Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is an essay on cinema written by Laura Mulvey in 1973 and published in 1975 in the British cinema review Screen. In this article Laura Mulvey incorporates the Freudian idea of phallocentrism in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. She insists on the idea that the images, characters, plots, stories and dialogues in films are built on the unconscious of patriarchal society. It also incorporates the works of thinkers like Jacques Lacan and illustrates its point with the films of directors Josef von Sternberg and Alfred Hitchcock.
According to Mulvey, viewing a film unconsciously or somewhat consciously reproduces the typical societal roles of men and women. Watching is generally seen as an active male role (male gaze) while the passive role of being examined is immediately seen as a female characteristic (female gaze). Mulvey argues that women in cinema are linked to desire and that female characters have a coded appearance to have a strong visual and erotic impact. The female actress is not intended to represent a character that directly affects the outcome of a plot, it is inserted in the film to be sexually objectified.
Mulvey calls for challenging Hollywood's patriarchal system and moving beyond voyeurism or fetish fascination. She offers a new cinematographic style establishing an alternative viewer, in a feminist vision.
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema was the subject of much debate among film theorists until the mid-1980s. In 2006, Laura Mulvey publishes Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image. In this work, she explores how video and DVD technologies have altered the relationship between film and viewer. They no longer have to watch a movie in its entirety and in a linear fashion from start to finish. Before the emergence of VHS and DVD players, viewers could not dwell on the film's precious moments, nor own the images of the idols. In response to this problem, the film industry produced still images that complemented the film itself. These images were designed to give fans of the film the illusion of possession. With digital technology, viewers can pause movies at any time, play back their favorite scenes, and even skip scenes they don't want to watch.
According to Laura Mulvey, this power led to the emergence of the “possessive spectator”. Movies can now be detached from the linear narrative into as many favorite moments or scenes. It is within this relationship that redefined Mulvey says that viewers can now engage in sexual form of possession of the bodies they see on the screen.
See also: Laura Mulvey's theory of representation