Laura Mulvey's Narcissism Paper

“Woman…[are] bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning not maker of meaning” (Mulvey 1). Laura Mulvey, a British feminist film theorist who wrote a psychoanalysis paper called Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, believes that the gendered gaze, a symbolic theory that holds that men drive society while woman act as mere “provoking” objects to men, is beginning to take hold of society and everyday life. John Berger, who interestingly enough wrote his book, Ways of Seeing, two years before Mulvey’s paper, explains how “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at… thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 47).

Though both authors wrote their papers in the 1970’s, their theories still hold true today.

As social networking sites began to erupt throughout the country in the past decade, such as Facebook and MySpace, users slowly began morphing sexism and misogyny into these sites. Andrew Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, authors of the sociological analysis, Look at us: Collective Narcissism in College Student Facebook Photo Galleries, show through statistical evidence that woman have a higher number of pictures, comments, selfies, and cyber friends, thus allowing themselves to be targeted by other users. Though social networking allows an equal opportunity for both males and females to express their identities, females are highly more articulating their lives as symbolic creations of their worlds, thus allowing themselves to become mere objects, which in turn concretes the idea of the gendered gaze that both Mulvey and Berger hypothesized

on.
The predominant idea that both Mulvey and Berger exemplify on in their writings is that men, in a patriarchal culture, base their fantasies on the images of women. The women, in return, “are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact” (Mulvey 11). Both authors would agree upon the fact that women are submissive to men, whether that is in every day life or in cinema. However, Mulvey’s attitude towards this idea is of abhorrence, while Berger seems to be neutral on the subject, simply observing his studies. Therefore, this shows that Berger, although greatly talking about the gendered gaze, falls right into the patriarchal culture. He may not agree with the concept, but he does not give any solutions. In fact, Berger, in his paper, seems to strengthen the idea of the gendered gaze unconsciously. In his writings, Berger states how a woman appears to a man “can determine how she will be treated” and “to acquire some control over this process, [the] woman must contain and interiorize it” (Berger 46). Though Berger is trying to give “advice”, this quote exemplifies the submissiveness of women to men.
In addition, Berger goes on talk about how women are viewed as mere sights by stating, “women are there to feed an appetite, not to have any of their own” (Berger 55). He’s explaining that women are made to appeal to a man’s sexuality while “it has nothing to do with her sexuality” (Berger 55). Similarly, Mulvey explains that in movies, “one part of a fragmented body destroys the Renaissance space, the illusion of depth demanded by the narrative, it gives flatness, the quality of a cut-out or icon rather than verisimilitude to the screen” (Mulvey 12). Mulvey explains that if women attract too much attention in the movie, the film will be ruined because of the broken illusion of the film. In both cases women cannot hold power because it takes away from the true value of which they were portrayed in, thus exemplifying the gendered gaze in that women cannot be anything more than a mere object.
When social networking developed throughout the nation, women took a strong hold to these sites. Statistically, according to Papacharissi and Mendelson, women on Facebook were reported having more photos on their page, being more likely to post photos, to tag photos, and to comment on photos then men (Mendelson 13). Pictures act as specular objects: a way for cyber viewers to articulate and discuss while comparing the photo to themselves. This in turn allows the woman in the photo to be viewed as an object. Viewers do not care about her background story or even how she feels in the picture. The spectators’ main interest is what they can visually see, which allows them to interpret the photo in any way they want. For young women, this can eat away at them. A 2011 study claimed that the more time a teenage woman spent on Facebook, the more prone they were to developing a negative body image (Doyle). However, there’s nothing happening to stop this. Everyday millions of teenage women log onto Facebook, posting pictures of themselves in an environment where taking an unappealing photo could result in international scorn and a flood of credible threats to their lives.
Social networking has only strengthened the gendered gaze. The concept that women watch themselves being looked at only strengthens Mendelson and Papacharissi examination of women who take mirror shots: “a young women practices posing, a slight arch to her back, hand on hip, head slightly canted, even in self shots. This becomes her consistent poses through college images” (Mendelson 21). Unknowingly, the woman is making herself into a robotic object. In addition, a mirror, according to Berger, allows a woman to “connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight” (Berger 51). A mirror is only strengthening the idea that women are not only viewed as unequal to men, but that women are visualizing themselves as inanimate objects, thus degrading themselves without any realization.
Because the gendered gaze is constantly entangling itself into million of users on social networking sites, it has become predominant in America’s culture. As these sites grow, women users are increasingly being watched, being judged, and being seen as these inorganic objects. The fact that the core foundation of the gendered gaze is still very relevant today, if not intensified, shows that the American patriarchal society has rooted itself so deeply in our culture that men and especially women are becoming too oblivious or just simply indifferent to it, which in turn may be widening the equality gap between the sexes.