Representation: Laura Mulvey Vs. Us

'Representation' is a popular term used to mean a wide variety of things, but in the world of film, it used to refer to the way in which people or characters and their qualities are conveyed to an audience. For example, a disabled person or character may be portrayed in a negative light, and the film portraying them would be said to have represented the issue of disability in a particular way; a way which was received negatively. 

Last year, for my AS production (an Opening Title Sequence), representation was an incredibly important consideration. We were emulating the style and genre of 'film noir,' a genre carried across films partly by stock characters such as the 'male anti-hero' and the 'femme fatale.' After learning the basics of semiotics, it became clear that such characters only remain consistent because they are represented consistently. In order to emulate the genre effectively, we had to ensure that our representation of the characters in our OTS matched up with that of characters in actual film noir movies.

In our current short film, we aren't attempting to emulate a particular genre, so the representation of our characters is in many ways more difficult to control. We have no stock characters, so we have no explicit guidelines to follow in terms of representation. To get a better idea of the ways in which we can represent our characters, and the effect this may have, I have looked at some contemporary theory in the field.

Laura Mulvey
Unsurprisingly, one of the most controversial issues in contemporary media theory is that of the representation of gender: arguably the most apparent dividing characteristic of the human race. In 1975, Laura Mulvey wrote 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', wherein she utilised psychoanalytic theory to pull apart the representation of women in films, ultimately to propagate her own political ideology. 

I personally have mixed opinions of the article; in some sections, Mulvey makes simple but powerful statements which are sensible and convincing, but in others, she makes outrageous claims that can be empirically disproved. 

To give an example of a simple but powerful statement, Mulvey spends a paragraph explaining why the cinema is a part of the voyeuristic world of 'surreptitious observation.' She says: '...the mass of mainstream film, and the conventions within which it has consciously evolved, portray a hermetically sealed world which unwinds magically, indifferent to the presence of the audience, producing for them a sense of separation and playing on their voyeuristic phantasy.' Mulvey then strengthens her proposition further by talking empirically about the actual experience of watching a film in an auditorium. 

By contrast, Mulvey later states the following: 'There are three different looks associated with cinema: that of the camera as it records the pro-filmic event, that of the audience as it watches the final product, and that of the characters at each other within the screen illusion. The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate the intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience. Without these two absences (the material existence of the recording process, the critical reading of the spectator) fictional drama cannot achieve reality, obviousness and truth.'

Whilst I believe she is right to say that conventional film-makers aim 'to eliminate the intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience,' I think her final statement, about fictional drama achieving reality, is somewhat pointless and nonsensical. Mulvey essentially states that the 'recording process' and the 'critical reading of the spectator' need to be hidden in some way for the film to achieve 'reality, obviousness and truth.' It follows from this that she believes it is entirely possible for fictional drama to achieve the quality of reality, and this is what I refute.

A film can never be real, obvious and truthful, simply because of the fact it is a film. Ontologically, a film, whether factual or fictional, edited or unedited, is simply a representation of something or other. Therefore, the closest it can get to being real is in being a representation of reality. Yes, a film is a 'real' representation, and what is represented can also be 'real', but it is still ultimately a representation, and so it does not constitute a reality in itself as Mulvey suggests it does. 

Actress Lizzy Caplan with Director Matt Reeves on the set of Cloverfield.

Something else that makes me disagree with Mulvey is my own experience of the 'reality' of films. The film Cloverfield, and others like it, for example, don't attempt to hide the 'recording process' at all; in fact, they actively make the audience aware of the recording processes (albeit fictional ones). For me, the overt presence of the recording process makes the film feel much more real. Cloverfield essentially has the opposite effect to what Mulvey would expect.

Representation in Our Short Film
As I read through Mulvey's article, I wasn't taking a purely critical approach; I was also thinking about how the issues of representation involved were related to the Short Film Tom and I are producing.

Mulvey writes disapprovingly of the way in which the female figure is 'displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men,' and she suggests that the 'male unconscious' gets pleasure from 'asserting control.' Although I would like to think that Tom and I are in no way succumbing to any set of patriarchal film-making conventions, I must admit that our narrative could be seen to do exactly that which Mulvey criticises. She says that there is a sadistic side of film that 'depends on making something happen, forcing a change in another person, a battle of will and strength, victory/defeat, all occurring in a linear timeline with a beginning and an end.' Our film follows an ambiguous male protagonist who essentially rescues a female from suffering, and this could easily be interpreted as having very chauvinistic undertones; we could be criticised for representing all women as helpless weaklings, and all men as misunderstood heros.

This is not, of course, our aim at all, and Tom and I will be taking the necessary precautions to ensure that our film does not carry such representational undertones. We want our film to provoke thought about 'selflessness,' not to enforce gender distinctions. It is true that our core trope is a very traditional one (a male hero rescues a female victim), but we have used this so that the unconventional and non-traditional aspects, such as the hero being selfless and unnoticed, are that much more apparent by contrast.

In short, this brief look into representation theory has highlighted the way in which representation can dramatically affect a person's interpretation of a film, and I am more determined than ever to ensure that Tom and I produce a short film that provokes the kind of thought we intend it to. In many ways, we have already made plans to represent women as more than a simple icon of voyeurism; at one point, we clearly show that the female character is more than an object by briefly entering her thoughts, and we don't advocate the traditional assumption that the female victim will either fall in love with or feel indebted to the male hero; in fact, she is somewhat repulsed by his actions. 

Mulvey concludes that the 'decline of traditional film form' is a positive thing, and unless our production takes an enormous turn for the worst, it's going to be anything but traditional.