Lacan’s Concept of Gaze in Feminist Film Theory Cover Image

Lakanov pojam pogleda u feminističkim teorijama filma
Lacan’s Concept of Gaze in Feminist Film Theory

Author(s): Milica Miražić
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Psychoanalysis, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Centar za ženske studije & Centar za studije roda i politike, Fakultet političkih nauka, Beograd
Keywords: Feminism; film theory; psychoanalysis; gaze; Jacques Lacan; Bracha Ettinger; matrix

Summary/Abstract: One of the central concepts of feminist psychoanalytic film theory that emerged in the 1970s is the notion of gaze, taken from the theory of Jacques Lacan, French philosopher and psychoanalyst. Heavily influenced by Sartre’s existential philosophy and phenomenology of late works of Merleau-Ponty, Lacan further developed the concept claiming that the internalization of the eye-gaze dialectics is essential for the process of subjectivization. This paper seeks to sketch out the trajectory of Lacan’s notion of gaze once taken over by feminist film theory - from Mulvey’s influential manifesto, through the criticism it received, to possible revitalization of the term within feminist theory owing to Bracha Ettinger’s contemporary articulation of the notion of the matrixial gaze.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 19
  • Page Range: 109-133
  • Page Count: 25
  • Language: Serbian