In Conversation With Laura Mulvey (Interview)

My shift in spectatorship came very specifically out of the influence of the Women's Movement. Instead of being an absorbed spectator; a voyeuristic spectator; a male spectator, as it were, I suddenly found I'd become a woman spectator, who watched the film from a distance, not with those absorbed eyes.'

Laura Mulvey is a feminist film theorist, whose seminal text 'Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema' instigated what is now known as 'male gaze' theory. Together with Peter Wollen, she also made many experimental films in the '70s and '80s. Here she talks Freud; Hollywood; her own counter-cinema; Frida Kahlo, and a shift to active spectatorship.

[Spoiled_Rat]

Wow, Mulvey really is a personal inspiration. I think media plays a much bigger part in society than people assume. It's so cool to compare the ways cinema shifted and what tricks/tropes filmmakers still use today. Sucks so many people use her work out of context.

[henrymiller]

I'm sorry that people are so cruel in the comments section. You truly were a pioneer in your field.

[nickwatson]

Have never heard Laura speak! This is so cool, total punk rocker of feminist and film theory!!!

[fernandacastilho]

ooooh i loved this video and i loved knowing this channel and website <3

[HamamBocekleriniKorumaDernegi]

There are no Turkish videos about Mulvey. can i translate this in Turkish?

[ghaydakh]

very bad automatic translation, it distracted me in a wrong way and made me misunderstand the point

[sodazman]

Her theories are very much out of date today. Freud's psychoanalytical framework that she leans heavily on have been largely debunked through evidence based studies. The popularity of movies like Fifty Shades of Grey, Magic Mike, Twilight, 365 days, Sex/Life prove that there's just as much of a market for the female gaze. There is also a tremendous amount of empowered female lead heroine characters in the cinemas. I've studied film theory for years and I believe the power play goes both ways in the sexual realm.

[timhaas]

The selective attention and specious logic on display here is astounding. 🤔

[johnyzero]

She'll never have to worry about the male gaze.

[stephengreico]

Yep...that whole men looking at women thing is just about the worst thing to ever fall upon humanity...I mean toss them in prison.
This should be the focus of the world.
Not starving children or homelessness