Page 152 - Decoding Culture
P. 152
GENDERED SUBJECTS, WOMEN'S TEXTS 145
Psychoanalytic theory
[Visua� [Narrative]
Patriarchal unconscious
and
phallocentric order
Scopophilia Castration anxiety Narcissistic
ego identification
1
Female subjected Male protagonist
to male gaze as ego-ideal
plus plus
fetishism to demystification
defuse castration or punishment to
anxiety defuse castration
anxiety
Observed features
of Hollywood cinema
Figure 1 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' reconstructed
male-upon-female gloss by the centrality of castration anxiety to
the argument.
Viewed in this way, the effectiveness of Mulvey's case revolves
around the strength of the explanation that she offers. Now, judge
ments of explanatory power are a function of three interlinked
factors: the prior credibility of the explanatory theory; the logical
Copyrighted Material
