Thursday, 10 March 2011

Two Modes of Looking

Laura Mulvey is a feminist film theorist, who stated that there were two modes of looking; voyeuristic looking and fetidhistic looking.


Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze. Mulvey argued that this has associations with sadism; 'pleasure lies in asserting guilt - asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness.'

Fetishistic looking involves 'the substitution of a fetish object or turning to represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. This builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying itself. The erotic instinct is focused on the look alone.'

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