Mulvey and The Media

 The Breakdown

Mulvey is another Psychology study whose ideas and theories apply to the industry only her ideas are nearly directly applicable to the industry itself. She uses these ideas of psychoanalysis (that we've seen previously) in order to get her methods of analysis for the content in the industry. The primary purpose of this however is to discover where and how the fascination of film is reinforced by some pre-existing patterns of fascination.

Basically her ideas stem from the thought that previous discoveries of fascination within ourselves so that she can then draw understanding from this on how we find certain film genres or topics at that same level of fascination.

Using this one idea was created that Hollywood and Mainstream/Narrative film is manipulating the visual pleasure on screen. This idea even went so far as to say that it 'codes the erotic language into the language of the dominant patriarchal order' What this theory means is that the erotic language of the film (such as scenes with nudity or sex) are mainly encoded for the male audience member to watch and get the visual enjoyment out of.

This is called the male gaze, the theory that a camera follows the eyes of a male audience member or that it's highlighting key parts to draw their attention to which will grant them the most visual pleasure. However while a lot of it does come from this viewing there's a different layer to it that we don't normally think about and that's the power from this, its a general given that unless knowledge is given otherwise (such as a fourth-wall break) the viewer or bearer of the gaze is looking without the subject being aware, they already had a fair bit of power observing but making sure that they subject isn't in the know giving the viewer more knowledge and therefore power. 

One of Mulvey's original essay's was on the idea of the male gaze power that's held and the fact that it's the male filmmaker who gives it to them. However this can be challenged by having a female doing the same.

That's Mulvey and how she uses the ideas from other psychologists (like Freud) to develop ideas and how they have a bigger impact on the industry.