Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" argues that women are presented unequally in cinema, being sexualized by the camera for the visual pleasure of the male audience. She identifies three types of "looking" at play - how characters look at each other on screen, how the camera films its shots and angles, and how the audience perceives the woman. Mulvey suggests that cinema prioritizes the male gaze by objectifying women for visual pleasure.

1. The Male Gaze
LAURA MULVEY
“VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE
CINEMA” - 1975

2. Laura Mulvey
 Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist, she
is best known for her essay, “Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema”
 She suggested that the way in which females are
viewed in cinema is “unequal”. The camera
necessarily presents woman as “sexualised” for the
pleasure of men

3. Muvley’s three types of “looking”
The look of the
character at each
other in the visual
image of the screen
illusion
(the way in which the
male and female in
screen look at each
other)
The look of the
camera as it records
the filmic event
(Camera shot and
angles)
The look of the audience as it
watches the final film product
(the way they perceive the look of
the woman)