ABSTRACT
Representation is a social process which occurs in the interactions between a reader or viewer, and a text. It produces signs which reflect underlying sets of ideas and attitudes. In her essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Laura Mulvey suggested ways in which a viewer of classic Hollywood films is addressed as male by being encouraged to adopt the viewpoint, the ‘look’ of the male protagonist. Although she later adjusted these ideas to cater for such female-orientated Hollywood genres as the melodrama, Mulvey’s argument is based on the traditional psychoanalytic notion of male/female definitions and oppositions. Nowhere does she take into account the extent to which her argument is geared towards a heterosexual look. Nevertheless, her ideas about the positioning of the film spectator and filmmaker within the gender system have been very influential. They have led to much constructive critical investigation into how different kinds of filmmakers and viewers affect meaning-making processes according to their race and sexuality, as well as gender.
