I would like to open / continue discussion on Laura Mulvey's well know Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema. Although written twenty years ago it still appears to extend a great deal of influence in areas of scholarship around film, poststructuralism, the visual arts and cultural criticism. To me there are a number of objections that should be raised about this essay and its reception but are they being raised? Most specifically are they being raised in the classroom? As an independent film maker with no university affiliations I have no direct way of knowing. So, assuming that the article is being widely taught and read I pose the following questions. I also assume that these issues have been raised before and would appreciate article references ( I understand that Victor Burgin has written on the topic?) but more importantly I would like to know what participants on SCREEN - L have to say about this topic of continuing critical import. 1. The title of the article specifies narrative cinema but the article itself moves between the specificity of Hollywood cinema and the cinema in general, functionally implying that what is true of Hollywood is true of all cinema. Even if one rejects my claim that the article does this, certainly Mulvey's commentators have. Does such wide reception and application of Mulvey's work reduce the possibility of more subtle forms of criticism necessary for experimental, independent and feminist cinema? 2. The article makes almost exclusive use of Freudian theory for its thesis and arguments yet contains no questioning of the relationship between feminist thought and psychoanalysis or the validity of Freudian theory. The introduction makes claims about phallocentrism that are explained exclusively via Freud's view of female sexuality. Isn't this odd? At what time was it decided that Freud's phallocentrism is the phallocentrism of culture at large and in addition should patriarchy and phallocentrism be so easily conflated? What are the consequences of feminist work that relies on patriarchal structures for its claim to authority? Is this a significant criticism or is Mulvey deploying a deconstructive method that intentionally uses Freudian thought against itself? 3. Is Mulvey's use of the terms 'male gaze' and 'heterosexual division of labor' guilty of a regressive essentialism? This point is important in that the effects she describes continue to plague the cinema and that she describes them well but labeling them these terms and refuses the possibility or complication of multiple relations between filmic practice, male viewing, the filmic image, images of women and the symbolic. Certainly heterosexual men -and 'male' use of the camera- frequently participate in this gaze but we must remember that this does not define the totality or the essence of masculine viewing / gazing in relation to cinema. 4. Over the past few years there has been a move -following Mulvey's lead- to define other gazes such as a lesbian gaze or a feminist gaze. I will not claim that there is no validity to this but that we should be concerned with the effect of this project. Does it threaten to essentialize -and worse, ghettoize- along political, activist and community lines filmic and viewing practices that do not necessarily need to be treated in this way? I have see such a move on the internet and in print around the work of Trin T. Min-ha, Barbara Hammer, Lydia Szjako, Jenny Holtzer and Cindy Sherman among others. The threat here is twofold, 1) that the gaze is understood as an inherent characteristic of the artist so they become the voice of ultimate authority about their own work. And 2) that subtle and overdetermined work is claimed by a community and this claiming effectively limits the type of criticism and analysis that can be produced about this work. Yes, communities have the right to recognize themselves and their concerns in this work but this claiming should not be allowed to signal that no other type of analysis or criticism is acceptable. ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]