Critically analyse a scene from a film of your choosing that adopts a “male gaze” (Mulvey, 1999).

Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990) shows Vivian Ward, a prostitute, hired by a wealthy rich businessman, Edward Lewis, to accompany him during business gatherings however, they soon fall in love. The film follows the conventional fairytale narrative, but places it in a contemporary setting. The film looks at different aspects of society such as dominant ideologies, class and gender. Although Vivian subverts many of the stereotypes and expectations against her, the camerawork used adopts the male gaze. The scene I have chosen is the introduction to Vivian’s character.

The introduction foreshadows Vivian’s character, as the lights from the hotel sign in the opening shot only highlight ‘ho’. This suggests the idea that the character is not from a respected background, but also her occupation as a sex worker. We see men approaching women in their cars from the sidewalk, the nature of how the men address the women is commanding and dehumanising. The beginning introduces us to women dressed in revealing outfits bending down, suggesting they are prostitutes. Whilst the men are shown in cars, this implies their wealth and enforces the ideology of the patriarchy system. They address the women by their features rather than their names. For example, a male says, “Hey what do you say blondie” (Garry Marshall, 1990) and suggests for them to get into the car. Mulvey explains the act of dehumanising women due to the fear of castration. She explains “through linguistic command” they are able to control the female and her actions and therefore can “live out his phantasies” (Mulvey, 1999, pg. 834).

Vivian’s body is sexualised instantly from the first time we see her body. Rather than being introduced to her face first, her thighs and bottom are shown first. This is due to her body being broken up into parts. The camera slowly examines her body parts, she’s also only dressed in underwear and a crop top. She is therefore seen as an object, shown only on screen to look at and admire. Due to the worry of castration the audience objectify her body. Mulvey states the body is “stylised and fragmented by close ups (...) and is the direct recipient of the spectators look” (Mulvey, 1999, pg. 841). It’s an example of how Vivian is implied to be passive whereas the males are the active audience, as they are the ones doing the spectating. Thus her body being the victim of the male gaze, Mulvey argues this is common in film as its due to the “ideology of the patriarchal order” (Mulvey, 1999, pg. 843).

Voyeurism plays an important role, the audience receive a pleasure from knowing the actor is not aware that they are being watched, it is known as a peeping tom situation. Freud explains it as associating “scopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze” (Mulvey, 1999, pg. 845), the panning shots are purposely done to represent the audience scanning her body. Additionally, we see the example of fetishism, there is a need to add items to the female body. For example, we see Vivian adding items on, such as zipping up her boots. Essentially due to the fear of castration, the belief of adding to the female body weakens this danger.

Pretty Woman arguably adopts the male gaze; this is interesting considering the movie was targeted at women. The ending of the film is also problematic as Vivian is only able to leave her job due to Edwards’ wealth.

Bibliography

Mulvey, L. (1999) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In Braudy, L. & Cohen, M. (Eds) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp833-844.

Pretty Woman. (1990). (Film) Directed by G. Marshall. Touchstone Pictures.