Laura Mulvey's visual pleasure theory (1975)

British born feminist, Laura Mulvey, born August 15th 1941 was educated at St Hilda's College in Oxford. She is currently a professor of film and media studies at Birbeck, University of London, having previously worked at the British Film Institute. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was an essay written by Mulvey in 1973, published in 1975. The essay coined the term 'male gaze', which soon became a highly discussed and debated theory.

Mulvey's world famous visual pleasure theory was thought of in 1975, with the basic view that within the male gaze the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual male. This is demonstrated by a scene in a movie focusing on a females figure, putting the viewer in a males position. However, it is only said to be the male gaze theory if specific conventions are used, for example, slow motion, deliberate camera movements and cut aways. The theory suggests that it denies females of human identity, portraying them as objects for visual pleasure. The theory also states that women can often watch a movie from a secondary perspective subconsciously, viewing themselves from a male perspective. Mulvey cited that the presence of a female is vital in film, however she has no real importance, and only exists in relation to a male, and the way that she makes a male feel is her main role within the narrative. Mulvey stated that the role of a female character in a narrative has two functions, to pose as an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view, and as an erotic object for spectators within the cinema to view. Only 16% of media creators are male, proving that in the media industry men have the power and dominance, controlling the mass media and what we see as a public audience.

Examples of the male gaze in film:
- The James Bond (007) franchise
- Sin City
- Charlie's Angels
- Transformers
- Kill Bill
- The Dark Knight Trilogy
- Tomb Raider
- Psycho
- The Avengers

Not only is this theory applicable in film, modern music videos are subject to the male gaze, as most of the time men are shown fully clothed with scantily clad attractive women in their company, with the man often looking at the woman's body, and the camera fragmenting her body.

Scopophilia literally means 'love of watching', deriving pleasure from looking. It refers to sexual pleasure, derived from looking at erotic objects. The term was thought up from Sigmund Freud. He considered pleasure in looking to be a regular partial instinct in childhood, which may be sublimated into interests such as art, or alternatively becoming fixated in curiosity of the female body.

Jacques Lacan subsequently drew on the theory  of gaze to link scopophilia with the apprehension of the other, "the gaze is this object lost and suddenly refpund in the conflagration of shame, by introduction of the other". Lacan privileged scopophilia in his theory of how desire is captured by the imaginary image of the other. Other French analysts have emphasised how the discovery of sexual difference in childhood, and the accompanying sense of not knowing subsequently fuels the scopophilic drive.

Voyeurism and the male gaze have been seen as central elements in such mainstream cinematic viewing, most famously discussed by Mulvey. Voyeurism derives sexual gratification, from observing others in secret. Often the object of voyeurism is undressed or engaged in some kind of sexual activity. The key factor in voyeurism is that the voyeur does not interact personally with the person being observed. Voyeurs are also known as 'peeping Toms'. Traditionally, the audience of a film sit in the dark, observing the activities of the people who appear on screen, who are unaware that they are being watched. Horror films in particular are strongly voyeuristic, as they identify the viewer with the point of view of the 'monster'.