Laura Mulvey’s Concept of the Male Gaze in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window
Laura Mulvery's essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” critiques the way women are portrayed on-screen in Hollywood cinema during the mid-20th century. Mulvey uses Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic concepts to argue that the male gaze has been ingrained into the way movies are made, which ultimately reproduces patriarchal ideas of how women are viewed as objects. Her main purpose in writing this essay was to challenge the way Hollywood films
were made and the visual pleasure heterosexual male viewers gain from watching actresses perform. This is explored through Mulvey’s analysis of how the actress is filmed on-screen, the pleasure the audience derives from watching her perform, and the way other character’s look at her in the scene. There are many examples of films that use this technique, including Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window. In one particular scene, the theory of the male gaze is prevalent when Lisa, played by Grace Kelly, visits her boyfriend Jeff, played by James Stewart, at his
apartment. Although Lisa becomes an active participant later on in the film, in her opening scene, her purpose is to only be visually breathtaking on-screen. Through the use of cinematography, costume and dialogue, this scene encapsulates Mulvey’s theory by depicting Lisa as a visual device not only for Jeff, but for the viewers watching.
There are several key terms in Mulvey’s essay which are critical to understanding her argument. Throughout the essay, she uses the term “voyeuristic-scopophilic” (Mulvey 721) to describe the distinct way women are looked at on-screen. Mulvey writes that “scopophilia arises from pleasure in using another person as an object of sexual stimulation through sight” (Mulvey 715). When viewers see an actress being gazed at by another character, they are also participating in this act because the camera is the medium for voyeurism. Additionally, Mulvey
coined the term “male gaze” (Mulvey 715), which describes how women’s only purpose on screen is to look sexually attractive for the male viewer. She writes that the “pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Mulvey 715), which establishes men as the looker and females as the ones being looked at. Mulvey also uses Freud’s psychoanalysis as a framework for understanding how Hollywood actresses are objectified through phantasy,
identification, and eroticism.
In the scene, the cinematography and social blocking heightens Lisa’s visual significance through the use of close-ups, medium close-ups, and long-shots. The way she is framed makes it clear that she is the one taking up the space in the scene, compared to Jeff, who is confined to his wheelchair, due to a broken leg. When the scene begins, a shadow approaches Jeff as he is sleeping and switches to his point of view, so that the audience can see the figure of Lisa peering
over him. Lisa’s face fills the screen through a close-up shot and she moves in towards Jeff for a kiss. This erotic moment is an example of scopophilia and how “women are simultaneously looked at and displayed” (Mulvey 715) in film. The viewers are forced to follow Jeff’s gaze through the cinematography and camera angles. In the rest of the scene, the camera pans out into long-shots and medium close-ups, following Lisa around the apartment as she gets dinner ready. When Jeff is shown on-screen, his eyes, like the viewers, are constantly focused on Lisa. The
camera focusing predominantly on Lisa, distracts the viewer from the main plot, and her presence prevents Jeff from being more observant to the murder taking place in the building across the street. Mulvey writes that the actress’s “visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 715), which Hitchcock is demonstrating here, because like Jeff, the viewer is entirely focused on Lisa.
Furthermore, Lisa’s costume and makeup in this scene completely contrasts how Jeff appears, giving viewers the pleasure of looking at her. She is dressed in a “black and white, [...] gorgeous dress with a pleated chiffon skirt adorned with black embroidery, a black, close-fitting short-sleeved bodice with a light tulle wrap” (Fawell 280), an outfit which places her as the aesthetic focus on-screen. Additionally, her blue eyeshadow, red lipstick, and blushed cheeks
continues to serve as a colourful contrast to Jeff’s physical appearance and his dreary, bachelor’s apartment. Jeff “is reduced to a single pair of bland pajamas” (Fawell 280), which does not engage the viewer in looking at him, but rather in identifying with him as he looks at Lisa. Along with the elegant gown, Lisa wears a pearl necklace, bracelet and earrings, which signifies that she is gorgeous, fashionable and wealthy. Mulvey writes that the “male gaze projects its
phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly,” (Mulvey 715) emphasizing that Lisa is the epitome of the male fantasy. Lisa’s striking costume in this scene reinforces that she is depicted as a passive object meant to be looked at.
Moreover, the dialogue in this scene also portrays Lisa as a character who is primarily visual because what she says is not important to Jeff or the audience. As they are sitting and talking, Hitchcock demonstrates that her dialogue is trivial and not contributing to the story. While she is recounting her busy day to Jeff, his expressions and responses to her words, convey his condescension and disinterest to viewers. It is clear that she is only meant to be a visual and erotic object since Jeff dismisses her stories. Mulvey writes that “women displayed as [a] sexual
object is the leit-motiff of erotic spectacle, [...] she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire” (Mulvey 715). Lisa is the ‘spectacle’ in this scene and fulfills this role by having dialogue that is less important than her physical appearance.
This scene in Rear Window is a clear example of Laura Mulvey’s critique on the way women are portrayed in Hollywood cinema through Grace Kelly’s character Lisa. Through the cinematography, social blocking, costume and dialogue, Lisa is established as a pleasurable device in her opening scene. Although it was made in 1954, Rear Window demonstrates how the male gaze is relevant in mainstream cinema and continues to be prevalent today.
Works Cited
Fawell, John. “Fashion dreams: Hitchcock, women, and Lisa Fermont.” Literature/Film
Quarterly, vol. 28, no.4, 2000m pp. 274-283. ProQuest,
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1297363757?
accountid=35875&parentSessionId=%
2BgomMCdWI73gErlEA8q3lYFMODRx24qPl%2FgTnxJdxbI%3D&pqorigsite=
summon
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now, Philip Lopate Ed. The Library of America, 2008, pp. 711-722.
Rear Window. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, performances by James Stewart and Grace Kelly, Paramount Pictures, 1954.
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