Film Theory Essay- Feminist Theory, Lemonade and Blonde Venus with Laura Mulvey PDF

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This essay looks at feminist theory using Laura Mulvey and Bell Hooks theories of gender. I explore Beyonces 'Lemonade' visual album and Blonde Venus (Josef Sternberg, 1932)....

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Candidate: 202417

P5030: Film Theory B Candidate No: 202417 Is there Progression from the Classic to Contemporary Presentation of Women in mainstream cinema when Focusing on the Female Spectatorship that Mulvey discuss’ in ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’?

Laura Mulvey’s theory on female spectatorship for cinema is that women on-screen are there for the ‘male gaze’ and therefore the female figure is objectified. Mulvey suggests that Hollywood classic cinema is stuck in the unconscious structured ways of viewing and pleasure looking, as it has a capitalist approach and so ‘conventions of mainstream film focus attention on the human form.’1 Therefore, Mulvey believes feminist films can only exist as counterpoint to Hollywood cinema. I will be exploring whether Mulvey’s theory on female spectatorship is accurate on the presentation of women in Classic films and whether it has progressed or changed for the presentation of women in contemporary films. For this exploration I will be focusing on Josef von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus (1932) and Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade (2016), while using Jackie Stacey and Bell Hooks feminist theories to interrogate the progression within female spectatorship in Blonde Venus and Lemonade. In 1975 Laura Mulvey wrote a critical feminist theory on how the female spectatorship is minimal in mainstream cinema, due to the patriarchal order in cinema and therefore women are presented on-screen for ‘scopophilic’ viewing by a male audience. This is heightened by the monolithic system on large capital investment exemplified at its best by

1 Laura Mulvey. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Screen Article, Volume 16, Issue 3. 1975, p.9.

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Hollywood in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s.’2Therefore Mulvey’s theory on spectatorship in mainstream cinema is clearly portrayed in Josef von Sternberg’s Blonde Venus, a classic Hollywood film. Immediately there is a sense of the presentation of the main character, Helen, being a fetishized erotic object from the synopsis provided on googles overview of the film, since it simply says ‘A nightclub singer gives in to a rich playboy to finance her husband’s medical treatment’. This gives the impression that everything about Marlene Dietrich’s character, Helen, is for pleasure for the male viewer, not just off-screen but also on-screen, as she is completely dominated by the men in her life, since Helen’s purpose (in the synopsis) is to help or serve a man. E.Ann Kaplan suggests that ‘Von Sternberg was totally uninterested in his heroine’s roles and perspectives’3, which is noticed in the beginning of Blonde Venus. In the first scene, begins with six American men walking in the woods, who are told there are six German women bathing in the pond. At 2:06, the camera cuts to the women jumping, bathing and giggling the in the pond, which the viewer get glimpses of behind a tree. It then cuts to the men who are watching the women, which implies the view that the audience have of the women bathing is similar to men on-screens viewpoint, suggesting the women are objects of voyeuristic pleasure and therefore the film is ‘clearly constructed for the male spectator’ 4. At 2:58, there is a closeup of Helens face, which has makeup on, and her bare arms, which is the first time the audience sees the main character. The fact that she is portrayed as being naked in her first scene immediately sets Helen up to be an erotic spectacle for the male spectator. Furthermore, Helen asks the men to go away, but we see the Herbert Marshalls character, Ned Faraday, refuse. During this moment Ned is positioned to be looking down at Helen which highlights the idea that 2 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.7. 3 E.Ann Kaplan. Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera, ‘Fetishism and the Repression of Motherhood in Blonde Venus’. Routledge, London. 2001; ©1983, p.50. 4 Kaplan, 2001, p.50.

Candidate: 202417

objectifying another gives a sense of control, especially since Helen is presented as not being able to stop the ‘male gaze’. This causes a sexual imbalance as the ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/ female’5. This links to the female spectators having to passively watch the film as Helen is stuck in a patriarchal system, therefore ‘the female spectator must assume an (uncomfortably) masculine position.’6 Mulvey’s ‘male gaze’ and sexual imbalance is further explored in the musical number/ scene “Hot Voodoo”. At the beginning of this scene there is a medium shot of women walking in unison onstage in a supposedly tribal costume as they all have their hair in an afro-style and hold long wooden spears. The costume is very short as it shows the whole leg. At 18:06 there is a medium closeup shot of only the women’s legs which highlights Sternberg’s use of ‘fetishistic scopophilia’7, because the camera focuses on ‘the look alone’8. The significance of pleasure of women’s legs is the anticipation of the female figure that will follow, since “nice, long legs” are associated with a sexy female figure, which is ‘coded for strong visual and erotic impact’9 e.g. pin-ups. Therefore, Sternberg plays with the presentation of a woman being ‘a perfect product, whose body is, stylised, and fragmented by closeups’10. Moreover, the women’s faces are hidden and barely shown throughout the “Hot Voodoo” performance which heightens the sexual imbalance and the conventions of ‘mainstream cinema focusing attention on the human form’11, as the women cannot be identified. However, there is a sense of a female spectator taken into consideration as Helen takes on the role of Blonde Venus to help finance her husband’s

5 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 6 Jackie Stacey. ‘Desperately Seeking Difference.’ Screen, 1987, p.52. 7 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.14. 8 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.14. 9 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 10 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.14. 11 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.7.

Candidate: 202417

(Ned’s) illness as well as provide for her family, which could be seen as quite forward thinking for the 1930s, because women were usually portrayed as housewives. This could be quite fascinating for the female spectator because it could be an ‘eroticising identification’12 with a ‘powerful and attractive womanhood’13 . Furthermore, Helen is first shown in a gorilla costume which could be for comedic effect since the female figure is covered. However, Helen soon appears out of the gorilla costume at 21:00, which reveals a similar costume to the women seen before except it is more elaborate with jewels and rhinestones encrusted on the bodice. The camera cuts to a closeup of Carey Grants character, Nick Townsend’s face which then reverse-shots back to Helens body implying one of the male protagonists is gazing upon Helen, like the male spectator without breaking the narrative. This reinforces the language of ‘dominant patriarchal film’14 as the spectator watches the film through a male perspective. This is made even more clear when Helen receives more money by doing sexual favours for Nick, consequently presenting Helen as ‘deliberately using her place as object of the male gaze and making the female spectator aware of this placing’ 15. This could be due to men being a forefront in directing and producing during the classic Hollywood era, so we are spectating the male director’s viewership, in this case Sternberg’s. This causes the viewer to always see Helen from a man’s point of view in the camera shots, not her own. Kaplan explains that ‘Dietrich seems aware of how Von Sternberg is using her, of his fascination with her image’16, and so she plays with this by front facing the camera when rather than others in the film, which could create a distance between Dietrich and the

12 Jackie Stacey. ‘Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. Hollywood Cinema: From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. Routledge, February 7th, 1994. p.66 13 Stacey. ‘From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. 1994. p.66 14 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.8. 15 Kaplan, 2001,p.51. 16 Kaplan, 2001,p.51.

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objectification of her character as she does it on purpose, allowing the ‘female spectator can glimpse her construction in patriarchy’17. Although Dietrich’s character, Helen, is presented as an erotic object for the male gaze in Blonde Venus, there are moments where she is portrayed as a strong and intelligent protagonist which allows women to have ‘active desire in relationship to female protagonists on screen’18. Helen could be seen as progressive for the 1930’s since she runs away from being under a man’s control and is able to look after her child without a man. This could create desire from female spectators towards Helen, because she isn’t ‘an indispensable element’19 and is the main character in the film, with the most screen time. Furthermore Mulvey does not look at the fact that women went to the cinema and so there are ‘different gendered spectator positions produced by film text.’20 Jackie Stacey suggests that female spectators have a ‘fascination with the idealised other which could not be reduced to male desire’21, therefore women could have an active desire to a presentation of a woman onscreen like Helen, because she is seen as a beautiful woman who is able to turn her life around e.g. at the end of the film she becomes a star. This desire goes further to the actress Marlene Dietrich as ‘the fascination with the power and sophistication of another woman’22 gives the impression that it ‘characterises the relationship between female stars and female spectators’23. Stacey here implies that female spectators have a connection to stardom, especially female stars in the sense that they have an image of power with the media creating an ‘glamourous feminine ideal’24 women sought after or perhaps identifies with. 17 Kaplan, 2001,p.52. 18 Stacey. ‘Desperately Seeking Difference.’ 1987. p.49. 19 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 20Stacey,’ Desperately Seeking Difference’. 1987. p.49. 21 Jackie Stacey. ‘ From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. 1994. p.64 22 Stacey. ‘From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. 1994. p.65 23 Stacey. ‘From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. 1994. Pp.65-66 24 Stacey. ‘From the Male Gaze to the Female Spectator’. 1994. p.67

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An issue that rises in classic narrative presentation of women is that there is an under-representation of black women. This is problem also carries into Mulvey’s feminist theory, as her psychoanalytic viewpoint does not include a black female or any other race’s spectatorship. When looking at Blonde Venus, there is one black woman who is stereotyped as nanny or maid to look after Helen’s child while Helen is seducing the detective which could portray Helen as witty enough to fool the detective. Whereas the black woman is ‘an indispensable element25’, only there to add more comedy and perhaps make the detective look more foolish. Furthermore, the actress is uncredited in the film, making the presentation of black women classic Hollywood even less represented and relevant. Although, the maid could be seen as slightly relatable for black women as she is presented as a “mammy”26, which was the career of many older black women at the time, it doesn’t allow a sense of desire, since a way of attracting ‘women to the movies; it was concluded that women favoured female stars over male’27. The black actress isn’t even credited, therefore black female spectators have no “stars” to be inspired by or attracted to watch the movies . Moreover, bell hooks quotes a poem by Nikki Giovanni, which gives the impression black women didn’t have much choice in their presentation and degrading for black female spectators as ‘fat black woman be a mother be a grandmother strong thing but not a woman’28. When looking at the progression of contemporary presentation of women, female spectatorship is more accepted as significant in not just showing the ‘male gaze’, since there are more female artists, directors and producers. Lemonade is not necessarily a mainstream

25 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 26 bell hooks. ‘Black looks: race and representation. Selling Hot Pussy’. Routledge, New York, 2015. p.64. 27 Jackie Stacey. ‘Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. Hollywood Cinema: The Great Escape’. Routledge, February 7th, 1994. p.164 28 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’,2015. p.64.

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film, but it is a mainstream visual album created and sung by a well-known pop/ RnB artist Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Lemonade looks at personal topics which other women can relate to, such as her husband, Jay-Z’s infidelity, which asserts the progression of female spectatorship, especially black female spectatorship, as there are many different women presented on-screen with black women being at the forefront. The visual album could be inspiring for female spectators as it explores female empowerment rather than the female figure. bell hooks praises Beyoncé’s Lemonade by saying ‘this is the business of capitalist money making at its best’29. This suggests that Mulvey’s theory that feminist films can only exist as a counterpoint since alternative cinema challenges mainstream films obsessions and assumptions is not accurate. bell hooks implies that ‘images representing black female bodies as expendable, black women have either passively absorbed this or vehemently resisted it’ 30. In Lemonades song ‘Hold Up’, Beyoncé resists the idea that black female bodies are expendable by appearing as a goddess, thus elevating her significance immediately. She appears as Oshun, a Yoruba water goddess of female sensuality, love and fertility, which cause Beyoncé to become the ‘embodiment of a fantastical female empowerment’31, and so is there to inspire the female spectatorship to see themselves as important as well as desire to be a goddess like Beyoncé. However, there is a sense of Beyoncé being an ‘object of male gaze’32 as she represents sensuality, love and fertility, which is also desired by men since these words have connotations with the ‘human form’33 and female figure. Yet there is the impression of a wider appeal to the female audience, because Beyoncé since her body is not being

29 bell hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’. bell hooks Institute, May 9th, 2016. 30 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.65. 31 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 32 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 33 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.7.

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objectified by men on-screen, mainly due to the fact there are barely any men present apart from children that are boys. This asserts the position of the presentation of women in contemporary films, since it is makes females more active in pleasure looking of Beyoncé and men more passive, especially on-screen. Furthermore, the goddess, Oshun. Apparently has a bad temper and sinister smile when she has been wronged, which is shown in Hold Up, as Beyoncé hold a baseball bat and smashes cars and cameras etc with a smile on her face, while singing about her husband cheating on her. This could be for female spectatorship as it relates to women who have been in a similar situation and understand her feelings, which is presented in the Hold Up scene, as women clap as Beyoncé’s destruction of objects as well as ‘seduce, celebrate, and delight’34 the ‘black female body’35. On the other hand, this could be seen as ‘appropriating the wild woman pornographic myth of black female sexuality created by men in a white supremist patriarchy’36, because Beyoncé is presented as black woman using violence to relieve her anger. hooks discuss how Tina Turner creates an ‘image of black sexuality’37 comparable to ‘wild animalistic lust’38. Turner highlights this through wearing her hair as a ‘blonde lioness mane’39. Moreover, hooks even suggests the ‘‘blondness’’ ‘serves as an endorsement of racist aesthetics that sees blonde hair as the epitome of beauty’40. In Hold Up scene, Beyoncé’s hair is almost represents Turner’s ‘blonde lioness mane’41 as it is extremely long, thick and crimped with a blonde ombre, that could give the impression she is representing the ‘wild woman’42 that is made by men, especially since she is smashing cars, and so 34 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 35 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 36 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.69. 37 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.67. 38 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.67. 39 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.68. 40 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.68. 41 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.68. 42 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.67.

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suggests it is not that progressive from classic presentation of women like Marlene Dietrich who succumbs to being an ‘erotic spectacle’43 for men. The violence implies that it helps women to assert their power and ‘create self-love and self-esteem’44, which hooks says ‘is no more liberatory than male violence’45. Furthermore, bell hooks mentions ‘the sexuality of black… becomes an icon for deviant sexuality’46, which could be implied when Beyoncé is portrayed as being ‘deviant’ in destroying objects in a street and having a ‘deviant’ smile in what hooks calls the ‘sexy-dress street scene’47. Despite this, the contemporary presentation of women is still progressive for the female spectator in Lemonade. This is through the spoken interludes between each song, as a variety of women are presented throughout these interludes as collaborative group, giving the impression on unison and togetherness as well as female empowerment for female spectator to witness. For example, at 10:33, we see a group of women marching together in identical purple bodysuits smiling while Beyoncé speaks softly about women. However, Carol Vernallis calls these ‘avant-garde interludes’, which correlates to the presentation of women that Mulvey discusses, because it implies an of image of ‘a politically and aesthetically avant-garde cinema’48, but this can ‘only exist as a counterpoint’49. At 50:23, the word Redemption appears on the visual album, moving it on to a next section and song, which is called ‘All Night’. The word Redemption gives the impression this part of being saved from error and regaining possession of empowerment for women, as the visual album shows Beyoncé going through heartache in the ‘fantasy fictional narrative’50. 43 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.11. 44 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 45 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 46 hooks. ‘Selling Hot Pussy’, 2015, p.62. 47 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016. 48 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.8. 49 Mulvey. Volume 16. 1975, p.8. 50 hooks. ‘Moving Beyond Pain’, 2016.

Candidate: 202417

The first minute is shot in greyscale which could convey the past, which could create a sense of struggle, but there is a presentation of women from different generations as it starts with a medium shot of three young girls, including Beyoncé’s daughter Blue-Ivy, running and late shows Jay-Z’s grandmother, Hattie, sitting in a rocking chair. Therefore, this celebrates all ages of women, thus relating to a wide female spectatorship. The greyscale could be to detract away from skin colour, so we focus on the women as individuals. The different generations and positions of the women e.g. sitting down and running in long dresses stops an ‘attention on human form’51, but rather looks at different perspectives of women allowing female spectators to not ‘assume the masculine position’52 that Mulvey mentions. At 50:40, women are seen sitting around a table together implying unison with women rather a fight or envy for male desire e.g. In Blonde Venus one of the other nightclub singers is jealous of Helen, hence progressing presentation of women in contemporary cinema. Furthermore, Beyoncé elevates the status of older black women by saying her mother and grandmother ‘spun gold out of a hard life’ and created beauty. The elder black women are sitting down in a lavish setting and more elaborate clothing, with younger women tending to them e.g. at 51:15, which creates more respect and credit around them, since they are not seen as a ‘black mammy’53, but a woman. Hook...