Mulvey talks of the active/male and the passive/female – with the former looking at the female in a couple of different ways. He either fetishes the female and elevates her to the status of an icon or a pin-up. Or he is a voyeur who takes on the role of judging/punishing/rescuing her. In all of this, the female is passive; and her chief quality is the being looked at-ness.
We as female members of the audience are said to exercise a choice – between identifying with the male gaze, or with the female being looked at-ness. In fact drawing from psychoanalytic theory, it is suggested that we oscillate between these 2 points of view.
I like the idea that we move from 1 POV to the other, but not as it is described by Mulvey. Personally, I am not sure that I identify with the male POV – the male gaze – when the masculine in me is ascendant. For me, it is an uncomfortable POV, even abhorrent on occasion: the voyeurism, the aggression, all of it.
Even more objectionable is the POV of the female being looked at. My response to the idea of a man rescuing/completing me can extend anywhere on the continuum from amusement to annoyance. Then again I can have a visceral reaction to popular notions of romance. Think of Michelle Pfeiffer’s glowing face in Up Close and Personal, with the Celine Dion track in the background: “I am everything I am because you loved me!”
What makes sense to me is that we all have masculine and feminine tendencies that we move between. 1 of which maybe the overriding tendency for some of us. For others, it maybe that we are the stuff of movement, without a value judgment associated with either POV? The goal is to integrate the 2, and be more in touch with the masculine and the feminine in us. Rather than view the world in dichotomies.
I am all for an “androgynist” film theory!
Kristina- sorry to be slow to respond to your question.
I actually did not think too much about Mulvey’s term – though I take your point about her possibly using a more appropriate term if she were writing today.
I have always subscribed to the idea of androgyny for 2 reasons. 1) it stems from my knowledge/understanding of the concept in my religion: we have a deity (1 among many in Hinduism), who is supposed to represent the coming together of the male and the female powers, who is half male and half female; 2) the middle ground seems to be a better way to look at a lot of things, rather than think in terms of dichotomies.
Not sure if this makes a lot of sense, but I just thought to explain where I was coming from.
I’m interested in why you chose the term “androgynist” film theory. I wonder if Mulvey’s use of the term “transvestite” spectator has been written about, since I’ve always been curious as to what term she would have used if she were writing today. I’m not sure if she chose a term that emphasizes superficiality (clothing) to demonstrate the facility with which a “transvestite” spectator can switch from female to male spectatorship, since what we’re actually talking about (biological sex) is anything but superficial. I think today she might have used a term like “transsexual” which I’m not sure existed in the 1970s. “Transgender” is perhaps more appropriate since it hints at the superficiality of gender, but I think you’re right that androgyny might be the most accurate description of this kind of spectatorship.