage the individual in restricted areas, encouraging compliance by a strict set of regulations and hierarchical social structures. However, Foucault’s concept of biopolitics moves towards the emphasis of managing and controlling entire communities.

Biopolitics is the study of population regulation through the use of statistical analysis and the application of laws which are intended to control society’s existence. Biopolitical tactics focuses on the health and vitality of entire populations instead of the well-being of the individuals. An example of a biopolitical campaign would be the Drug overdose awareness campaign in New York. Such campaigns, despite only spread within New York, use a variety of political tactics, such as laws, educational initiatives, and public advertisements, to affect the overall control of the general population’s health. Disciplinary authority is the focus is on the small scale, where organizations carefully control the behavior and identities of individuals. This is more so similar to public school settings where tight regulations, social hierarchical structures, and surveillance tools are used to enforce disciplinary power amongst a set of individuals. In addition to teaching, the aim of such power is to mold each student’s behavior and thinking by enforcing obedience.

On the other hand, biopolitics addresses the health of entire populations by zooming out to the macro level. Campaigns for public health place more emphasis on the statistical patterns and demographics of drug usage within society than they do on specific drug abusers. Policies are now designed to affect the way people behave as a group and their overall health. This is a step forward in change from carefully controlling people inside of institutions to the management of the health of society as a collective. The study of biopolitics and disciplinary power by Foucault offers a sort of theoretical framework for readers to comprehend how power systems have evolved with society. It reveals how our idea of government now has evolved from a narrowly focused, institutionally driven system to one that is more focused on the population. These ideas allow readers to consider the complexities between the powers, showing the ways that we manage the well-being and health of entire populations in comparison to the management of lives and well-being of individuals with the use of institutions.

In Karl Marx’s “The German Ideology”, he writes about his perception of society and challenges many ideologies of his day. Marx refers to a collection of concepts, values, and beliefs that are formed within a society and such a society functions this way in order to uphold and defend the current social and economic structure as an “ideology”. Marx believes that those who are active within a society must maintain a relationship with the creation of social and political framework. This relationship between the social and political framework must work simultaneously, all while maintaining a social withstanding. To support this point, Marx states, “The fact is, therefore, that certain individuals who are productively active in a specific way enter into these specific social and political relations” (659). According to Marxist theory, ideologies are molded by material circumstances of society, especially regarding the economic hierarchy of classes. He contends that by justifying the injustices and the inequality installed within the social structure. Marx says, “Consciousness can never be anything other than conscious existence, and men’s actual life process is consciousness,” (660). Marx is referring to the belief that society focuses on material and unrealistic ideologies instead of framing such a society around reality.

Marx also uses the camera obscura as an analogy to highlight how such an ideology changes the concept of reality. A camera obscura is an optical instrument that projects an inverted image of the outside world onto its surface. Marx suggests that social ideologies work in a similar manner, where it offers society a warped or sort of reversed image of reality. Mark proceeds to state, the starting point in his first approach technique is that consciousness is understood as the living individual. In the second approach method, the real living individuals themselves are the starting point and consciousness is understood as their consciousness alone. Society’s ideology perpetuates a status quo and gives more a distorted view, or image, of society by hiding the realistic nature of class relations. Marx’s analogy to a camera obscura draws attention to the idea of the dominant ideology that shapes people’s perceptions and understanding of the outside world, all while preserving the privilege of the ruling class.