Laura Mulvey and Continued Relevance Through "Atomic Blonde"

Niccole D’Arco

Professor Lawrence

MDIA322L111

April 30, 2017

Male Gaze and Laura Mulvey’s Feminist Film Theories applied in Atomic Blonde

Patriarchal values trickle through society through film and media, and these values have not changed much since the 1970s. Relevancy surrounding theories and ideas regarding the film industry throughout time validates theorists and allows us to better understand films through various lenses. The film industry is a male dominated industry, and Hollywood notoriously objectifies women and portrays most of them as devices for audiences to look at . Laura Mulvey, possibly one of the most influential theorists on feminist film, published her famous article Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema in 1975, and created a new way to look at and understand film and her insights and observations are most definitely still applicable to films of this day. It is outrageous to see that although the objectification of women in film has been an ongoing problem for decades that not much has really changed; if anything it’s just become even more ingrained in our routines and thought processes. It has gotten to the point where we cannot distinguish those patriarchal values from our own, to the point where we even have women directors, producers, writers continuing the trend and allowing if not maintaining the same type of representations of women in film. Psychoanalyzing current films such as Atomic Blonde (2015) will prove that Laura Mulvey’s theoretical ideas on the male gaze, fetishistic scopophilia and active male/passive female still apply to current films.

Mulvey uses psychoanalysis to wade through patriarchal values and how integral they are in our society. Using this method of analysis allows us to explore the relationship between conscious and unconscious ideas with special attention to the unconscious. Because of this type of analysis, we can see how the patriarchy manifests itself in film. Since society’s power comes from mostly male leadership and the film industry is predominantly male, there are an abundance of films that cater towards male audiences. Because of this, Mulvey arrived at her greatest breakthrough in feminist film analysis: the male gaze. There is a voyeuristic satisfaction in having the ability to see without being seen, and this is the true basis for the gaze. “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” (Mulvey, 2011). The gaze of the camera is akin to the director's eye, it shows his vision fresh from his mind, and all of his desires along with it. The audience’s eye goes hand in hand with the camera eye, because the director’s vision is being projected straight to them. Within film, the woman exists to become a sexual item in which the audiences covet as their own. The gaze of the camera and of the audience are usually discredited, because acknowledging them makes it impossible to form any resemblance of reality (Mulvey, 2011). The camera becomes obtrusive. The gaze that affects women on screen between characters is the most well known, and just as important to analyze as the other two. This highly sexualized way of representing women goes hand in hand with fetishistic scopophilia, a result of castration anxiety.

The moment that the male child recognizes that there is a difference and lack of similar genitalia signifies the threat of unpleasure; the fact that women do not have penises gives men castration anxiety (Mulvey, 2011). So the male viewer is in a fixed position of discomfort when a female is present and in order for a film to hold that viewer it must relieve that tension. She is ‘sexual difference’, and that connotes an anxiety which is only dispersed in two ways:

The male unconscious has two avenues of escape from this castration anxiety: preoccupation with the re-enactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object (an avenue typified by the concerns of the film noir); or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangers…(Mulvey, 2011).

This means that a female must be fetishized or punished in order for the male audience to be relieved of their fear of castration. Content with this kind of subtext trains the mind to view film from the male gaze and perpetuates the patriarchal lens into nuances of our culture.

Following this trend in potentially damaging subtext in films includes the actual role of women within the plot. Mulvey suggests that women play a passive role within the advancement of the plot, whereas the men are the sole driving force for the film. The women within these films serve to be looked at, and are often a distraction to male lead’s mission. This is defined in Narrative Pleasures as the active male and passive female.

Because of the impact that Visual Pleasures had on film history, other filmmakers and theorists have increasingly become aware of how to look at film through a feminist lens. This inspired thousands of new analyses about what is wrong with female representation in Hollywood. This fact alone highlights the importance of Mulvey, and her impact on future of women in film and the feminist movement. Another theorist, Basak Göksel Demiray, uses Mulvey’s theories to call attention to the male gaze and castration anxiety in Kill Bill Vol. 1-2. This particular study shows how women in film must be punished and fetishized in order to satisfy the male viewer (or the objectifying viewer) and their desires. The article references a specific scene where the female lead is shot, and the the sheriff looks at her and says, “Look at her, hay coloured hair, big eyes, she is a little blood-spattered angel.” Demiray makes the connection that “she is the object of desire for them but she also deserves a punishment” (Demiray, 2012). What is interesting about this analysis is that Demiray calls out the film for being feminist on the outside, but objectifying in the subtext because it features a strong female lead yet she’s fetishized and punished for it. This is why analyzing with psychoanalysis is crucial to fostering progress.

Along those lines is Mad Max: Fury Road. It boasts a strong female character and themes that represent the downfall of patriarchy however still features brass objectification. Theorist Sotirios Bampatzimopoulos examined this film with Mulvey’s male gaze in mind. Charlize Theron’s character is trying to save five, gorgeous brides from a patriarchal maniac who is using them for breeding and sexual gratification only. When we first see the brides, they’ve been styled to look fresh out of a man’s fantasy. “The camera takes a voyeuristic position from a safe distance in order to establish their beauty. Later on, after a gun is fired, a shot of a girl’s leg with a drop of blood adds to the visual sexiness, and satisfies the male gaze who traditionally enjoys the spectacle of a wounded/tortured/punished female body” (Bampatzimopoulos, 2015). This is a prime example of the gaze in a film that is supposedly progressive. In fact, in Bampatzimopoulos’s article he discusses how various critics responded differently to the film, some lauding it for its ‘fuck the patriarchy’ message. They do not see the objectification because they have been taught to view society and film through the male gaze and perspective. Another reason why psychoanalysis is so incredibly important.

I am going to apply Mulvey’s observations from Narrative Pleasures and Visual Cinema to show the stagnation of female representation in the film Atomic Blonde. Using psychoanalysis as lens will bring the unconscious patriarchal objectifications into the light. I will point out the male gaze, castration anxiety/fetishistic scopophilia and elements of the active male passive female within the film to prove the point that Mulvey’s 1975 article is still relevant today and not much has changed.

Charlize Theron plays a sexy, strong triple agent (Lorraine Broughton) during the cold war in David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde. Lorraine is tasked to discover the details of the murder of a fellow agent and male lover, and to recover a list of known double agents. It is a fictional, nonlinear, action story that is framed by the historical timeline leading up to Reagan’s famous order to tear down the Berlin wall. Lorraine’s partner David Percival (James McAvoy) is supposed to help her but basically just exists to undermine her the whole time. The film is disguised as women empowering and queer friendly, however it’s true purpose exploits those concepts for the pleasure of the audience; which will be discussed later.

To build the atmosphere of Berlin in the late 1980s, director David Leitch used various filmic techniques that successfully has a multisensory impact on its audience. These techniques to establish the sexy and dangerous ‘vibe’ of the neo noir spy flick. There are no shortages of beautiful shots in Atomic, with vivid colors, plenty of neon and obviously the beauty of Theron. The attention to sound also plays a key role in the sexy quality of the movie, which detailed down to the way the character’s use their voices. There are plenty of different accents such as British, French, Russian etc...which ties in the idea of exotic and foreignness as sexy. The most important sound design choice made in this film however is the voice of Charlize Theron. She speaks slowly and deliberately, and her actual tonality is incredibly lusty and seductive further reinforcing the ‘mood’ of the film. Or just reinforcing sex and the gaze into the plot over and over again. The soundtrack is impeccable; edgy, electronic, 80s etc...The music really completes the full picture. Now that the aesthetic atmosphere is established, the male gaze has an environment where it can metastasize and leak into every corner of the plot.

Historically, the action flick caters to male eyes and this film is no exception. Expanding this concept to the current social climate, the male gaze can be applied to men, as well as those sexually attracted to women in general. Calling it an objectifying gaze or something more gender neutral opens up a wider discussion fit with the times. The gaze in this film is constantly present; in fact, the entire purpose of the film is to create an environment where the gaze can exist; to voyeuristically satisfy the viewers. The film’s plot comes second to the focus on aesthetically pleasing images and the male gaze without a shortage of neon lighting. In fact, on the DVD for the film there is an option to turn on the commentary featuring both director David Leitch and editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir. Leitch discusses how he pitched the film to Charlize Theron, and how the most important part of the pitch was the second scene, the first scene that we meet Theron’s character Lorraine. She resurfaces from an ice bath, and is naked for the entire scene allowing her audience to see her battered body as the beginning of the frame story. It serves as an excuse to show her figure and quite honestly establishes her as a sexual item right off the bat.

The camera gaze is a voyeuristic presence throughout the film and is utilized through techniques the director employs such as camera angle and framing. Theron’s character appears at a bar, where a beautiful, incognito French agent Delphine (played by Sofia Boutella) invites her to a club nearby with the hidden agenda of getting information from her. The camera tracks her hand going down to the counter with her cleavage in center left screen. There is also an obscene amount of shots where Theron is smoking a cigarette. There must be something about putting a phallic shaped object in a woman's mouth that the director really wanted to convey to the audience.

The costume design is an important part of the camera eye. Charlize Theron is also constantly dressed in costumes that are sexy and trendy. The filmmakers highlight her superiority in bodily perfection by dressing her in revealing clothing and lingerie, high heels and thigh boots. In fact, in every scene that takes place with her alone in her hotel room she is either dressed in lingerie or something revealing, because that’s what women do in their free time.

Since the lead character is incredibly powerful, and dominates basically everyone and everything in the entire film, there needs to be relief for the castration anxiety that will be present in their target audiences. As mentioned above, the two ways to generally dispel these fears are to punish the subject, or to fetishize her, and in this film we see both. In Atomic Blonde, fetishistic scopophilia resides in the BDSM trend of dominance. Some men are sexually aroused by strong women who are controlling in the bedroom-so Theron in this film is a wet dream for them. She dominates in four key ways: visually, physically, sexually, and authoritatively. First and foremost is visually; She’s beautiful, slim, in shape, and probably outshines most “regular” women in men’s lives. Since she has the abilities of a double agent, she physically overpowers men during fight scenes. To relieve the castration anxiety for these two categories she is sexualized, by her dominance of them and punished by physically getting beaten up. We are shown images of her severely battered, which follows Bampatzimopolous’s analysis of Mad Max, where men want to see the image of the tortured female body. Also during the fight scenes, which are choreographed to resemble sexual intercourse, there is a surprising about of choking (male gaze focus on the neck), which connotes another fantasy for men.

There is a scene near the beginning of the film where Theron finishes another aesthetic bath, and then leaves the bathroom of her hotel room. Her partner whom she doesn’t trust, David Percival (James McAvoy), is behind the wall. She attacks him, and then pins him underneath her on the bed, hand on his throat. Although this scene feels like a powerful female lead kicking a man’s ass, it mimics sexual intercourse through subtext of the camera’s gaze and her subtle movements throughout the shot. In the exact moment that she throws him on the bed, first of all-on the bed, she gets on top of him and her body rocks forward and backwards for a lighting-fast few frames. The camera is positioned over her shoulder and focuses on McAvoy’s face during that shot. Her movements are so subtle that it’s incredibly tricky to catch, but it’s definitely there and the purpose is to relate her dominating physical nature to sex. The dialogue during this scene immediately references sex organs, and although his threat is neutralized she stays on top of him for the whole time. Percival then makes a few comments that sexualizes and punishes her even more (if that’s possible):

Lorraine: What do you know about this woman who's been following me since Tempelhof? Percival: I'd say that you're an attractive woman and you should do the math. You know, if I was to follow you, I mean, properly, you'd never fucking know it” (Atomic Blonde, 2015).

It’s the second part of Percival’s comment that is rather disturbing and objectifying. It’s almost like a threat, saying “yeah you got me this time but I wasn’t even trying.” It’s almost as if the director decided that Theron’s character had too much power, so they just threw in that comment for the gaze of the audience to regain control over her. She dominates sexually as well which includes both sexes along with the acts themselves. It is known that she is involved with the male agent who was murdered in the first scene of the film, and then sexually engages with another woman later on. The fetishized aspect of this dominance comes in the form of a lesbian relationship which is purely for the male’s sexual fantasy. Lesbian affairs is a known fetish, and in fact according to Pornhub’s yearly review it was the top searched term in 2017 (2017 Year in Review, 2017). When Theron arrives at the club, they have a brief conversation, Boutella kisses her on the cheek and they head to a “quiet place” to make out. A confrontation occurs where Theron holds Boutella at gunpoint, establishing her as dominant in this relationship. The motif continues, when after the confrontation is resolved they resume their entanglement anyway and Theron holds Boutella from behind, another dominant, even male, trait.

Lastly, is the domination of authority figures. As a triple agent she is outsmarting two whole governments, both represented by physically unthreatening men. (the third government is also represented this way.) The punishment in order for the relievance of castration is the film noir motif that the woman cannot be trusted. The men in this film also cannot be trusted, like her partner. David Percival’s role in the film is basically to undermine Lorraine as well as provide excuses to objectify her. He also helps to progress the plot of the film. In fact, almost every other character or plot element helps to do this, and the combined elements outshine Lorraine. Honestly the only thing that makes it possible to feel the actual story progressing is the outline of the historical depiction of the Berlin wall drama. The film keeps checking back in with the news coverage multiple times so that the audience can feel time passing, because Lorraine’s character freezes the plot due to her sexualized nature. The distraction to the plot and the fact that while Lorraine is a lead character, she still is the not the main element which advances the plot is called active male and passive female. While watching the film, it is easy to get caught up in the visuals and the beauty of the women. “The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey, 2011). This is because we have been taught to watch films and address society from the male perspective in which films are written from and for.

Using psychoanalysis to decode patriarchal and objectifying gazes in Atomic Blonde (2015) proves that this is still a huge issue in film, and it's more pervasive and "hard to find" than ever. Since the film is disguised as empowering to women, (the lead is incredibly strong, and in control) but all of the subtext through language, costume, the fight scenes themselves, and the fetishization of the dominant woman, says that this is a film for male pleasure. There are strong lesbian overtones as well, which looks likes a positive step forward for the queer community, but the filmmakers fetishized it. Another problem with the lesbian representation in this film results from the fate of the relationship. The token minorities are usually the characters who end up dying sometimes in the most gruesome ways so as not to upset the majority. It’s a miracle they were even in it all right? By killing off Delphine, and fetishizing her, the film is holding our society back and pushing us away from progress. Delphine’s death represents a homophobic society at heart, that only truly sees their way of life as a sexual fantasy. It's a problem because it isn't promoting progress, but disguising it and thus setting us back.

In fact, this could be due to an aftershock from the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. The code discusses topics in cinema that are unfit for the silver screen, and frankly some of the forbidden items are a bit archaic. The purpose of the Code was to ensure that “no picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin” (Appendix 1, 1930). Certain applications of the code suggest that each ‘evil’ must be represented in a certain way, such as portraying that specific crime in a way that resists the desire to imitate it in real life. Queer lifestyles and mannerisms etc...are a part of the evils mentioned in the code, “sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden” (Appendix 1, 1930). Early films tended to hide their gay characters through comedy and even better, were the characters who were killed off. Films of this age should be pushing the boundaries of representation and leaving old habits behind. By hanging onto old ideologies, the film industry and society itself will never be able progress.

It can’t be said enough, the hidden meanings behind this outwardly “feminist friendly” film makes it much easier for society to be brainwashed into the patriarchy’s state of ‘mind.’ These films which hide their objectification behind the patriarchal walls in our society pacify the women who challenge it, while still allowing the men to continue on in a bubble that is unreachable. Film is a large aspect of the values that societies hold, and by masking objectification this industry is projecting potentially damaging ideals into young and old minds alike.

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#Blog #LauraMulvey #AtomicBlonde #FeministFilmTheory