IMAGES OF WOMEN IN FILM (IN-PERSON)

In this course, we will explore several classic films about women and by women. Feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, in her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1972), claimed that Hollywood’s patriarchy used the camera to mirror the hungry gaze of its male characters to satisfy the voyeurism of its male viewers. Through editing, angles, and lighting, they turned female characters into passive sexual objects. Now, with the growing number of female directors, what happens when we look at the world through a female point of view? How do women see themselves? What makes a movie essentially feminine when it’s directed by either gender? We will answer these questions and more when investigating the male and female gaze.