FEMINIST FILM THEORY A READER Edited and introduced by Sue Thornham EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
CONTENTS Part I: Taking up the Struggle Claire Johnston: 'Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema 4. B Ruby Rich: The Crisis of Naming in the cromwell Pres, Trowbridge, Feminist film criticise Further Reading A CIP record for this book is available ritish Library Part II: The Language of Theory sDNQ078039 and Narrative Cinema 58 6. Mary Ann Doane r of the contributors tor h he insert ity as absence 7. Teresa de laureth ight, Designs and Patents Act 8. Kaja Silverman: ' Lost Objects and Mistaken Subjects' Part III: The Female Spectator 111 9. Michelle Citron, Julia Lesage, Judith Ma the editors -io aie Sun (1946>pired by King Vidor's ghts on"Visual Pleasure and Duel in the Sun(1946 13 14 Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory
AFTERTHOUGHTS ONVISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CNEMA 10 On the other hand, she may not. She may find her identification with a hero provides. It is this female spectator that /wa. thar Most, enjoying the freedom of action and co AFTERTHOUGHTS ON"VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA"INSPIRED BY tting on films in which a woman central protagonist is shown to be unable to achieve a stable sexual identity, torn between the deep blue sea of KING VIDOR'S DUEL IN THE SUN(946) passive femininity and the devil of regressive masculinity. Laura Mulvey Gencrally it is dangerous to elide these tw ccepting masculinisation,while watching action difficulty of sexual difference in cinema that is missing in the undifferentiated ectator of"Visual Pleasure,. The unstable, oscillating difference is thrown into relief by Freuds theory of femininity FREUD AND FEMINInITY article was published in Screen, I have been asked why I only used the male third For Freud, femininity is complicated by the fact that it emerges out e of a crucial and in for the spectator. At the time, I was interest eriod of parallel development between the sexes; a period he or phallic, for both boys and girls. The terms he uses to conceive of femininity ar the sa certain problems of nguage and boundaries to expression. These problems refiect, very accurately of view which is als iety (suppressed, for instanc d male third and my own love of Hollywood melodram ntary opposite the male to the female, in that order. avenues of inquiry that should be followed up. Finally, Duel in the Sun and its be masculine is ego-syntonic at a certain of femininity ften has been at determines the female spectator is carried along, as it were by the scruffofthe text, or whether femininity. pleasure can be more deep-rooted and complex. Second(the'melodrama'isst w the text and its attendant ider I will on ry remains is always possible that the female spectator may find herself so out of key with the pleasure on offer, withits'masculinisation, that the spell of fascination is broken co-niod Regressions to the pre-Oedipus phase very frequently occur; in the f some womens lives there is a repeated alternation between periods in which femininity and masculinity gain the upper hand. 2 We libido Sexual life is Fron Framework 15-16-17(summer 1981)pp.12-1 dominated by the polarity of masculine-feminine; thus the notion sugges
LAURA MLRLV AFTERTHOUGHTS ONVISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA' the libido to this antithesis. It ut rather ne sort of libido would pursue the rammar of the story places the reader, listener or spectator withthe hero.The sexual life and another sort those of a fer the cinema can make use of an age-old cultural tradition nothing of the kind is true. There is only one libido, which serves both the lasting her to this of her own sex into ny argument too t was specific to cinema, that is the eroticism and cultural ttion 'feminine libi e common to other forms of folk and ido when it is pressed into rh. mor ther than those of the look iture, with attendant fascination onstraint has been applied ess careful account of its(that function' s demands than in the case of he remarks on stories and day-dreams provide another angle of appro: eleologically-in the fact that th mplishment of the aim of biology giving a cultural rather than psychoanalytic insight into the dilemma has been entrusted to the aggressiveness of men and has been made to some emphasises the relationship between the the na concept of the rest in the third Freuds shift from the use It is the true heroic feeling, which one of our best writers has expressed in ology tha ngh this revealing characteristic of invulnerability we can immediatel vo problems here: Freud introduces the use of the wo cognise His Majesty the Ego, the hero of every day-dream and every conventional,, apparently simply following an established social-linguistic practice (but which, Although a boy might know quite well that it is most unlikely that he will go out however, secondly, and constituting a greater intellectual stumbling-block, the into the world, make his fortune through prowess or the assistance of helpers, feminine canno lifferent, but rather only as opposition and marry a princess, the stories describe the male fantasy of ambition, reflecting passivity)in an antinomic sense, or as similarity (the phallic phase). This is not suggest that a hidder girl, on the other hand, the cultural and social overlap is more confusing. Freuds aplied by Freud's use of the word Nature)but thatits structural rel argument that a young girl's day-dreams concentrate on the erotic ignores his asculinity under patriarchy cannot be defined or determined masculinity and the active day-dreams necessarily offered. This shifting process, this definition i sociated with this phase In fact, all too oft leaves,The correct road, femininity, leads to increasing repression of"the also shifting between the ted by the passive, the waiting(Andromed formal closure to the narrative structure. Three elenbain) ts can thus be dra In this sensei ther: Freud's concept of masculinityin women, the identification trigge xual identity, the never fully repressed bed-rock of feminine neurosis ireriality in a text, for women(from childhood onwards)trans-sex identifica- tion is a habit that very easily becomes second nature. However, this Nature ARRATIVE GRAMMAR AND TRANS-SEX IDENTIFICATION does not sit easily and shifts restlessly in its borrowed transvestite clothes. ced by Freud (active/masculine)structures most popular atives, whether film, fol THE WESTERN yth (as I argued inVis ere his metaphoric usage is acted out literally in the story. Andromeda s concept of character fur ased on V. Propp's Morphology of the I want to argue for a chain of links and shifts in n Itis not my aim, here, to debate the rights and wrongs of this narrative division of up the changing function of woman. The Western (allowing, of course, for as many deviations as one cares to enumerate) bears a residual
LAURA MULVEY AFTERTHOUGHTS ON"VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA pp In as It use a es. Also, in the hero's traditional invulnerability, the Western ties in closely ck structure, also brings out the poignancy of this tension. The with Freud's remarks on day-dreaming. (As I am interested primarily in character function and narrative pattern, not in genre definition, many issues his narrative structure is based ables. The two paths cannot cross. On one side there is an encapsulation of urposes, the Western ides a crucial node forma power, and phallic attributes, in an individual who has to bow himself out of the at comment on the function of woman'(as opposed to'man')as a fier and sexual differen way of history; on the other, an individual impotence rewarded by political and ower, which, in the long fact becomes history. Here closure i function"marriage'is as crucial as it is in the folk-tale. It plays the same part in anction characterised by princess'or equivalent. This is the only function that cific, and thus essentially relates to the sex of the hero and his gral attribute of the upholder of the law. In this sense Hallies choice betwee arriageability. This function is very commonly repro the two men is predetermined. Hallie equals princess equals Oedipal resolution arded, equals repression of 1 of its opposite, not marriage. Thus, while the socia In a Western working within these conventions, the function 'marriage'sub- is an essential aspect of the fol ess and remaining alone(Randolph Scott in the Ranown series of movies nre. This neat narrative function restates the propensity forwoman'to mplex(integration into the symbolic), the rejection the erotic'already familiar from visual representation(as, for instance, argued in"Visual Pleasure"). Now I want to discuss the way in which shifts its meanings, producing another kind ts on the phallic phase in girls seemed to belong without a place in the chronology provides the opport phenomenon seem to belong to a phase of play and fantasy difficult te seemsto shift. The exactly into the Oedipal tra Landscape of action, although present, is not the dramatic core of the films story rather it is the interior drama of a girl caught between twoconflictingdesires esires, first of all, correspon male sexuality quoted above, that is: an oscillation betwee mething unknown in the Proppian tale. Here twe ality, still persists, but now rather than being animatic equation, woman= sexu ity and regressive 'ma society through marriage, the ge or a narrative function the of marriage and the family, the sphere represented by woman. a story such ressed. Woma as The Man Who Shot Liberty valance between the double hero also brin ake and eat it too. This particular tension gs out the underlying significance of the bout sexuality: it becomes a melodrama. It is as thou onal lens ha drama, its relation to the symbolic, with unusual clarity. A folk-tale story zoomed in and opened up the neat function'marriage'(and they lived happi .)to ask 'what next?"and to focus on t ings for her one moment of importance, to ask what does she want?*Here Liberty Valance seems to follow these lines at first. The narrative is generated by d the generic terrain for melodrama, in its woman-orientated strand. The act of villainy(Liber cond question(what does she owever the developmen split, as described a ke is no longer how the villain will s heroine's choice puts the seal of married grace on the upholder ofthelawDuel in story, whether the upholder Ranse)will be seen to be victorious or the personification of law i rimitive manifestation (Tom), closer to the good or the right. Liberty valance In Duel in the San the iconographical attributes of the two male (op characters, L ewt and Jesse, conform very closely to those of Tom and R 27
LAURA MULVEY AFTERTHOUGHTS ON"VEUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA Liberty valance. But anse and Tom(which considerably emasculated by the loss of the Westerns accoutrements and its ict over Law and history)is given a crain of violence. (The fact that Stella is a mother, and that her relationsh er, and represent different sides of her desire and as pirat acquire meanumgna aught between the two men, their alternative attribut ntral drama, undermines a possible sexual relation- ship with Ed. He does retain residual traces of Western iconography. His split in Pearl, not a split in the concept of hero, as argued previously for Liberty tributes are mapped through associations with horses and betting, the racing based on' having fun, most explicitly in the episode in which they spread itching merges,Jesse (attributes: books, dark suit, legal skills, love of learning an owder among the respectable occupants of a train carriage. In Stella Dallas, rure, destined to be Governor of the State, money, and )si jects (ver I have been tryin Lewt(attributes: guns, horses, skill with horses, Western get-up, contempt for nat illuminate, but also show shifts in, Oedipal nostalgia. The"personification destined to die an outlaw, personal strength and personal power)offers actual oographical attributes do not relate ro parental figures or reactivat ivalry and play. With Lewt, Pearl can be lation of desire, which lies dormant, waiting to bepleasured'in stories of ooting). Thus the Oedipal dimension persists, but now illuminates the sexual his kind. Perhaps the fascination of the classic Western, in particular, lies in its alence it represents for femininity ther raw touching on this nerve. However, for the female spectator the the last resort there is oom for Pearl in Lewt,s world of misogynist tuation is more complicated and goes beyond simple mourning for a los ntasy of omnipote masculine identification, in its phallic aspec reactivates for her a fantasy ofaction'that be repressed. The fa masculinity, Both in the language used by Freud and in the male personifications a doo that was stable and meaningful, Pearl is unable to settle or find a 'femininity'in hich she and the male world can meet. In this sense, although the mal a strait-jacket, becoming itself an indicator, a litmus paper, of the problems characters personify Pearls dilemma, it is their terms that make and finally tably activated by any attempt to represent the feminine in patriarcha ak her. Once the narrative drama dooms ciety. The memory of the '' phase has its own romantic attraction, a regressive resistance to the symbolic Lewt, Pearl's masculine side, drops ou ce, in which the power of masculinity can be used as he social order. Pearl's masculinity gives her the wherewithal to ac postponement against the power of patriarchy. Thus Freuds comments heroism and kill the villain. The lovers shoot each other and die in each other's illuminate both the position of the female spectator and the image of oscillation ms. Perhaps, in Duel, the erotic relationship between Pearl and Lewt represented by Pearl and Stella in the course of some womens lives there is a repeated In Duel in the Sun, Pearl's inability to become a between periods in which femininity and masculinity gain the upper hand tihat the perfect iady appears, like a phantasmagoria of PearI's failed aspirat (the phallic phase).. then succumbs to the momentous process of her and her rights ften been shown, that determines the fortune sees that she represents the'correctroad In an earlier film by King Vidor, S womens femininity. bove make the dramatic meaning of the film although it is not a We ty, her inability to flanked on each side by a male personification of her macho world on the other. Her husband ctive'phase, Rather than dramatising the success of masculine identificati Pearl brings out its sadness. Her tomboy pleasures, her sexuality, are not fully monstrates all the attributes associated with Jesse, with no problems eneric shift, Ed Munn, representing Stella's regressive 'masculine'side, is wt, except in death. So, too, is the female spectator's fantasy of masculinisation at cross-purposes with itself, restless in its transvestite clothes
NOTES l.S. Freud,'Analysis Terminable and Interminable', Standard Edition, voL. XXIlT 2. S. Freud, Femininity, Standard Edition, vol. XXl ( London: The Hogarth Press, 3. Ibid 4. S. Freud, ' Creative Writers and Day Dreaming, Standard Edition, vol IX(London
