# Laura Mulvey [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Mulvey) ( 1941 – ) ## Description British feminist film theorist and filmmaker whose essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975) introduced psychoanalytic theory of the "male gaze" into film studies, arguing that classical Hollywood cinema structures spectatorship around a masculine, objectifying look; also made experimental counter-cinema films with Peter Wollen in the 1970s. ## Key Tags #theorist #critic #feminist #counter-cinema ## Essential Works - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975 essay) - foundational essay theorizing the "male gaze" and psychoanalytic spectatorship in classical Hollywood cinema - [[Riddle of the Sphinx]] (1977, with Peter Wollen) - experimental counter-cinema film putting her theoretical arguments about the gaze and motherhood into film practice ## Details Taught film studies for decades (Birkbeck, University of London) after her 1975 essay became one of the most cited texts in the field; her collaborative films with Peter Wollen (*Penthesilea*, *Riddle of the Sphinx*, *Amy!*) put "counter-cinema" theory into direct practice, using structural and Brechtian devices to resist the gaze structures she critiqued in her writing. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Feminist Media]] - "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is a founding text of feminist film theory ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators - Peter Wollen - filmmaking and theoretical partner on counter-cinema works including *Riddle of the Sphinx* and *Penthesilea* (active 1970s–80s) ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements %% none yet %% ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." *Screen*, vol. 16, no. 3, 1975, pp. 6–18. Foundational essay of psychoanalytic feminist film theory. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Penley, Constance, editor. *Feminism and Film Theory*. Routledge, 1988. Anthology collecting the critical debate that followed Mulvey's gaze theory.