Laura Mulvey developed the theory of the "Male Gaze" which argues that cinema is directed towards appealing to heterosexual men by over-sexualizing women. She identified three ways this occurs: how men view women, how women view other women, and how women view themselves. The document discusses how the characters Ellie and Sam in the short film "Promise" could be seen as subject to the Male Gaze by portraying the female character as beautiful until the end in order to not make audiences uncomfortable.

1. Representation Theory in Film

2. Laura Mulvey- The Male Gaze
Mulvey is best known for her work, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", written in
1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal Screen. Her
theories include how cinema is merely directed to appeal to the heterosexual male
and that women because of this is are subject to a ‘Male Gaze’. The theory looks into
three separate categories:
i) How men view women –Mulvey says that women are over sexualised in cinema
to appeal to a male audience.
ii) How women view other women- She goes on to discuss how women have
become focused on the way other women look and comparing themselves
while doing so.
iii) How women view themselves- This links again to how women are more likely to
feel at competition because of how women are represented on the big screen.
In terms of its connection to our short film, one could argue that Ellie and Sam are
both subjects to the Gaze as they are young and in the eyes of cinema attractive
individuals. The fact we have chosen to still show Ellie as beautiful until the end would
represent how our film would support Mulvey’s theory in that women are only
represented in this way in cinema as it would be otherwise discomforting to an
audience.

3. Stuart Hall
Hall became one of the main proponents of reception theory,
and developed his theory of encoding and decoding. It focuses
on the scope for negotiation and opposition on the part of the
audience. His theory covers dominant, oppositional, and
negotiated readings of representation and explains how
depending on our social status we receive certain texts. This
would link to our short film ‘Promise’ as it would seem to a
dominant reader that the father is a cruel and controlling
figure that is the obstacle between Sam and Ellie’s
relationship. An oppositional reader would say there is a
reason for his behaviour and that he is simply trying to fulfill
his role as a father and a protector. Finally , and negotiated
reader would say that yes Dave’s behaviour is very controlling
and he does keep his daughter from being able to live in the
little time she has left but there is a reason behind it.

4. David Gauntlett
David Gauntlett (born 15 March 1971) is a British
sociologist and media theorist. His earlier work
concerned contemporary media audiences, and has
moved towards a focus on the everyday making and
sharing of digital media and social media, and the role of
such media in self-identity and self-expression. In 2007,
Gauntlett published the article Media Studies 2.0, an
article that argues that the traditional form of media
studies research fails to recognise the changing media
categories of 'audiences' and 'producers' blurring
together, and that new research methods and approaches
are needed.

5. Jean Baudrillard
• Hyperreality- “A condition in which ‘reality’ has been
replaced with simulacra.”
• Simulacra- “When a sign loses its relation to reality and
begins to simulate a simulation.”
An example of Baudrillard’s hyper reality would be
celebrity culture. Celebrities who reach the point where
they have every aspect of their lives taken over by
someone else and they are living in a hyperreal world.
They lose the ability to interact with people on a normal
level and are cocooned in hyperreality. Similarly, film was
created to represent reality and now it is reality and that
is representing what happens in film.