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MARY DEVEREAUX

OppressiveTexts, ResistingReaders
andthe GenderedSpectator:The New Aesthetics

At the heart of recent feminist theorizing about

art is the claim that various forms of representation-painting, photography,film-assume a
"male gaze." The notion of the gaze has both a
literal and a figurative component. Narrowly
construed, it refers to actual looking. Broadly,
or more metaphorically,it refers to a way of
thinkingabout, and acting in, the world.
In literalterms, the gaze is male when men do
the looking. Men look both as spectatorsand as
characterswithin works. In figurativeterms, to
say thatthe gaze is male refersto a way of seeing
which takes women as its object. In this broad
sense, the gaze is male wheneverit directs itself
at, and takes pleasurein, women, where women
function as erotic objects. The feminist claim is
thatmost art, most of the time, places women in
this position. In LauraMulvey's words, man is
the bearerof the gaze, womanits object.'
Feminist theory, like many other theories,
takes as one of its basic tenets thatno vision, not
evenartisticvision, is neutralvision. All vision is
colored by the "spectacles" through which we
see the world. The notion that all seeing is "a
way of seeing" contrastssharply with the traditional realistassumptionthatobservationcan be
cleanly separated from interpretation,at least
under certain ideally specified conditions. In
part, feminismcan be understoodas reiteratinga
familiar,but still important,objectionto the naive
notion of the innocent eye. As E.H. Gombrich
convincingly argues, observationis neverinnocent. In his words, "wheneverwe receivea visual
impression, we react by docketing it, filing it,
grouping it in one way or another, even if the
impression is only that of an inkblot or a fingerprint. ... [T]he postulate of an unbiased eye

demandsthe impossible."2 Observationis always

conditionedby perspectiveand expectation.

Yet, the feministclaim thatour representations

inscribea male gaze involves morethana denial
of the eye's innocence. It involves asserting the
centralrole thatgenderplaysin formulatingthose
expectations. Feminism insists, moreover,that
affected
these expectationsaredisproportionately
by male needs, beliefs anddesires.Bothmen and
women have learned to see the world through
male eyes. So, for example, women throughout
theirlives expendenormousamountsof time and
energy and money making themselves "beautiful." In undertakingthis costly process, women
judge themselvesaccordingto internalizedstandards of what is pleasing to men. As Sandra
Bartly observes, adolescent girls "learn to appraise themselves as they are shortly to be appraised." In this sense, the eyes are female, but
the gaze is male.3
Feminismobjectsto seeing the world"through
male eyes." It equatesthe male gaze with patriarchy.Patriarchydefinesa social system"marked
by the supremacy of the father and the legal
dependenceof wives and children."4 Undersuch
a system, women dependnot only for statusand
privilege, but for their very identity,upon men.
The assumption is that this arrangementoppresses women. It also, as both feminist and
non-feminists have argued, oppresses men, although not necessarily in the same way as it
oppresseswomen.
This oppressionoccursat the symbolicas well
as the material level. Women, as the first editorial of the film journal, Camera Obscura,
announced, "are oppressed not only economically and politically,butalso in the very formsof
reasoning, signifying and symbolical exchange
of our culture."5 Thus, to take a familiar but
powerfulexample, in English "he" functionsas
the unmarkedterm, "she" as the markedterm.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48:4 Fall 1990

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

338
"His"attributesdefine all humanity(i.e., "mankind"); "hers"define only women. The higher
priorityassigned to male attributespasses unnoticed because our language, like our thinking,
equates "male" genderwith "genderneutral."
Art, as anotherform of symbolicalexchange,
also participatesin this oppression. In both its
high and low forms, feministtheoristsargue, art
inscribes "a masculinist discourse" which we
learn to reproducein our everydaylives. Feminism here draws on the insight that art both
reflects the conditions of life and helps to establish and maintainthem. The male gaze inscribed
in art triggerswomen's "deep-seatedinclination
to adaptherselfto the male viewpoint."6Indeed,
the very history of art "is to be understoodas a
series of representational
practiceswhichactively
producedefinitionsof sexual differenceand contribute to the present configuration of sexual
politics and power relations."7
For this reason, much of feminist theorizing
aboutart is criticalin tone. Fromits perspective,
the artistic canon is androcentric, and hence,
politically repressive. As one writer puts it,
"For a woman, then, books do not necessarily
spell salvation."8 Briefly summarized,the feminist critiqueof representationrests on the equation: the medium = male = patriarchal
oppressive.

Some will greet this equationas exaggerated,

even absurd. The idea that art is political or
ideologicallychargedcontradictsthe deeply held
belief thatart speaksto and for all humanbeings.
Socrates'schargesagainstthe poets notwithstanding, the Western Europeantraditioncharacterizes art as liberating, enlightening, uplifting.
Art'seffects arepositive,the experiencesit offers
intrinsically valuable. In categorizing art with
other forms of patriarchaloppression, feminism
rejects the division of art and politics basic to
Anglo-Americanaesthetics.
The implications of this rejection are important and far-reaching.In dividing the artworld
into male and female, feminismirrevocablylinks
the productionand consumptionof art with issues of power and control. Outside the AngloAmericanparadigm,this linkageis not new. The
Marxist tradition in aesthetics has long placed
the concept of power at the center of the discussion of art. Marxism'semphasis on "the multiplicity of social forces and practices ... at work

in the readingof any text" lays the groundwork

for the feminist investigation of how gender

entersthe exchange with the text.9
What is originalto feminism is the linkage of
art with sexual politics. Issues of sexual politics
lie at the center of currentacademic debate in
English Departments, Film Studies programs
and feminist theory groups. Aesthetics, at least
in America, has been slowerto notice or respond
to this debate. Although an occasional feminist
paperhas appearedon the programat the annual
American Society for Aesthetics meetings, The
Journalof Aestheticsand Art Criticismhas prior
to this writing never publisheda work of feminist theory. This omission is even more surprising given thatphilosophersfrom Platoto Nelson
Goodmanhave been preoccupiedwith issues of
representation-anissue thatfeminism,fromanotherdirection,centrallyaddresses.
This lack of attentionto issues transforming
the discussion of art in other disciplines is frequentlyattributedto a difference in vocabulary.
Feminist theory has its roots in Foucault and
Lacan, not in Plato, Aristotle and Kant. Confronted with talk of "mirrorstages," "voyeurism," and "difference," practionersof traditional aesthetics may feel trappedby the jargon
of a foreign discourse, one not bound by rules
their own training insists upon. Stanley Cavell
describes the experience of readingthese works
as involving a different set of satisfactions.'0
Whateverthe promiseof these satisfactions,some
will maintain, it is difficult not to lose patience
with contemporarywriters whose texts demand
the exegetical labors normallyreserved for the
dead and the "trulygreat."
On this account, feministtheoryremainsmarginalized due both to its difficulty and unfamiliarity.But this explanationdoes not, I think, tell
the whole story. Regularreadersof the Journal
have no doubt noticed the growing numberof
articles dealing with the latest developments
in literary theory (the work of Stanley Fish,
Jacques Derrida, Mikhail Bakhtin), hermeneutics (Hans-GeorgGadamer)and the philosophy
of language(DonaldDavidson). In each of these
cases, vocabulary and methodology pose formidable challenges. Not every readerwill find
such challenges worth the time or effort. But
clearly, in aesthetics, as in philosophygenerally,
difficulty alone neverwarrantsexclusion.
The reason feminist theory has so long remainedunmentionedlies deeper,I think.At stake

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Devereaux

339

OppressiveText

in the feminist debate are deeply entrenched

assumptionsaboutthe universalvalue of art and
aesthetic experience. The overthrow of these
assumptions-linchpins of aesthetictheory since
Kant-constitutes whatart historianLindaNochlin describes as a paradigm shift.11 The new
paradigmis a feminist paradigmand what we
face is a conceptual revolution. If I am right,
then the deeperexplanationfor the lack of attention to feminism lies in the naturalresistanceof
those suddenly faced with the overthrow of an
entrenchedway of thinking.
As recent developmentsin the philosophy of
science and ethics highlight, aesthetics cannot
simply "addon" feminist theory as it might add
new worksby Goodman,ArthurDantoor George
Dickie. To take feminism seriously involves rethinking our basic concepts and recasting the
history of the discipline. And thatrequiresmore
thanaddingwomen's names to the canonicallist
of greatphilosophers.
The requirementthat we engage in such radical rethinkingmay seem burdensome and unnecessary. It is helpful to the self-esteem of
womenor to women who are feminists. But what
of those who do not fit into either of these two
categories? What, they may wonder, do they
have to gain from feminist aesthetics?
In partto answersuch questions, I want in the
next section to returntofthe notion of the male
gaze. In examiningthis key feministnotionmore
carefully,I hope to makeclearthe intrinsicinterest of this approachto aesthetics and to suggest
why its concerns merit serious consideration.
To this end, I wantto investigatehow gendered
vision works in one specific representational
practice,namelyfilm. Film is a naturalchoice for
sucha studybecauseit is a mediumso fundamentally built around the activity of looking. It is
also, not surprisingly,the medium where the
male gaze has been most extensivelydiscussed.
The relationshipof genderandcinematicvision
is extremelycomplicated.A completeanalysisof
this topicwouldrequireseveralhundredpages. In
whatfollows, I focus on two key claims, namely,
that in cinema the gaze is male and that the
cinematictext is a male text. I seek to makeclear
how these claims shouldbe understoodand then
to situatethem philosophically.In confining myself to whatI taketo be the core claims of this debate, I will of necessity leave aside many important,but internal,issues in film theory.

II

Despite the extensive literaturewhich refers to

and relies upon it, the concept of the male gaze
remains difficult to understand.It is so in part
because, as noted above, the male gaze refers
bothto literaland metaphoricalvision. A further
difficulty in understandingthe male gaze arises
from the failure to distinguish three different
gazes: that of film-maker,the characterswithin
the film and the spectator.With each of these
gazes, literal and figurativeseeing interactin a
varietyof ways.
In the first case, thatof the film-maker,someone looks throughthe viewfinder of a camera,
someone (often the same person) looks at the
rushes after the day's shooting and someone
looks at the film's final cut. This person may be
male, butneed notbe. Women,too, makemovies
and have done so since the early days of the
medium (e.g., Maya Deren, Dorothy Artner,
Leni Riefenstahl).
Whatdoes it meanthen to say thatat this level
the gaze is male? It means that despite the presence of women directorsand screenwriters,the
institutionsof film-makingremainlargelypopulated by men. Not all films have male authors,
but whoevermakes movies must work nonetheless within a system owned and operated by
men. At the level of the film-maker,then, men
do not always do the looking, but they generally
control who does. The male gaze is not always
male, but it is always male-dominated.
By male-dominated,feminist theorists mean
male-gendered, not simply possessed of male
anatomy. A key move distinguishes sex from
gender.A child is bornsexed; througheducation
and experience, it acquires gender. On this account, educationand experience create the particularway of seeing which the term, "the male
gaze, " describes. Male institutionalcontrolthus
refers not to the anatomyof film world personnel, which includesboth men andwomen, butto
the way film, howeverauthored,contributesto
the hegemony of men over women.
From a feminist point of view, this control
mattersbecause it "builds in" a preferencefor
a particulartype of film, i.e., one which positions women in ways consistentwith patriarchal
assumptions. Movies promote a way of seeing
which takes man as subject, woman as object.
Simone de Beauvoir'sThe Second Sex puts the

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340

The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

point succinctly. "Representationof the world,

like the world itself, is the work of men; they
describe it from their own point of view, which
they confuse with absolutetruth."12
As de Beauvoirexplains, women, unlike men,
do not learnto describethe worldfromtheirown
point of view. As the "other," woman learns to
submergeor renounceher subjectivity.She finds
her identity in the subjectivity of the men to
whom she is attached (father, husband, lover).
In the eyes of men, she finds her identity as the
object of men's desire.
In arguing that cinema, too, assigns woman
this position, feministtheory links the male control of film institutionswith a patriarchalway of
seeing. At this point it should be clear that in
attempting to describe the literal gaze of the
film-maker,the questionof whethermen or women do the looking is not at rootthe issue. The real
issue centerson whether,whoeverstandsbehind
the camera, a patriarchal way of seeing the
worldprevails. The discussion of the literalgaze
thus very quickly becomes a discussion of the
figurativegaze.
I do not wantto deny the heuristicusefulness
of talkingabout "literal"looking in film. Someone does look through the lens of the camera,
and film-going is irrefutably a visual experience. Moreover,the mediumitself offers a range
of devices for representingwhat characterson
screen themselves see, e.g., the long sequences
in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigoin which we see
what the protagonist,Scottie, sees as he follows
Madeleine.
A deeperand more damagingobjectionto the
literal/figurativedistinction emerges from the
feministclaim thatliteralseeing is alwaysalready
figurative. Men-like women-do not simply
look. Theirlooking-where and when they do it
and at what-mimics a particularway of thinking about and acting in the world. So understood, seeing neverescapes a way of seeing.
How then does the figurative way of seeing
deemed "male"translateto the screen?How are
women representedfromthe male pointof view?
And, with whateffect on the spectator?Toanswer
these questions requires shifting our attention
from the film-maker'sgaze to the manipulation
of the gaze within film. At the textual level,
feminismhas focused most directlyon the story
films of Hollywood as opposed to the international art cinema, experimental film or docu-

mentary film. Attentionto the Hollywood film

arose naturallyfrom the broad popularityand
profound influence which this tradition exercised on Americanculturallife.
Feminism initially attacked the Hollywood
film for its patriarchalcontent. Early feminist
works such as Molly Haskell'sFrom Reverence
to Rape examinedhow the portraitsof the Good
Girl, the Vampand the Dutiful Wife presented
so forcefully in westerns, detective films and
melodramasreinforceda culturalmythology.'3
In film after film, that mythology defined the
value of women as theirvalue to men. The good
girl was a dutifuldaughterwho preservedherself
(i.e., her virginity) for the right man "to take"
from her. The bad girl, in contrast, flaunts her
sexualityindiscriminately,"losing"her virginity
or "giving it away."
Haskell'sbroadlysociologicalapproachunderstood movies to tell the same stories we heard
outside the theatre. In the movies, as in life,
good girls were rewarded,bad girls punished.
Any alternativepoint of view, one which might
tell a different tale or the same tale differently,
was effectively excluded. Put in the strongest
terms, the charge was that the Hollywood film
"belonged to patriarchy."14This commitment
need not be intentional.Nor need it be confined
to the worksof male directors.Yet, as an institution, cinema, like television, was held to participate in and help to perpetuatea system of social
organizationwhich assigns power and privilege
by gender.
Admittedly,notall films perpetuatepatriarchy.
Individualfilms may resistthis arrangement.The
strong-headedheroinestypicallyplayedby Katharine Hepburn, LaurenBacall and Bette Davis
do not conform to this stereotype, nor do films
such as Howard Hawks's His Girl Friday. As
feminist critics themselves have demonstrated,
the films of Hollywood evidence more variation
and internaltension thana chargeof monolithic
patriarchyallows.
In speakingof Hollywood film as "belonging
to patriarchy,"somethingmoresubtle is at work
than overt stereotyping. At the simplest level,
Haskell and others had maintained, film reinforced women's dependenceon men. As noted
above, women on screen regularly won their
happiness in the service of others (Griffith's
Dear One, Marion as the amiable spouse in
Shane). When they departfrom societal norms,

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Devereaux

Oppressive Text

as Hepburn'shigh-leveldiplomatdoes in Woman
of the Year,they are revealedto be cold-hearted
and in need of "re-education."Tess learns from
her husbandSam to place work second to companionate time with spouse and the duties of
parenting.Those who refuse this role, find themselves alone and lonely (e.g., Tess'sAunt Ellen).
Those who opt for illicit insteadof marriedlove,
end up dead (e.g., Marion in Psycho, Alex in
FatalAttraction).
Thus, as Mary Ann Doane argues, at a more
complex level, the Hollywood film functions as
"a recuperativestrategy"designed to returnthe
waywardwomanto the fold. 15This returnoperates both within the narrativeand externally, in
the narrative'seffect on its female audience. Internally,the Hollywoodnarrativetypicallycharts
the courseby which a womanin a non-normative
role cedes her control to a man.16 The happy
ending in which Tess returns to Sam serves
externallyto "recuperate"waywardmembersof
the female audienceas well. The message is that
for a woman, unlike for a man, the satisfactions
of solitude, work, or adventurecannot compare
to those of caring for husbandand children.
The classic Hollywood film reinforces this
messagestylisticallyby confiningthe spectatorto
the point of view of the narrativehero. In Tania
Modleski'swords, "thefilm spectatorapparently
has no choice but to identify with the male
protagonist, who exerts an active, controlling
gaze over a passive female object." By "stressing the man's point of view throughout," the
Hollywood film thus negates the female character'sview. 17
Stressingthe male protagonist'spoint of view
need not involve confining us consistentlyto his
visual field. The one well-known experiment
which confined us consistently to the first-person visual field of a character, Robert Montgomery's TheLadyin the Lake, failed miserably
to convey that character's figurative point of
view. We saw what he saw, but we didn't feel
what he felt. More typical narrativefilms, such
as The Big Sleep, alternate between what the
protagonistsees and what other characterssee.
Hawks gives us not only Marlowe looking at
Vivian but Vivian looking at Marlowe.The gaze
is thus not directlythatof the protagonist.
Nevertheless,withinthe Hollywoodfilm there
is a long traditionof women performingfor the
camera. Womensing, dance, dress and undress,

341

all before the steady, often adoring, gaze of an

implied spectator. Frequently, female performance plays a role in the plot, as when Vivian
sings for Marlowe and the audience at Eddie
Mars'snightclub. But whetherplaying fictional
characterswho sing and dance before an audience or not, MarleneDietrich, MarilynMonroe,
Ingrid Bergmanand other female "stars," perform for the camera. As Stanley Cavell has
pointedout, in photographingbeautifulwomen,
the cinema has found one of the subjects most
congenial to it. But "congenial"here means the
congenialityof men makingfilms for men.
The male controlledinstitutionsof film-making thus place women on screen in a particular
position. As eroticizedobjects, women are doubly victimized. As Ann Kaplanargues, "Mendo
not simply look; their gaze carries with it the
powerof action and possession thatis lacking in
the female gaze. Women receive and return a
gaze, but cannotact upon it." 18
To be fully operativeas a mechanismof oppression the male gaze depends upon a second
condition. Not only must looking come with
some "back-up"-physical, economic, social"being looked at" must activate some level of
female narcissism. Womenthemselvesmust not
be indifferentto the gaze turneduponthem;they
must have internalizeda certain assignment of
positions.19
It is this disequilibriumin powerwhich makes
the male gaze different from what some have
called a female, or gender-neutral,gaze. Consider the oft-cited cases where men serve as the
objectof the gaze, as in the recentspateof Richard Gere movies (Breathless,AmericanGigolo).
Despite the "role reversal,"the harmwhich men
suffer in occupying the role of the "looked at"
does not equal thatof theirfemale counterparts.
The relationshipof oppressed to oppressordepends upon morethan "being looked at."
To understandwhat more is involved, it is
useful to make a three-partdistinctionbetween
objectification,dehumanizationanddebasement.
It is one thingto makesomethingan objectof one's
gaze ... Recalling the main tenet of the intentionality

thesis: all consciousnessis consciousnessof It is

anotherthingto dehumanize
theobjectin a processof
it is yet anotherthingto debasethe
aestheticization;
objectthroughsubsequent
mentalorbodilyactivityor
20
judgment.

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

342
Within this framework,to say that the gaze
objectifies means no more than that it takes an
object. So defined, the filmic male gaze is no
moreobjectifyingthanany othernordoes objectificationconstituteoppression. Similarly,dehumanization, in this special sense, is not necessarilyoppressive.Dehumanization,definedhere,
means simply treatingpeople as objects of aesthetic contemplation. Neither of these claims
need imply the third, namely, that I have in
action orjudgementdevaluedthe worth of those
upon whom my gaze is directed. While aestheticization may lead to debasement, it need not.
Thus, it is only debasementwhich by itself constitutesoppression.
Giventhese distinctions,male characters,like
their female counterparts,may be objectified or
even, as in the case of RichardGere, aestheticized
(or eroticized). They may also be portrayedin
demeaning or "less than fully human" ways.
They are not, however, debased in the larger
sense of the word. Men are not debased in this
sense because men, as men, do not lack power
and statusoff-screen. Thus, debasementrequires
more than occupying a particularposition on
screen.
In the case of the female star, her secondary
position occurs not only on screen but also off.
Aestheticization may not in itself be harmful,
nevertheless, the Hollywood film reflects and
encourages the cultural proclivity to treat the
female body and the female self only as objects
of aesthetic contemplation. Thus, insofar as it
treatswomen as less than fully human, the film
industry helps to lower the esteem and value
granted to women in the culture. While, as I
have argued, movie-making and movie-watching cannot be held solely responsible for the
debasementof women, feminist theory rightly
emphasizesthe connectionbetween how we representour lives and lived experience itself.
In turning, finally, to the effect of the film text
on its spectators, I want first to consider the
means by which genderbias remainshidden. To
adaptde Beauvoir'swords, the Hollywood film
presents its telling as "absolute truth." It depends for its effect upon creating a narrative
illusion. The film story must unfold transparently, as thoughhappeningbefore our very eyes.
It is crucial to such film-makingthat it proceed
without calling attentionto itself as a story. In
this, the stylistic conventionsof Hollywood fol-

low those of the 19thcenturyrealistnovel. Fora

film to acknowledge its status as a story or
fiction admits a point of view, a place from
which its story gets told. Devices such as Godard'suse of stop-actionand wordswrittenacross
the screen aim to resist narrativeillusionism.
They announcethe film as a film, as a fiction, a
construct.21

Formanyfeminists, as for manyMarxists,the

narrativeillusioncentralto the classic Hollywood
film is politicallycompromised.The Hollywood
film typically fosters strongcharacteridentification and full absorptionin the action. This absorptionin turn is believed to encourageviewer
passivity.At its worst, warnedMax Horkheimer
and TheodorAdorno, such film-makingundermines individualautonomy.It rendersits audience a "mass"easily manipulatedin the interests
of the statusquo. If Horkheimerand Adornoare
correct,both male and female spectatorsare rendered passive by the experience of film-going.
The seamless narrativewhich presentsits story
as "absolute truth" thus ironically encourages
the passivity of both male and female spectators.
In calling for active reading to replace this
passivity,the feministcritiqueof the Hollywood
film here parallels Brecht's critique of Aristotelian drama. Both denounce what they see as
efforts to elicit the passive empathyof the spectator; both ask for art to break the narrative
illusion. However,feminist theory goes beyond
Brecht'sanalysis to examine how identification
differs in male and female spectators.Genderis
assertedto play a key role in eliciting the empathy and identificationtypical of narrativefilm.
The analysis of film's effects on the spectator
brings us to the thirdand, I would argue, most
importantsite at which the male gaze operates.
In developinga theory of spectatorship,feminist
theory moves beyond its initial concern with
film content and style to explore the mechanisms of viewing. To the question "how does
film represent women?" it adds the question
"whatsources of satisfactiondo these representations of women offer the spectator?"At what
many now call its second stage, feminist film
theory shifts attentionfrom the literary critical
and sociological reading of individual films to
the more broadlytheoreticalprojectof describing the unconscious mechanisms involved in
watching movies. 22

Primaryamong these mechanismsis voyeur-

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Devereaux

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Oppressive Text

istic pleasure. On this view, enormously influential among film theorists, spectators derive
erotic pleasure through the opportunities for
looking which the cinema affords. As Christian
Metz argues in The ImaginarySignifier (1975),
the darkenedtheatre, the absence of the object
viewed, and its inability to return the gaze all
contribute to the idea that film viewing constitutes unauthorizedlooking.23 From its early
association with the Nickelodeon, the motion
picture has come to function as a metaphorfor
the illicit activity of the voyeur,as Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Rear Window,illustrates.Lest
one miss the point, Hitchcock makes L.B. Jef24
fries-an inveteratevoyeur-a photographer.
The questionof how film plays to our already
existing desires, fantasies, and fears received
one of its most influential treatmentsin Laura
Mulvey'snow classic, "VisualPleasureand NarrativeCinema." Mulvey begins from the premise that film reflects the psychical obsessions of
the society which produces it. In making this
assumption,Mulvey,like othersecond wavetheorists, draws heavily on psychoanalysis, particularly Freudand Lacan. She sets out to analyze
the characteristicsources of pleasure and unpleasureoffered by the cinema.
Narrativecinema, by which she means narrative in the unself-conscious mode described
above, provides the spectatorwith two sources
of pleasure. First, it provides what Freud calls
"scopophilic"pleasure, the pleasureof viewing
anotheras an erotic object. As we saw above,
this pleasurecharacteristicallytakes the form of
looking at women. In film after film, women
function both as erotic objects for characters
within the movie, as Vivian does for Marlowe,
and as erotic objects for the spectator in the
movie-house,as LaurenBacalldoes for us. Thus,
women'spresenceon screenpresupposesthe appreciativeglance of a male spectator.
Men, in contrast,only rarelyfunctionas eroticized objects for female (or male) spectators.
Men, Mulvey points out, feel uncomfortablein
such a role. Neither the ruling assumptions of
patriarchy"northe psychicalstructuresthatback
it up" encouragethe male "to gaze at his exhibitionist like."25Instead, man'srole is to function
as the locus of narrative action. His role, on
screenas off, involves shootingthe bad guys and
blazing the trails. The male movie star attracts
our admirationand respectby his deeds. We are

encouragedto identifywithhim, to imagineourselves doing what he does.

In Freudianterms, the male functions as an
"ego-ideal," not as an object of erotic desire.
The possibility of identifyingwith this ego-ideal
offers the spectatora second, contrastingsource
of pleasure,i.e., the pleasureof identifyingwith
the charactersprojected on screen. Since, on
Mulvey'sanalysis, it is the male herowho makes
things happen and controls them, we typically
identify with him. Thus, the spectator'sgaze is
male in two senses, both in its directionat women as objects of erotic fascination and in its
identification with the male protagonist. The
division of male and female roles on screen
mimics traditionalgender roles: women functioning as the passive objects of the viewer's
gaze; men functioning as the active subjects of
the viewer'simagination.
In playingto ourexistingdesires,fantasiesand
fears, film also offers what Mulveycalls unpleaunconscious,womanrepresure.Inthepatriarchal
sents the threatof castration.This threatthe Hollywoodfilm typicallymeetsin one of two ways. It
may containthe threatposed by the mystery and
fearsomenessof women by domesticatingthem,
typically throughmarriage(e.g., Notorious),or,
more drastically,by killing them off, as in Fatal
Attraction. Alternatively,the threatmay be denied altogetherby elevating the woman to the
status of a fetish. In the lattercase, the woman
becomes reassuringinsteadof dangerous.26
To summarize, then, the male gaze refers to
threeinterlockingformsof control.Withrespect
to the film-maker,it refersto male controlof the
practicesof film-making. This control leads, at
the level of the film text, to a product whose
contentand style inscribethe patriarchalunconscious of the culture at large. Lastly, these devices positionthe male or female audiencemember to find in film a way of seeing which calms
our fears and satisfies our desires.
This is a provocativeaccountof film spectatorship. To ask who is doing the looking assumes
all spectatorsare not similarly positioned, i.e.,
that factors such as genderhave a role to play in
structuring-maybe even in constituting-what
we see. Mulvey's original analysis, however,
leaves thefemale spectatorwith no active viewing position except to identify with the male
protagonist. In identifying with the women on
screen, the female spectatoraligns herself with

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

344
the female-as-object.27More recentfeministtheory rightly inquires how this account explains
the pleasurewhich women derive from going to
the movies. As Ann Kaplan has asked, is the
female spectator'spleasure, like the man's, the
pleasure of looking at women, the masochistic
pleasure of enjoying objectification, or the sadistic pleasure of identifying with the men who
oppressher?28
In "Afterthoughtson Visual PleasureandNarrativeCinema," Mulvey herself proposes, more
positively,thatidentificationwith the male allows
the female spectatorto revert, at least imaginatively, to the active independenceof what Freud
termedthe female child's "earlymasculineperiod." In this "tomboy"phase, she takes pleasure
in a freedom that correct femininity will later
repress.29
In moving beyond the static model of active
male/passive female, current theories of spectatorshipacknowledgewomen'sresistanceto the
position assigned to them in patriarchalculture.
There remains, however,a tendencyto speak of
the female spectator.In so doing, feminist film
theory assumes all women share the same aims
and aspirations,and that they come to the film
text similarlyequipped.To makethis assumption
overlooksimportantdifferencesbetweenwomen
of color and white women, rich andpoor, women
and feministsand differentvarietiesof feminists.
Similarly, feminist theories of spectatorship
speak of the male spectatoras though all men's
gazes are male. Since, in feminist terms, the
male gaze is not only sexist, but heterosexist,
might we not also ask for an accountof how the
male gaze operates when the spectator is not
heterosexual? In either case, can the characterizationof the male gaze as "totallyactive" be
sustained?Moreover,isn't the assumed activity
andcontrolof the male spectatorat odds with the
widespreadnotionthatthe Hollywoodfilm monolithically encourages a form of passive spectatorship?Equatingthe male gaze with the active
gaze ignores the passive element involved in
looking at movies. The male spectator,whatever
his real political and social power, cannot interact with the on-screen woman. She appears,but
is physically absent.
My point here is that part of what makes
feminist theory interesting and powerful is its
attentionto factorswhich affect how we see and
respondto texts. Genderis one of these factors.

However,as it evolves, feministfilm theory,like

feministtheory moregenerally,has increasingly
recognizedthe necessity to move beyond a simple binary analysis of gender.In articulatingthe
inter-connectionsbetweengenderand othervariables, such as sexualorientation,race, andclass,
feminism serves to fine-tune our understanding
of art and its effects uponus.
III

Whatgeneralconclusionscan we drawfromthis
analysis of the male gaze? That film works to
reinforce societal norms?That it is male? That
film, like art generally,maybe harmfulto women? Such conclusions are now common in film
studies. As noted earlier, we find similar arguments in older, more entrenched,fields such as
literatureand art history. As a body of theory,
feminism has succeeded in placing the question
of gender squarely on the agenda of contemporary literary and artistic theory. As I suggested earlier, this new agenda has unsettling
consequencesfortraditionalaesthetics.The new
agenda seeks not only to have us surrendercertain long-standingassumptions, but to replace
them with a whole new way of thinkingaboutart
and our relationshipto it. I want to conclude
therefore by sketching briefly some of these
changes and raising several questions for us to
consider.
First, feminismasks us to replacethe conception of the artworkas an autonomousobjecta thing of beauty and a joy forever-with a
messier conceptionof art. On the new view, the
artwork moves from an autonomous realm of
value to the everydayrealmof social and political praxis. It gains a historywhich overflowsthe
formerbounds of "arthistory."Who makes art
and what type of art gets made depend, we
learn, on the interactionof the artworldwith
otherworlds.
In drawing our attention to culture in the
broadest sense, feminism relies on an alternative, Europeanview of art. In this, feminism
constitutespartof a largermovementawayfrom
"autonomous"aesthetics. Even within AngloAmericanaesthetics,the old paradigmno longer
holds the place it once did. Ourunderstandingof
representation,of the pleasures and powers of
art, and of spectatorshiphave been immeasurably enriched by the expandedcontext in which

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Devereaux

345

Oppressive Text

we now look at art. Yet, in this enlargedcontext,

how does a concept of the "aesthetic," if by that
we mean the purely aesthetic, function? Is the
discipline of aestheticspossible apartfrom sociology, culturalstudies, identitypolitics?
Second, feminism proposes that we re-examine art's claim to speak for all of us. Does art
speak in a gender-neutralvoice or does it privilege some experiences and ways of seeing over
others?TraditionalaestheticsinheritsfromAristotle belief in a universal human condition of
which art, at least greatart, speaks.
Feminismchallengesthe adequacyof the classic, Aristotelianmodel not only with respect to
the Hollywood film (which some might argue is
not great enough to qualify as "great"art), but
with respectto all art. The films of SergeiEisenstein and Jean Renoir, like the plays of Shakespeare, all speak in "particular"voices. On the
new view, the artwork,like the genericpronoun,
speaks for "mankind," but mankind includes
only some of us.
To question art's autonomy and universality,
need not imply that these artworksare without
value-quite the contrary-although their value
may differ from what we once supposed. Nothing in feminist theory precludes rankingHenry
Jamesa more importantnovelist than JaneAusten or Alice Walkera greater writer than John
Steinbeck.
In makingthese evaluativerankings,feminism
does insist,however,thatwe acknowledgethe criteria used in defining "important"and "great."
Does "great"mean the forcefully writtenor the
spare, the heartfelt or the coolly reasoned, the
typical or the innovative?When is a text forcefully writtenand who decides? Feminismoffers
a frameworkfromwithinwhichwe may-indeed,
should-raise such questions. Only when we explicitly acknowledgethe criteriaused in making
these judgmentsdo we create space for competing criteria.

In denying thatartworksor the criteriawe use

to judge them are value-neutral,feminism also
urgesa thirdproposal.Weareaskedto reconsider
our relationshipto establishedartistictraditions.
The canon, still heraldedby some as a reservoir
for the best of human thinking, is accused of
excluding and silencing women (among other
groups).At the very least, feminismrequiresthat
we rethinkour relationshipto the artistic tradition in terms which do not assume a monolithic

"we." Describing existing artistic traditionsas

uniformly enlightening and liberating ignores
those for whom the authorityof those traditions
is unquestionablyproblematic. Do the coming
of age stories of Holden Caulfield and David
Copperfield affect adolescent girls in the same
way as adolescent boys? And if not, what significance does this difference make? Are the
pleasures of art invariantor do factors such as
class, race and gender play a role in defining
those very pleasures?
Fourthly,feminismaltersthe characterization
of readingor viewing as neutralactivities. Like
hermeneutics and reader-responsetheories, it
seeks to explain how the social and historical
placement of the spectatoraffects the meaning
derived from the text. Meaning is no longer
determinedexclusively by the text. Aside from
emphasizingthe social and historicalcontext in
which interpretationoccurs, feminism breaks
new ground in demonstratinghow texts themselves "assume"a particularreaderthroughnarrativeand stylistic devices. The best of feminist
theorizingexecutes this demonstrationthrougha
careful analysis of texts.
As a theoryof readership,however,whatjustifies feminism in assigning "the woman reader"
a central place in the analysis of texts? If it is
meaningful to think in terms of "the woman
reader,"then why not in terms of "the lesbian
reader,"30"the adolescent reader," "the ideal
reader," "the under-educatedreader?"Are all
of these categories equally important, and
according to what theoretical or political criteria?
Lastly, feminist theory, like otherpost-structuralisttheories,endeavorsto makethe unnoticed
noticed. It adoptsfrom the FrankfurtSchool the
belief thatthe informedspectatoris a more critical spectator,andthe criticalspectatoris one less
likely to be victimizedby the text.
A call for critical readingis unlikely to meet
any resistanceamong aestheticians.But what of
the claim that art may not be good for us?-At
the very least, not all art and not for all of us. In
adopting a politics of art, feminist theory confronts Anglo-American aesthetics head-on. It
replaces reverence for art with skepticism. It
asks that we be willing to rethinkwhat we value
and the reasonswe value it.
In suggestingthatthis challengedeservesserious consideration, I might be understood to

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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

346
claim that all traditionalaesthetics is useless,
thatthe accomplishmentsof the last century are
a chimera. This is not my intent. My intentis insteadto describe the cognitive dissonancewhich
marksthe currentsituationin aesthetics. If feminism constitutes a new paradigm, then we may
wish to ponderhow farthe old modelof aesthetics
and the new are commensurable.Is traditional
aestheticscontingentlyor necessarily associated
with patriarchy?Can the "gender-neutral"aesthetics of the traditionalmodel be reformedor
must it be rejected?
Aside from these theoreticalissues, feminism
raises several practical issues which demand
attention.If art contributesto the disequilibrium
in powerbetweenthe sexes, then whatshouldwe
do? Shouldwe simply quit going to the movies?
In raising such questions feminist theory returns us to the Socratic tradition which urges
caution in the face of art's power. Socrates followed that warning with a call for censorship.
With this suggestion, however, many feminists
would not agree. Feminism confronts the ancient problem of art's potential for harm with
two other, far more promising, strategies. Neitherappearsto haveoccurredto Socrates. I want
thereforeto conclude by looking very briefly at
these solutions.
IV

The first proposed solution consists in a call for

a new type of art. Some feminists, ClaireJohnson for example, haveproposedthe creationof a
counter-cinemato compete with the mainstream
Hollywood cinema.31This strategy,like establishing public radioand television stations, aims
to offer an alternativeto the usual fare.
The suggestion to create an alternative art
might please Socrates. It would allow him to
replaceHomer'sepics with his own, morephilosophically informed, tales. This so-called revision of the canon would meet the Socraticobjections to art whose content and form encouraged
a weakeningof the requisitemoralvirtues.
Creating new artistic traditions provides an
alternativeto the passive receptionof dominant
traditions.This strategyis most often described
as creating a female voice or female gaze. It
allows womento write theirown texts, theirown
history.Achievingsuch a "femalegaze" requires
more than simply providingwomen with access
to the means of film-making. As Diane Wald-

mancorrectlyargues, womendon't makebetter,

less "patriarchal"films simply becausethey are
women, "as if the female psyche finds textual
resonances unavailable to the male psyche."
The requiredtransformationof film dependsnot
upon some female essence, but upon a consciously adoptedpoliticalperspective.32
Adopting such a perspectivehas resulted in
interestingfilms by Mulvey,Sally Potter,Lizzie
Borden, Barbara Hammer and others. These
films strive in a variety of ways to disrupt or
reworkthe narrativeconventionsof the dominant
cinema. Sally Potter'sThriller,for example, retells the story of La Boheme. In Potter'sfilmnoir
versionof the doomed love affair, Mimi investigates her own death. Her voice-over and the
fragmented narrativethrough which her story
unfolds resist the character identification and
narrativeclosure typical of traditionalnarrative.
Films such as Thriller critique the dominant
modes of cinematic representationby privileging heterogeneityand multiplicityof meaning.
In this, these films aim to free the spectatorto
engage more actively with the text. Otherfilms,
such as those of BarbaraHammer, seek alternatives to the forms of cinematic pleasure provided by the glossy images of the professional
photographer.The rangeand varietyof feminist
film-makingfarexceeds whatI can surveyhere.
However,these films are seen primarilyin film
courses andprivatefilm societies. Thus, despite
their importancein providingan alternativetradition, their influence on mainstreamaudiences
and film-practicesis limited.
The second feminist strategyconsists in developing methodsof dealing with existing texts.
This strategy is variously describedas re-reading, as reading against the grain, or as "revision." It involves active readership,where I
mean readingin the broadsense to include both
visual and writtentexts. These strategieshavein
common the aim of critique and reappropriation. Thus, they do what good criticism always
does. But more than this, they involve learning
to see throughwhat Kuhn calls a "new pair of
spectacles."33This new pair of spectacles provides an educationnot in whatto thinkbut how.
Reading againstthe grain is a strategydesigned
by out of power groups to counterbalancethe
dominant textual traditions by offering alternative interpretationsof workswithin those traditions.

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Devereaux

Oppressive Text

Feminismin this sense offers a uniquecritical

perspective.It provides resistance, and an alternativeto, the male gaze. Admittedly,just as the
male gaze involvesa distinctpoliticalposition, so
too the feministperspective"cannotbe regarded
as politically neutral."34Yet, as a way of seeing,
it importantlydiffersfromits male counterpartin
acknowledgingitself as a way of seeing.
The possibilityof suchtextualstrategiesis politically importantnot only for feminists but for
othersconcernedwith "neutralizing"
theeffectsof
certainartworksor formsof art withina cultural
settingcommittedto the protectionof free speech.
Reading"againstthe grain"offersan alternativeto
the passivereadershipwhich censorshipassumes,
and in its paternalism,encourages.
As an interpretativestrategy,it opens to all of
us-male and female-the possibility of finding
our own way throughthe text. Forvarioushistorical and culturalreasons, feminism looks more
optimisticallythan did Socrates on the capacity
of each of us to find that way. Yet, producing
new formsof art and readingagainstthe grainof
the old will not by themselvestopplethe existing
gender hierarchy. For that, women must also
havepoweroff-screen.
MARY DEVEREAUX

Departmentof Philosophy
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
1. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in Film Theoryand Criticism, 3rd ed., eds., Gerald
Mast and MarshallCohen (OxfordUniversityPress, 1985),
pp. 803-816.
2. E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Studyin the Psychology of Pictorial Representation(Princeton University
Press, 1960), pp. 297-298.
3. Sandra Bartky, "Women, Bodies and Power: A ResearchAgenda for Philosophy," APANewsletteron Philosophy and Feminism89 (1989), p. 79.
4. WebstersNew CollegiateDictionary(Springfield,MA:
G & C Merriam, 1980), p. 833.
5. Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake, Film Theory:
An Introduction(ManchesterUniversityPress, 1988), p. 23.
6. Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart,
eds., Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts,and
Contexts(JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1986), p. xix.
7. Griselda Pollock, Visionand Difference, (New York:
Routledge, 1988), p. 11.
8. Patrocinio Schweickart, "Towarda Feminist Theory
of Reading"in Genderand Reading, p. 4 1.
9. Lapsley andWestlake,Film Theory,p. 59.

347
10. Stanley Cavell, In Quest of the Ordinary:Lines of
Skepticismand Romanticism,(Universityof Chicago, 1988),
p. 131.
11. Linda Nochlin, Women,Art, and Power and Other
Essays (New York:Harperand Row, 1988), p. 146.
12. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed.
H.M. Parshley(New York:VintageBooks, 1974), p. 134.
13. Molly Haskell, From Reverenceto Rape: The Treatment of Womenin the Movies (Harmondsworth:Penguin
Books, 1974).
14. E. Deidre Pribram,ed., Female Spectators:Looking
at Film and Television(New York:Verso, 1988), p. 1.
15. See Mary Ann Doane, The Desire to Desire: The
Woman'sFilmof the 1940s (IndianaUniversityPress, 1987),
ch. 2.
16. Mary Beth Haralovich,cited in AnnetteKuhn, Women s Pictures: Feminismand the Cinema (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), p. 34.
17. Tania Modleski, The WomenWhoKnew Too Much:
Hitchcockand FeministTheory(New York:Methuen,1988),
p. 73.
18. E. Ann Kaplan, "Is the Gaze Male?" in Womenand
Values:Readings in Recent FeministPhilosophy, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Belmont, California:WadsworthPublishing,
1986), p. 231.
19. The idea that women's oppressiondepends upon the
fulfillment of both of these conditions I owe to a conversation with Tim Gould.
20. l owe this tripartitedistinctionto LydiaGoehr'shelpful
commentaryon an earlierversionof this paper.Hercomments
were presentedat The AmericanSociety forAesthetics,Eastern Division Meeting,StateCollege, Pa., March16, 1990.
21. Interestingly,what is termed the "new" Hollywood
cinema has adopted some of the techniques and self-conscious strategiesof the internationalart cinema.
22. This division of feminist film theory into first and
second stages can be found, for example, in Lapsley and
Westlake, Film Theory, p. 25. The same division emerges
less explicitly in Claire Johnson, "Women's Cinema as
Counter-Cinema"in Movies and Methods, ed. Bill Nichols
(Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1976), pp. 209-215.
23. ChristianMetz, TheImaginarySignifierin Film Theory and Criticism, 3rd ed., eds. Gerald Mast and Marshall
Cohen (OxfordUniversityPress, 1985), p 799-801.
24. See Modleski'schapteron Rear Windowfor a discussion of the film's critical reception.
25. Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema,"
p. 810.
26. Ibid., p. 811.
27. Pribram,FemaleSpectators,pp. 1-2.
28. Kaplan, "Is the Gaze Male?", p. 252.
29. Laura Mulvey, Visualand Other Pleasures (Indiana
UniversityPress, 1989), p. 37.
30. JeanE. Kennard,"OurselfBehindOurself:A Theory
for LesbianReaders"in Genderand Reading,p. 63.
31. Johnson, "Women'sCinemaas Counter-Cinema."
32. Diane Waldman, "Film Theory and the Gendered
Spectator:The Female or the Feminist Reader?" Camera
Obscura 18 (1988), p. 81.
33. Kuhn, Womens Pictures, p. 70.
34. Ibid.

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