Constellation Mulvey
Iwona Kościelecka
i.koscielecka@hotmail.comindependent researcher (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3738-2155
Mirosław Przylipiak
University of Gdańsk (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-8112
Abstract
The article concerns a long-standing debate ignited by Laura Mulvey’s famous text on visual pleasure in narrative cinema. It describes various threads of this discussion, connected with the following questions: Does the gaze in classical narrative film truly belong to the man? Can a woman also be ‘the bearer of the look’? Can a man be the object of an erotic spectacle? How do Mulvey’s concepts apply to gay and lesbian audiences? How are they affected by the issue of race, of both those who look and those being looked at? Is the identification model proposed by Mulvey accurate? Does the realisation of feminist demands truly require the destruction of pleasure? To these questions raised in the debate, the authors of the article add their own: Is Mulvey’s text rightly considered revolutionary, or is it rather a form of skilful rebranding? Is the gaze truly a form of power? This debate remains largely unknown in Poland, hence the need to describe it.
Keywords:
Laura Mulvey, visual pleasure, bearer of the look, object of the look, scopophiliaReferences
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Authors
Iwona Kościeleckai.koscielecka@hotmail.com
independent researcher Poland
https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3738-2155
In 2024 she defended her PhD dissertation Visual Pleasure in Film Theory and Practice: Laura Mulvey Revisited at the University of Gdańsk. Co-organiser and participant of international conferences and academic panels at the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research and the Università degli Studi di Palermo, among others. Participant, initiator, and organiser of round tables, including Visual Politics and Postcolonial Issues in collaboration with the University of Havana, University of Arts (Havana), Caribbean Studies Association (Santa Marta, Colombia), Latin American Studies Association (Guadalajara, Mexico), and Facultad de Cine (Mexico City). She took part in scientific seminars of the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation in 2018-2020. She lectured at the film festivals Cine en las Aldeas and Filma Afro Cartagena, and presented her research at conferences and congresses in Europe, Latin and Central America, and the Caribbean. She carried out a research and teaching project at the University of Arts (ISA) in Havana under the NAWA PROM grant.
Authors
Mirosław PrzylipiakUniversity of Gdańsk Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7552-8112
Professor of film and media studies at the University of Gdańsk; film critic, translator, documentary filmmaker. His main publications include the books Kino stylu zerowego [Zero Style Cinema] (1994, 2nd edition 2016), Kino najnowsze [New Cinema] (1998), Poetyka kina dokumentalnego [Aesthetics of Documentary Cinema] (2000, 2nd edition 2004), three books on American direct cinema, over 150 academic papers on various aspects of film and media, and numerous film reviews. He translated nearly 30 books, mostly from the fields of psychology and film, and some poetry. He also made several documentary films and educational television series. He was the founder and first managing director of Academic Educational Television at the University of Gdańsk. He has been awarded many grants and fellowships, from the Fulbright Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Polish Ministry of Higher Education, among others. His main areas of interest are theory and aesthetics of cinema, documentary film, American direct cinema, and Polish cinema.
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