Study Task 3- Reading Texts- Triangulation

The issue of gender roles within media has been widely discussed by many theorists, with Mulvey, Storey and Dyer having contrasting views. Mulvey would argue in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema that women are often seen as lesser beings than than men, due to her lack of a phallus, meaning 'it is her desire to make good the lack of phallus' which 'produces the phallus as a symbolic presence'. Mulvey also explores how the 'male gaze' can be put onto women by viewing her only as in existence to inspire the hero, and has not the 'slightest importance' in herself. This is something Storey would agree with and push further, as in his text based around Mulveys, he states how both men and women play a part in this male gaze 'and signifying male desire' meaning 'women are therefore crucial to the pleasure of the male gaze'. Dyer would offer that the explanation of this inequality between genders is due to 'an Oedipal identification with the father and the repression of the mother' and slightly disagree with Mulvey's ideology that the male gaze is nothing more than 'sadistic voyeurism' by stating that it is due to an innate primal urge and is not, as Storey believes, a building of social inequality. Mulvey would disagree, and say that this relationship between the genders in manufactured in order to allow the male viewers to identify with the male lead character and ‘allow a temporary loss of ego, whilst simultaneously reinforcing it’, meaning cinema is often tailored to fill the male ego, which in itself oppresses the female figures. Again, Storey would agree with Mulvey, as he believes that despite the efforts to show women as stronger, independent characters in certain media at first glance, ‘the second look confirms women as sexual objects’ due to cinema being created with male ideologies firmly in mind. Dyer however, offers a fairly dismal solution, as he states that the only way to even the bias among film is to ‘feminise’ the present males and bring them down to the condescending level women are viewed with so that the woman role has a chance of over taking him, and not by celebrating the unique strong qualities of a woman, as this would make the male viewer feel emasculated and the female viewer feel unworthy.