Jaques Lacan was born in 1901 to a rich, Catholic French Family in Paris. He was a psychoanalyst and psychiatrist and has been named the most 'controversial psychoanalyst since Freud'.
The 'Lack' theory by Lacan
Jaques Lacan came up with a theory/concept that revolved around the idea of 'lack' and the desire that arises as a result of it. He said 'Desire is a relation to being to lack. The lack is the lack of being properly sparking. It is not the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the being exists'.
Lacan distinguishes between three different types of lack, according to the nature of the object which is lacking.
- Symbolic castration
- Imaginary Frustration
- Real Privation
Lacan and The Mirror Stage
Lacan proposes that infants pass through a stage in life which an external image of the body (reflected in a mirror) produces a psychic response that gives rise to the mental representation of 'I'. Generally speaking, this means that when a child sees themselves in the mirror, they see the image looking back at them as superior to themselves. The child fails to identify the image as themself, therefore, they set this mirage as something to worship and look up to.
In the same way, women often follow the same behaviour patterns in film. They see an 'ideal' image of a woman on screen as superior to themself and end up wishing that they could transform themselves into that 'ideal image'.
Example of the male gaze in film
The male gaze is evident in the opening scene of the third instalment of the Transformers films. The film opens with a close up shot of Rosie Huntingdon-Whitely, who plays the female lead and also a Victoria Secret model (well-known for being thin, attractive etc), as she climbs the stairs. The camera follows her barely covered behind closely as she makes her way up the stairs, and then the camera cuts to various other parts of her body, panning down her bare legs and feet and then back up until the camera reaches her torso. The fact that the audience do not even see her face before they see these parts of her body implies that her identity isn't even particularly important,it dehumanises her; she is just a sexualised object to look at and admire.
Throughout the length of the film, there are countless shots that linger over her behind, her lips, her breasts and her legs. She is often viewed from below and is dressed in tight and revealing clothing (short skirts, tight dresses, high heels) which is clearly for voyeurism purposes and to gain scopophilia.
Not only is she intended to be viewed as a sexual object by the camera and audience, but also by the characters throughout the film. In one scene, one of the transformers (not even a human being) is scene looking up her skirt and rummaging through her underwear drawer. In another scene, John Malkowitz' character is seen going out of his way to look at her behind.
References:
- http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/transformers-3-sour-sexist-and-salivary/241305/
- http://www.karanovic.org/courses/mca008/archives/1487
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