Published Paper Details:

With the advancement of technology and mass media it seems that the patriarchal system is growing stronger and the objectification of women is more rapidly being promoted and propagated than ever. Cinema, since its inception, has drastically evolved with the help of many technical innovations but its portrayal of the female characters still does not seem to have undergone any revolutionary change. Instead of reflecting the actual reality, it still continues to be a medium of representing and reinforcing patriarchal desires and ideologies. In most of the films, while the male characters are placed at the centre of the narrative, the female characters are positioned at the centre of visual attraction for the gratification of the "male gaze". This is how the female characters are presented as erotic objects whose only significance lies in their ability to provoke and pacify the male sexual desire. In this paper, I aim to analyze how the male audience derives pleasure by watching the female characters in films with the help of Laura Mulvey's theories which she has formed on the basis of Freudian 'scopophilia' and Lacanian 'Mirror Stage' in her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Here, I also intend to interpret instances of how the objectification and stereotyping of the female characters take place in The Blue Angel, The Seven Year Itch, Basic Instinct, and L.A. Confidential, some of the popular Hollywood films in different decades of the 20th century.