Kaplan, E. Ann. "Is the Gaze Male?" Feminism in Film. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. Oxford/New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 119-138.
Call#: Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.W6 F448 2000

 

Kaplan examines the feminist discourse on the idea of the fetishism of the female form in her article “ Is the Gaze Male?” She finds that while Hollywood would contend that females are able to exist on their own as women, female characters are often approached as enigmas that need to be figured out and thus placed and understood within the context of a patriarchal system. Kaplan cites Laura Mulvey who argues that the fetishism of female film characters exists through three different types of looks. The first look occurs when the woman is filmed, many times by a male director. The look, according to Mulvey, is inherently voyeuristic regardless of the gender of the director but nonetheless serves to eroticize the female form. The second look, which usually occurs within the narrative of the film, depicts women as objects subject to men’s gazes. The third look occurs when the audience takes on the position of both the voyeur of the first look and the character within the narrative of the second look who gazes upon the female. Kaplan goes onto explain that the fetishism of females relates the psychoanalytical issue of fear of castration present in men. By objectifying the female, both the men within the film and the men watching the film are able neutralize the threatening nature of the female that Freud argues plagues the subconscious of all men.

The idea of reducing the threat of a woman through fetishism exists both within the narrative of Spellbound and through the techniques that Hitchcock employed while making the film. The men that surround Dr. Peterson at Green Manors continually remind her of her position as an attractive unmarried female while diminishing the importance of her strengths as a doctor. In the scene when Dr. Peterson returns from her walk with Dr. Edwardes, the men at the doctors’ table look her up and down and repeatedly comment on her appearance. Hitchcock also contributes to the idea of diminishing Dr. Peterson’s strength through his extensive use of still close-ups which forced actress Ingrid Bergman to remain extremely still and limit her movement throughout a large portion of the film. However, it is interesting to note that the gaze is at times reversed and that the male, not the female, is at the receiving end of an objectifying look. In Spellbound this idea is played out through the repeated use of lingering shots of Dr. Edwardes from the female perspective of Dr. Peterson.