Laura Mulvey, a leading feminist theorist in film, claims that the typical audience member is assumed to be male, and that women are, therefore, forced to adopt a male perspective when viewing films. As a result, Mulvey believes that women are simply used as objects for the male ‘gaze’, often being seen as threats because of their difference.
Claire Johnston, another prominent feminist, argued a slightly less elaborate theory, that women have always been stereotyped in film and forced into certain roles. Her writings call for a cinema that challenges these conventions but which is nevertheless entertaining. Similarly to Mulvey’s theory, Johnston also believes that the camera sees women as an extension of a male vision.
Despite their differences, these two theories seem to conclude that, in cinema, priority is given to the male experience as spectator. Three films which are useful in discussing this topic are Garry Marshall’s Pretty Woman (1990), Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise (1991) and Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993).
Pretty Woman (Marshall, 1990)
Pretty Woman is a commercially successful romantic comedy starring Richard Gere as a wealthy businessman, Edward Lewis, who hires Hollywood prostitute Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) as an escort. Over the week they spend together, their relationship develops and eventually blossoms into love.
From the beginning of the film, Roberts’ character is represented as holding power over Gere’s; however, her outfit seems to negate this, by implying that her control over him is solely a result of her sexual allure. This links to Mulvey’s theory about women being consistently presented as erotic objects. Vivian is also arguably represented as a threat, with the potential to damage Edward’s reputation by tempting him into behaving abnormally by hiring a prostitute.
However, despite these initial suggestions of gendered stereotypes, we quickly see that there is a lot more depth to Vivian’s character than Mulvey and Johnston’s theories would suggest. She seems more independent than would be expected, with her unwillingness to be dominated by a pimp, and becomes almost masculine through her escape out of a fire exit, her consistent aggressiveness and a knowledge of cars that far exceeds Edward’s.
With a female protagonist that, to an extent, challenges gendered stereotypes, it seems arguable, therefore, that Pretty Woman does not give priority to either the man’s or the woman’s experience as spectator, and therefore meets Johnston’s criteria for an entertaining cinema that challenges conventions in gender.
However, in the wider filmic landscape Pretty Woman can in no way be considered challenging, as it completely satisfies the expectations for a generic Hollywood ‘rom-com’, which accounts for its success at the box office; it was the fourth highest grossing film of 1990, receiving two Golden Globes and being nominated for an Oscar. Additionally, the film’s conventional closure, in which the characters conform to a societal stereotype by settling down and living ‘happily ever after’ together, arguably goes some way towards reinforcing the gendered stereotypes which the rest of the film seems to work so hard to subvert.
Thelma and Louise (Scott, 1991)
Thelma and Louise is widely considered a much more feminist film than Pretty Woman, as it seems to deliberately reject and even invert gendered conventions. It follows the central female characters, Thelma and Louise, as they go on the run after killing a rapist. The women are transformed into outlaws as they subsequently engage in an unruly road trip, littered with nights of heavy drinking, gratuitous sex and even armed robbery.
What is immediately striking about how the film challenges conventions is that the protagonists seem to take on the typically ‘male’ genre of a road-trip or action movie and combine it with the conventionally female themes of friendship and self-discovery, since the overall outcome of the narrative seems to be the girls’ rekindled relationship and respect for themselves. This, coupled with the fact that, while female stereotypes are obviously subverted, male stereotypes are employed frequently, can definitely be seen to give priority to the female spectator’s experience.
Although there are interspersed examples of Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ in the film, throughout the majority of the story the protagonists are deliberately made as sexually unattractive as possible, with messy hair, masculine clothing and an unmade-up appearance. Additionally, the female gaze seems to be a lot more common than Mulvey’s male one; Brad Pitt’s character, for example, seems to be objectified every time we see him, inevitably prioritising the female spectator.
Thelma and Louise, therefore, is an example of a film which gives priority to the woman’s experience as spectator but is nevertheless successful, as the 28th highest grossing film of 1991. However, it is debatable whether or not the female protagonists actually completely succeed in breaking out of their stereotype. Many feminists reject Thelma and Louise, arguing that it suggests women can only gain power by behaving like men, and, therefore, that women are still reliant on them.
Despite its commercial success, the film could be considered a disappointment as popular entertainment. As a blending of a typical ‘male’ genre with conventionally ‘female’ attitudes and values, a viewer settling into the familiar territory of a road movie may find it soured by the emotional and self-discovery angles that feminism brings to it, regardless of their gender. This underlying emotional focus arguably adds an almost consistent down-heartedness and prevents the film from achieving the happy-go-lucky approach to violence and crime that defines the road-trip genre in general. Since, in this way, attempts to prioritise the female spectator present a problem, it seems logical to assume that we are conditioned into approaching films with a male mindset.
The Piano (Campion, 1993)
The Piano is perhaps the one of these three films which most consistently represents a woman’s experience completely. It tells the story of Ada, a mute pianist, who is sold into marriage with a New Zealand frontiersman and forced, along with her daughter, to take up residence with him in a dismal and muddy New Zealand backwater.
The film’s expressionistic visual style continually represents Ada’s subjective state, through, for example, the frequent tightly framed shots which convey her feelings of imprisonment and confinement. There is also a large amount of point-of-view shots which put the audience in Ada’s position and present them with her experiences and emotions.
Mulvey’s theory of the ‘gaze’ is particularly evident in this film, as, during sex scenes, we receive a lot of voyeuristic shots from the perspective of other characters. In contrast to Mulvey’s theory, however, Ada cannot realistically be considered a threat to the men; she is mute and, as a result, vulnerable, helpless and powerless. Like the character of Vivian in Pretty Woman, Ada seems only able to gain power through her objectification by men; the only way in which she can control the male community that surrounds her is by employing her sexual allure. The conventional closure of the film reinforces Ada’s relatively unchallenging representation.
Although Ada, therefore, conforms to a female stereotype, the film does give priority to the woman’s experience, mainly due to its female director and expressionistic style. The Piano did not perform as well as Pretty Woman and Thelma and Louise at the box office; its more subjective female viewpoint is perhaps part of the reason why.
The future for women in film
If we take The Piano as the example in which most focus is put on the feminine experience, it can be argued that films presented solely from a woman’s perspective are less popular than those in which both male and female spectators are prioritised. It seems naive to generalise about which gender is prioritised in film, but from the success of Pretty Woman we can assume that films representing the experiences of both genders, and therefore of a wider portion of the audience, are usually more successful.
Since the film industry in general primarily aims to make profit, the future for films which take a feminist approach does not look promising; however, as filmmaking gradually becomes cheaper and distribution platforms become more accessible, the resultant increase in independent filmmakers will inevitably see more feminist films being produced.
Liz Cooper - A 22 year old media graduate from northern England, Liz now lives in London where she undertakes freelance television and writing work. A ...
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