Feminist Film Theory: The Male Gaze at 50

Fifty years ago, Laura Mulvey published "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1973), an essay that transformed film studies by linking the visual pleasures of cinema with structures of patriarchal power and by putting the "male gaze" into the critical lexicon. Mulvey's analysis was based on Hollywood cinema, and feminist film scholarship has historically been drawn to popular genres that resonate with female audiences. This talk will identify key moments in feminist film theory, including challenges to Mulvey's work. It will also consider the impact of female directors in Hollywood, who are confronting issues of race, gender, power and pleasure head-on and whose achievements in films such as Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017) and The Woman King (Gina Prince-Blythewood, 2022) are charting new territory for female artists and audiences alike. This exhibition was presented in association with (re)FOCUS, a citywide collaboration of over sixty large, small, and diverse visual arts organizations, all addressing feminist issues of marginalization, gender, social justice, and inequality.