Alyssa Wallingford

English 206

Part #1:

I would like to focus on the “opening scene” of the “Rear Window” and analyze it in terms of Laura Mulvey’s theory. In this short clip, the masculine gaze can be seen even from the first couple seconds of the video. It pans by all the different apartments, and all of them have women in them. Like how Parker discusses Mulvey’s theory, all of these women are framed by their windows and doors and never really speak. They move around in a very two dimensional space, all doing very stereotypical things that women “should” be doing during this time, like aerobics, waiting for her husband to come home, sunbathing, or tending to the birds. The thing that marks this clip’s visual perspective as “an abusive version of masculine heterosexuality” is the idea that the women only exist in the frame as a source of entertainment for the male protagonist. These two words as explained by Mulvey are not bad in themselves, but it is because both the camera and male protagonist are pulled into the scenes in which there is not only objectification, but also broad statements about these women who are not even really a part of the true plot. The two men on the phone only discuss the women when it is either for their pleasure or to stereotype all women/wives as nagging or needy.

Part #2 – QCQ:

Quotation: “The essay in a strange way, seeing that I never used the first person singular, was actually autobiographical in the sense that it did literally describe my way of watching films when I was absorbed in the Hollywood cinema of the studio system. Because during the 60s instead of watching the new American cinema, I really watched the kind of Hollywood cinema that was made in the 50s… and I watched the films with a male mode of address, I mean I felt I was being addressed by the films with a masculine discourse.”(13:56-14:44)

Comment: I thought that it was really interesting how she went back and reflected on not only the essay, but also the time period and the political frame in which it was written. She herself acknowledges that this essay could not have even been written with the same vigor and claims both before or after that specific moment in time. She says that her essay was polemical and ephemeral in the idea that it was such a culmination of that political moment. She argues that the point of the essay is less about what she claims, and more about what it documents, with the idea that the essay would be a form of free thought rather than refined writing. I respect that she acknowledges that her ideas might not be entirely or even at all correct, because I think that many writers may not be brave enough to debunk their own claims that they spent time articulating. I do also wonder how much of her theory she still thinks of as correct, now given the time we live in and this specific political moment. I also appreciate how she steps back and actually admits that when she wrote this essay arguing against the role of masculine gaze or film in cinema, she had actually been watching them partially with that mindset. She acknowledges that after the fact, she realized that the films she used to watch started to irritate her once she experienced the women’s movement, and it saddened her in a way (it felt like a sort of loss). She even goes on to acknowledge that it is appropriate that her essay be labeled as archaic because we don’t even watch films the same way anymore, which is something that Parker brings up as a critique. Technology isn’t the same, and because of this, our theories and ideas also need to change with it, and that is a good thing.

Question: I wonder if essays such as these are being written now, and could only ever turn into a documentary of the political and social moment, rather than a theory which will always reflect modern attitudes. I am not entirely sure it’s even possible to have an idea that will never be updated, changed, or even just eventually thrown out altogether. If Mulvey were to ever write another essay on this topic, how would her views have changed from the time that she wrote the original? Is it possible to write about a topic such as this without taking into account the current social and political climate or at least have these things influence your writing without even realizing it? Is it responsible to try and promote or put forth a theory that doesn’t acknowledge any of these outlying factors?