LeilaniCSUP

 For this weeks zoom discussion we studied “The Oppositional Gaze” by bell hooks. This is another reading about flaws in cinema, feminist film theory, the power of viewing and “the gaze”. hooks begins by explaining how children are punished for staring when they aren’t supposed to and also punished when looking away when they are supposed to be looking. The human gaze is powerful and can be seen as a sign of respect or disrespect. Slave owners would punish their slaves for looking at them. Slaves were denied the right to gaze. She believes that this repression triggered an overwhelming desire to gaze rebelliously. This is known as the oppositional gaze.  Media maintains white supremacy by creating cinema that targets a white audience. Even films with black actors are historically white representations of blackness. It is no secret that in movies, and tv shows, cinema portrays a system of inequality. Black neighborhoods aren’t as nice as white neighborhoods, the actors overcome...

For this weeks zoom discussion we read “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” by Laura Mulvey. Mulvey writes about psychoanalytic theory, specifically from a political standpoint to explain how society has structured film form. Other film theorists have written about psychoanalysis in film but didn’t express the importance of the representation of the female form in narrative cinema. To explore how this representation provides “visual pleasure” while also fortifying male dominance, Mulvey enlists the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Psychoanalysis is defined as a set of psychological theories and therapeutic methods which have their origin in the work and theories of Sigmund Freud. His theory suggests that psychoanalysis is a belief in which every person has unconscious thoughts, feelings, desires, and memories. Mulvey believes that psychoanalysis is used to “advance our understanding of the status quo”. She understands that there are alternative forms of cinema, but she be...