Douglas Straughn-Hunter writes: "Of course I agree here as well. In no way do I claim that Mulvey OVERTLY addressed the totality or essence of masculine viewing. My suggestion was more subtle than that. Again, I am looking at the structural logic of her text, its effects and its receptions. Mulvey uses the term masculine to define a singular structural element of narrative cinema while at the same time claiming that the feminine plays a singular role in this structure. The obvious protest is that what she describes is SEXIST but not exclusively masculine, a distinction not made in her work.. In my view sexism will always exceed the masculine and since there is no singular masculine subjectivity her labeling of the gaze as such reduces the masculine to the merely sexist or phallocentric. What was pointed out to me in an e-mail the other day is that Mulvey enacts a similar reduction in describing the role of the feminine as well. In the opinion of [log in to unmask] both men and women can solicit a to-be-looked-at-ness. Kinotopia presents the example of First Knight and the exchanging of glances between the hero and the damsel in distress. If this is the case is the to-be-looked-at-ness constructed in the same way for the male and female characters?" One thing to be taken into account is that Mulvey is not drawing so directly from Freud as from his repositioning and redefining by Lacan--a point that, I think, needs to be addressed even more directly, since Lacan has proven to be quite useful for many feminist critics in literature and other media as well as film over the last few decades or so. For contrasting opinions, see the articles by Mary Ann Doane and Gaylyn Studlar in the latest edition of FILM THEORY AND CRITICISM (Oxford Press), ed. Mast, Cohen and Braudy. There has also been recent work (which is out there, though I'm afraid I don't know it terribly well) on the male gaze and the homoerotic. I do suspect that the issue of the gaze and the construction of the image need to be looked at in more historical terms than has been the case for the most part, particularly given the rise of the fetishization of the male image (on tv as well as in film-- perhaps more so, if anything). Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN) ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]