Carol J. Clover - Her body, Himself

The article of 'her body, himself' (extract) expresses how women are portrayed on TV and how it has changed over time. Women have gone from being the 'pretty' images on TV in which they are victims of murders, being killed off to becoming 'The Final Girl'/ Films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and Halloween (1978) explore the aspect of the final girl. In the 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Sally becomes the final girl, escaping from 'Leatherface' and in 'Halloween' Laurie, being the last one of her friends still standing, but Michael Myers still not defeated. I personally believe that women have come a long way on TV and in film and have definitely had a role reversal over time. The article explores in depth women on TV and how they are usually implicated by men. One suggestion from the article was that a man would rather see a pretty women on TV being murdered than an ugly women or a man. This could indicate that women are still being presented as 'sex symbols' on TV even though they are taking on a more masculine role, becoming the 'alpha female'. Some men would rather sexualise the heroine than see an ugly woman take on that role which I believe is unfair, women should be rewarded for their acting, not looks.

I still believe that it happens today as 'final girl' roles are usually depicted by good looking women. Films such as Psycho (1960) explore women being portrayed as inferior to men and men have authority and dominate women on TV.

Why do 'men act and women appear'?

Laura Mulvey wrote a very influential essay, 'visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975) suggests that the way women are viewed in cinema is 'unequal'. The camera necessarily presents women as 'sexualised', for the pleasure of men.

The Male Gaze

1. The look of the camera as it records the filmic event.
2. The look of the audience as it watches the final film product.
3. The look of the characters at each other in the visual images of screen illusion.

Voyeurism - Stemmed from Sigmund Freud. The compulsion to seek gratification by secretively looking at sexual objects or acts; the actions of a Peeping Tom. For example, in the opening of Psycho (1960), the camera pans into Marion Cranes bedroom which gives a sense of an audience watching something they're not suppose to be seeing as it is private.