by Melissa Strong, MJ Contributor

In 1975, Laura Mulvey published an essay analyzing feature film in a groundbreaking new way. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” first acknowledges that movies make the camera invisible, almost unnoticeable, to create the illusion of verisimilitude. Next, it observes that the disappearing camera becomes a kind of eye, and the gaze this eye creates is male. This notion - that the camera has a male gaze - is what Mulvey is best known for. Perhaps it went without saying in 1975, but today it is worth noting that the camera’s male gaze also is cisgender, heterosexual, and representative of conventional expectations of masculinity. Whatever for, you may ask? Well, as Mulvey points out, movies are a product of a patriarchal culture, so naturally they tend to reflect patriarchy.