Laura Mulvey (born August 15, 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at Oxford and is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. She worked at the British Film Institute for many years before taking up her current position. August 15 is the 227th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (228th in leap years), with 138 days remaining. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... Feminist film theory is theoretical work within film criticism which is derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. ... Media studies is an area of scholarly inquiry approached from both humanities and social science perspectives that considers the nature and effects of mass media upon individuals and society, as well as analysing actual media content and representations. ... Senate House, designed by Charles Holden, home to the universitys central administrative offices and its library The University of London is a federation of colleges and institutes which together constitute one of the worlds largest universities. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and...

Mulvey is best known for her essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal Screen. (It also appears in a collection of her essays entitled Visual and Other Pleasures and numerous other anthologies.) This article was one of the first major essays that helped shift the orientation of film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework, influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz attempted to use psychoanalytic ideas in their theoretical accounts of the cinema, but Mulvey's contribution was to inaugurate the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis, and feminism. 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film/cinema as art. ... Psychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. ... Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (IPA: []) (May 6, 1856–September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Cover of Elisabeth Roudinescos biography of Lacan Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. ... Christian Metz (French) is best known for the application of Ferdinand de Saussures theories of Semiotics to film. ... Psychoanalysis is the revelation of unconscious relations, in a systematic way through an associative process. ... Film theory seeks to develop concise, systematic concepts that apply to the study of film/cinema as art. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Feminism is a diverse, competing, and often opposing collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies, largely motivated by or concerning the experiences of women. ...

Mulvey’s article argues mainly that the cinematic apparatus (specifically of classical Hollywood cinema) inevitably puts the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire. In classical Hollywood cinema, viewers are encouraged to identify with the protagonist of the film, who tends to be a man. Meanwhile, female characters are, according to Mulvey, coded with "to-be-looked-at-ness." Mulvey argues that the only way to annihilate this "patriarchal" system is to radically deconstruct the filmic strategies of classical Hollywood with alternative methods. She calls for a new feminist avant-garde filmmaking that will rupture the magic and pleasure of classical Hollywood filmmaking. “It is said that analysing pleasure or beauty annihilates it. That is the intention of this article”. Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ... Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ... A patriarch (from Greek: patria means father; arché means rule, beginning, origin) is a male head of an extended family exercising autocratic authority, or, by extension, a member of the ruling class or government of a society controlled by senior men. ... Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ... Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ... Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ...

"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" was the subject of much interdisciplinary discussion that continued into the 1980s. Critics of the article objected to the fact that her argument implied the impossibility of genuine 'feminine' enjoyment of the classical Hollywood cinema, and to the fact that her argument did not seem to take into account spectatorships that were not organised along the normative lines of gender (for example, a metaphoric 'transvestism' might be possible when viewing a film -- a male viewer might enjoy a 'feminine' point-of-view provided by a film, or vice versa; gay and lesbian spectatorships might also be different). Mulvey later said that this article was meant to be a provocation or a manifesto, rather than a coldly reasoned academic article that took all objections into account. However, she addressed many of her critics in a follow-up article "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'" (which also appears in the Visual and Other Pleasures collection). Classical Hollywood cinema designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the Los Angeles film industry of the 1910s and 1920s. ...

Another collection of her essays is titled Fetishism and Curiosity.

Mulvey was also prominent as an avant-garde filmmaker in the 1970s and 1980s. With Peter Wollen, she co-wrote and co-directed Penthesilea: Queen of the Amazons (1974), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977 - perhaps their most influential film), AMY! (1980), Crystal Gazing (1982), Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti (1982), and The Bad Sister. In 1991, she returned to filmmaking with Disgraced Monuments. Peter Wollen was born in London on 29 June 1938 and studied English at Christchurch College, Oxford. ...

Mulvey is currently working on a book entitled Death Twenty-four Times a Second: Reflections on Stillness in the Moving Image (London: Reaktion Books, forthcoming, 2005).

References

• Laura Mulvey (1975). "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Screen 16(3): 6-18.
  • Available online.
• Laura Mulvey (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253204941.

Laura Mulvey is also an idiot