INTRODUCTION:

Laura Mulvey’s essay on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema:

The theory of male gaze began to be popular in 1975 when Feminist academic Laura Mulvey, who wrote through a period of women’s liberation movement of the early 70s, used Freudian principles to analyse film.

It primarily focused on how camera and films linger on women and objectify them in sexual and non sexual contexts. According to Mulvey, men look and women are to be looked at. Men desire, women are desired. Men objectify, and women are objectified. The theory states that female characters were written and shown on screen with men in mind as the main target audience to watch them. Importance was given to male perspective than a female perspective. Laura Mulvey stresses her points on male gaze theory through her essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.’ She uses psychoanalysis to discover where and how the fascination of film is reinforced by pre-existing patterns of already existing fascination within the individual subject and the societal formations that have molded them. The essay helps the reader understand the nuances of cinema, its importance in the past and the present, while carefully attempting a theory and a practice which will challenge the cinema of yesteryears. The theory of psychoanalysis was used as a political weapon, showing the way unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form.³ According to Laura Mulvey, most of the popular Hollywood films respond to the drive known as scopophilia. Scopophilia, one among the number of possible pleasures offered by cinema, is defined as voyeurism or sense of pleasure gained by taking people as objects and subjecting them to a forceful gaze.⁴ This is a process of gendering and it eventually establishes women as the object of scopophilia, making them as a spectacle for the male viewer. Men, thus, become the bearers of the gaze. Mulvey also argued that the most popular movies are filmed in ways that satisfy masculine scopophilia such as the James Bond franchise. The primary reason for this objectification could be different factors including the fact that the control of the cinema comes from different dynamics such as the assumption of the heterosexual man being the target audience for most film genres. The function of cinema is to serve as voyeuristic medium that encourages the audience to take pleasure from looking upon. Nikijuluw S, Sas L, and Tranova H, in their film on Psychoanalytical Film Theory and the Theory of Gaze and Spectatorship mention the examples of Hollywood movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, which is dominated by the male gaze of Jordan and the assumed audience.⁵ The audiences get to see a full body pan of Naomi and she remains an aesthetic object who wears tight dresses and lingerie. The importance of camera angles and close ups of female actors add to the sexual voyeuristic gaze that is associated with dominant male protagonists. This naturally creates a power imbalance that maintains women being the target of sexual objectification even in non sexual contexts or scenes. In patriarchal cinema, men are active and powerful. The role of women is to satisfy the male gaze by looking good in order to be possessed.⁶

Indian films have always shown examples of strong articulation of male gaze using technological re-direction and control of the visual. Irrespective of the fact that Indian films have come a long way in the right representation of gender, movies still have the tinge of stereotyping and construction and deconstruction of masculinity and femininity. Famous feminist critic, Devereux noted that male gaze inscribed in art triggers women’s deep seated inclination to adapt themselves to the male viewpoint. When Mulvey’s transvestite spectator fantasizes masculinity to obtain cinematic pleasure, Doane’s ‘feminine’ spectator can play at being a woman.⁷ According to Pendakur, male Indian stars not only dominate the narrative of the films, but also the stories revolving around the heroine are in exception to the rule. Roles given to female actors in Bollywood films have almost always lived up to their stereotypical traditions.

Malayalam Cinema and K.G.George:

Late 70s saw a new wave in Malayalam cinema with directors like AdoorGopalakrishnan, G.Aravindan, P.A.Backer, K.A.Mohanan, M.T.Vasudevan Nair, and Padmarajan bringing in their share of extraordinary films. Some of the masterpieces include, but not limited to ‘Swayamvaram,’ ‘Uttarayanam,’ ‘Ashwathama,’ ‘Nirmalyam’ and ‘Peruvazhiyambalam.’ K.G.George followed suit with his movie, ‘Swapnadanam’ which marked the growth of ‘middle cinema’ which fused the artistic qualities of ‘parallel cinema.’ Mostly inspired by the post-war New Wave European Cinema, especially those of Japanese film maker Akira Kurosawa and Italian director Federico Fellini, he gave a new dimension to the Malayalam cinematic narrative of the 70s and 80s.⁸ In his films, Kulakkatil Geevarghese George aka K.G George successfully presented a panoramic view of the subtle issues like identity crisis, uncertainties of life, self-doubt, meaning, and purpose of life both in men and women.Of K.G.George’s films, Adaminte Variyellu is considered to be one of the best social commentaries.⁹The film gives space to three women protagonists- Alice (Sreevidya), Vasanthi (Suhasini), and Ammini (Soorya). Alice belongs to the creamy layer of the society, living in luxury, and married to the shrewd and manipulative businessman Mamachan (Gopi). A mother of two children, a girl and a boy, Alice disregards everything in her family life and seeks pleasure in an extramarital affair. Alce is shown as beautiful, glamorous, outgoing, but at the same time threatened and disconnected in life.

The audience is presented with a wretched family portrait of Alice. Mamachan (Alice’s husband) is only bothered about money. Alice is seen popping sleeping pills every day for a good night’s sleep. Her husband is chauvinistic, money-minded and makes use of his wife for financial gains. Children feel deserted by their parents. Alice develops a drinking habit, ignores her family, and shuts herself from her husband’s nocturnal prowls to their maid’s room.

Vasanthi, a working woman, who struggles to manage household work and official duty, is caught between an inconsiderate mother-in-law and a wayward husband. Vasanthi is shown as submissive, a lady who lets her heartless husband wake her up in the middle of her sleep to have sex with her. Despite being the sole breadwinner of the house, her worth remains highly unacknowledged.⁹ Vasanthi and Alice have an encounter on the road once, but they never meet. Their problems have the same root. Both are exploited in their relationships with no possible way out in sight. While Alice finds refuge in the arms of a young Engineer, Vasanthi starts hallucinating about her dead father-in-law, who was her biggest support, and finds comfort in that memory.The third protagonist Ammini is Alice’s maid. She is portrayed as a representative of the lower class society, dark skinned, beautiful lady who does her duties properly, but has her dislike for Alice. She is sexually exploited by Mamachan and upon knowing about this, sends her out to another lady, Kunjhamma. Ammini abandons her child in front of a convent and is sent to a rescue home by the police.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

This paper analyses whether Laura Mulvey’s assertion about male gaze and female spectatorship is applicable to Malayalam cinema. To analyse this, a content analysis of K.G.George’s movie, ‘Adaminte Variyellu’ was conducted. Two research questions that follow are:

1. Does Malayalam cinema run on the ‘male gaze’ convention in the same manner analyzed by Laura Mulvey in her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema?

2. Does ‘female gaze’ exist in Malayalam cinema contrary to what Laura Mulvey asserted in her essay?

METHOD:

The movie ‘AdaminteVariyellu’ was chosen based on its popularity and relevance in showcasing the story of 3 women protagonists during a time when women characters were not given due importance in cinema.

Qualitative content analysis was done for the proposed research to study the cinematic traditions that could not be understood quantitatively. According to Mulvey, different categories of male gaze objectify the female character and make her into a spectacle. Of this, the gaze of the camera, and that of the actor are of great importance. Thus, the aspect of male gaze was studied by focusing primarily on camera gaze focus. This helps analyse whether the female actor is fetishized as mentioned by Mulvey. The focus of the camera on actors’ physical characteristics was also studied. Special attention was also given to the attire of the characters and their expressions and gestures.

Analysis-Woman as image; man as bearer of the look:

Laura Mulvey discusses two aspects in her essay: The first aspect talks about “the determining male gaze that projects its phantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly.”She talks about the presence of a female connoting ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’ and it being an important element of spectacle in normative narrative film. She also mentions that a woman’s presence has to work against the usual flow of of the story line, to freeze the flow of actions in specific moments of erotic contemplation. In Adaminte Variyellu, Alice, being projected as a disturbed, distracted wife and mother, faces ‘male gaze’ when her husband’s business friends join them for dinner at home. She is being introduced as Mamachan’s sole help in all his business dealings, her presence gradually connotes the to-be-looked-at-ness and Alice naturally becomes a prey of their predatory stare and conversations that scrupulously aim at her. As Budd Boetticher puts it, “what counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance.”¹⁰ Alice is also considered a woman of importance only for business dealings. Her existence was once disrespected by her husband, and she chose to live with it, neglecting everything around her she couldn’t accept. Her extra marital affair was sort of escapism, and probably her only solace from the boredom and distress she experienced in life. The affair gave her happiness in the beginning, which she eventually chose to give up as her love interest started feeling guilty of their relationship. In one of the instances in the films, when she got to know that her husband was responsible for her help’s pregnancy, she doesn’t respond. She would have been in such despair that she could no longer sympathise with another woman.

Ammini was sexually used by Mamachan and she doesn’t know how to deal with her pregnancy. She is shown inferior and gets out of her employer’s way when asked to. Ammini is sent to a faraway place with the help of Mamachan’s aid and she is under the care of another lady. The scene in which Mamachan’s aid looks at her and claims that he would have tried his luck on her if she was not sent there by his own boss, is another example of ‘male gaze’ more over her helplessness. The high-angle shot where the camera looks down on Ammini, shows her more vulnerable and powerless. Post her delivery, Ammini chooses to abandon her child and spends her time in a resume home. One day, she decides to escape from her conditioned life, and with other women, appears to run out of the cinematic ‘frame,’ thus breaking free from the commanding gaze of the society. According to Laura Mulvey, the male figure cannot bear the burden of objectification, sexual or otherwise. So, the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man’s role as the active one that is responsible for forwarding the story. He is shown as the representative of power. The treatment of men is the result of male ego and not sexual desire. A male protagonist’s glamorous characteristics are thus not those of the erotic object of the gaze, but those of the more perfect, more powerful ideal ego conceived in the original moment of recognition in front of the mirror. The character in the story can make things happen and control events better than the subject/spectator; much like the image in the mirror was more in control of motor coordination. Even though Mamachan is shown as powerful, influential, cruel and chauvinistic, his male ego is shown as affected by the common male insecurity when he enters the room of Alice’s lover. When Alice walks away from the room as Mamachan looks on, he warns him by saying Alice is his wife and he should be careful of his deeds.Ammini’s pregnancy puts Mamachan in trouble and he tries to get away with her with the help of his aid. He send her to a different woman in a far -away place. When Alice questions him on this, Mamachan retorts by asking her to shut up and he would deal with it his way. Mamachan’s superior male ego doesn’t consider how Alice is affected by his deeds, and doesn’t allow her to question it or take control over it.

Vasanthi’s husband, who is a drunkard, and a person who doesn’t stick with jobs, is seen being harsh on her whenever she is resistant. With no sympathy for her daily struggles, he tries to push her for his sexual desires even in the middle of her sleep and when she resists, he gets wild. He cannot accept the fact that Vasanthi is the sole breadwinner of the family, even though he doesn’t want to do anything to help her out. His male ego is dominant throughout and gets wild when he seems to be losing control over his wife-especially in their physical relationship. He cannot accept it when her colleague comes home and he insults both of them using harsh language. Even here, his male insecurity plays a dominant role.

FINDINGS:

The textual analysis found elements of female objectification in many instances where the female actors were shown in a fragmented manner. The camera gaze focused on their chest, hips, and back. For instance, Vasanthi was shown changing her saree in her room and the audience gets a glance of her half clad body for couple of seconds. Alice was shown drying her hair and enjoying herself in the mirror after a shower. She appears sensual and erotic. In the dinner table, when Alice serves food, she is subjected to erotic male gaze of her husband’s business friends. Ammini, who comes by to clear the plates, also succumbs to the same treatment. Camera focuses on Ammini’s upper body parts when Mamachan enters her room at night. The spectators get an understanding of his intention. Even while doing household work, she is shown as carelessly dressed and her half sari not fully covering her upper body.

As she falls in love, Alice’s daughter checks herself out in the mirror to see how her body is changing and how appealing she looks. The audiences get to see a full body pan of her body as the camera focuses on her from behind and presents her as an image- an image to be looked at. Vasanthi’s workplace is also not devoid of strong male gaze. Words and looks are targeted at women employees and are mostly laughed at. Male colleagues of hers pass unpleasant comments on all the lady staff members, and when most of them prefer not to react, some women answer them back. As against the assertions made by Laura Mulvey, Adaminte Variyellu also shows instances of strong ‘female gaze.’ In one of the instances, Alice asks her lover to unbutton his shirt amidst their private conversation. The spectators get a glimpse of his bare upper body. However, even in this instance, female gaze is not dominated by male gaze.

Mulvey talks about a society that is centered on the penis, and the way men view women as castrated. Men display women as objects of desire and pleasure as a way of dealing with the trauma of the possibility of castration.¹¹ She calls a fetish ignoring the normal biological imperatives that drive attraction of men towards women. She also claims that they train women negatively or the process of saving a woman is a form of an attempt to deal with this trauma, otherwise called sadism. Laura Mulvey concludes her essay by mentioning that the way to counter all of this is to free the look of the camera into its materiality in time and space, and the look of the audience into dialectics, passionate detachment. Mulvey confirms that this apparently destroys the pleasure and satisfaction of the film, and she considers this as a good thing. This is because it highlights how much men are depended on the concept called male gaze.

CONCLUSION:

A major contribution of this study to mass communication research is the empirical verification of Mulvey’s (1975) concepts of male gaze and female spectatorship as applied to Malayalam cinema. Not many studies have been done in this area in which Mulvey’s contentions have been subjected to empirical analysis. This paper dealt with Mulvian concepts of portrayal of women in Malayalam cinema. It is interesting to note that the concept of male gaze described in an essay with regard to Hollywood classical cinema is applicable to Indian cinema too. Thus, (mis)representation of women on screen is unrealistic, and is only done to cater to the fantasies of men in the audience. As media images have a great impact on people, it would be good to study how the representation of women in Cinema influences women, especially teenagers. This could be an interesting aspect to study in the future. A similar study could also be done on films directed by female directors to know whether the elements of male gaze are present in them.

REFERENCE:

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Received on 28.10.2017 Modified on 09.12.2017

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(1): 114-118.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00020.7