Laura Mulvey uses psychoanalysis theory as a "political tool" in her paper "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" to show how society's patriarchal subconscious affects our movie viewing experience and cinema itself. The essay also talks about how the cinematic text structures along the lines that conform to the cultural subconscious, which is inherently patriarchal. The social trends that were preexisting have influenced the subject's dictate and perpetuate the appeal of Hollywood films.
The essay is a combination of meaning-making in cinema and psychoanalytic research of preference and subjectivity development. The piece also tries to tell us how film creates the messages they do. The psychoanalytic view of the essay strives to establish a connection between cinematic text and the audience. The essay explains how the audience explores their obsession by examining the cinematic images with their subconscious.
The main argument in the essay is that women are used in Hollywood narrative films to have a pleasurable visual experience for men. Women in the movie are like mere objects having no significant role to play and present to attract the male audience to watch the film. There is always a masculine gaze/ male gaze structured in narrative movies. The cinematic gaze is often masculine, shown through the associations with the male hero and the camera's use. Mulvey distinguishes two modes of gratification generated by Hollywood cinema, each of which stems from a separate mental system. The first concerns the image's objectification, while the second involves familiarity with it. Both functions reflect the male subject's mental impulses.
Mulvey claims in her essay that cinema is first and foremost the development of lust by scopophilia means, and then the relaxation of the sexual libido by ego means. Mulvey contends in the essay that cinema perpetuates myths of active masculinity and passive femininity. Women appear in cinema to motivate men to act, and since they are not essential in and of themselves, she becomes an object of eroticism. It is the man's produced position to be a spectator to the eroticism, and in doing so, gives him influence. Mulvey states that the male figure in cinema seeks to embody a dynamic, conscious space, like the child recognizing themselves in the mirror.
In a deeper analysis of the nature of female characters, Mulvey again refers to Freud. The crux of the cinematic character, according to him, is her castration; the character is unable to experience pleasure. Mulvey describes the female cinematic figure as a contradiction. She mixes arousal with the exploitation of deep fears of castration. The male subconscious has two options for dealing with his fear of castration. One aspect of demystifying the female character is undermining her mysteries. The other way to avoid the fear of being castrated by the woman is to fetishize her. The essay additionally talks about how female characters are fetishized, objectified, and positioned only in contrast to male characters. It also tells how films centre around a charismatic male character with whom the viewer can associate. This identity is analogous to Lacan's mirror phase, in which the narcissistic broken subject perceives himself as whole and powerful in a mirrored self-picture. Methods that achieve cinematic realism help in this mirror-like identity that strengthens the ego.
I firmly believe that movies or music videos, in general, have the power to influence a person to think a certain way. Everything is shown on the screen of the camera angle, the interaction of the characters, the dialogues, or the lyrics, can influence young minds in doing the same action. I was among those people; who have enjoyed watching and listening to music, not knowing how problematic they were. Now when I re-watched the same thing, I cringe. It is sad to realize that we all were subjected to these visual elements and conditioned to accept them and think it is normal. Movies from decades back have shown things like rape, objectifying women, not acknowledging women's consent, making women wear revealing clothes for visual pleasure and whatnot. Has this changed in 21st-century cinemas or movie making? And the answer is NO. Hard to believe; watch few "item" songs or so-called "pop" songs.
In the essay, Mulvey spoke about the Hollywood industry but, it is no surprise that the Indian film and music industry is equally bad and has contributed to some questionable stuff. After reading the article, I wanted to analyze few music videos and see how much they contribute to certain elements mentioned in the essay. I stumbled upon a few MV's having several thousand to million views on YouTube. And I saw that most of them either showed women as gold diggers, innocent women who cannot do anything without her hero, a vamp, etc. And these have shaped how people think about a woman. Bollywood movies and songs have themes of a peeping-tom or someone who does not respect a woman's opinion forces them to do what the man wants them to do and ends up having a happy ending. How is this normal? It is convincing men that when a woman says no, she means yes, which is wrong cause she means NO. Movies and songs give men a reason to behave a certain way making them think: if that hero can do it, even I can do the same. It is a way of normalizing wrong things to the public. Songs like Gandi Baat, Cheez hai mast, Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan are just some examples. In India, the terms hot and item are a few of the frequently used words to objectify women. Music contains everything from comparisons to female bodies and recipes to strange camera angles, objectification, and comparing women with animals.
How many people have heard the song called Genda Phool by Badshah? Can we all collectively agree that this man does not know how to rap? There are many things wrong with this song. It is not just the video that is cringing but, the lyrics are a cherry on top. For example:
You are a Rich Father’s Daughter, with long hair
I will tie it to your hair red marigold...
You have reduced her identity and refers to her as a rich father's daughter. The song is jam-packed with general sexist essentials, such as choreography designed to make a scene out of the female lead's body and ample camera sweeps to concentrate on the individual body parts. The song also includes a strong emphasis on Jacqueline's lyrics being like "butter" and "sugar" with a small zest of plagiarism. While the cinematographer uses camera cuts to sexualize Jaqueline Fernandez, Badshah's lyrics discuss how she walks, how bottoms move, and how she has a butterfly tattoo on her waist. The lyrics also include sexual references, including one that, for whatever reason, talks about how he would take her virginity like a wicket. The song also makes his characterization of Fernandez's skin; racist who? The video for Genda Phool is set in a Durga Puja scene, with Fernandez performing the traditional dance while dressed in traditional attire. Many of these are significant cultural indicators; the video highlights both the commodification and sexualization of culture.
Have you watched the song 'I'm the one' by DJ Khaled ( ft. Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne.) Seventeen seconds into the MV and you can see a woman riding a horse towards the mansion. Following a close-up shot of another woman's bottoms. Then opened the viewers to Justin Biber and DJ Khaled standing on platforms in a pool, surrounded by dancing women in bikinis. Throughout the MV, we can see these singers surrounded by beautiful women wearing bikinis. It then struck me—this woman has almost no role in the significance of this album. It's about glorifying the men altogether. These women have only the intention of becoming sexual objects. Why did society allow this because there are so many feminist movements? This song is among the thousands of music videos that have used women to grab the attention of male viewers. It's troubling that men who are meant to be role models and can address every topic through their music chose to objectify women and condone their violence. And because of their infectious beats, we download the songs by the millions, sing along in the rain, and inspire more to be made like it. It's all a matter of supply and demand.
Misogyny in songs and movies is nothing new; it seems to be profoundly rooted. The lyrics, as well as the accompanying animations, contain a slew of sexist stereotypes. Much of the time, these are graphic representations of female bodies from the male gaze, hyper-sexualizing and objectifying them. Since these musicians have a large audience, they play a vital part in influencing people's minds and behaviours. This music strongly increases rape culture, with females lying or suspended over a crowd of men, their hands reached out to them, and concepts of clothes determining consent or consent possessing little meaning at all. If this is not taken up earnestly, the future of our women is not safe anywhere. No hate to the artists or songs, and in no way am I saying that the music or film industry is the sole reason for women's objectification or mistreatment, but we do need to accept that they do contribute to the same to a certain extent.
Comments
Post a Comment