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Feminist film theory is theoretical work within film criticism that is derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have taken many different approaches to the analysis of cinema both in the elements of film they look at and their theoretical underpinnings.

The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and the development of women's studies within the academy. Feminist scholars began applying the new theories arising from these movements to analyzing film. Initial attempts in the United States in the early 1970’s were generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of women characters in particular film narratives or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women. Works such as Marjorie Rosen’s Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream (1973) and Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies (1974) analyzed how the women portrayed in film related to the broader historical context, the stereotypes depicted, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the amount of screen time given to women.^[1]

In contrast, film theoreticians in England began integrating perspectives drawn from psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism, and eventually these ideas gained hold within the American scholarly community in the later 1970’s and 1980’s. Analysis generally focused on "the production of meaning in a film text, the way a text constructs a viewing subject, and the ways in which the very mechanisms of cinematic production affect the representation of women and reinforce sexism".^[2]

In his article, "From the Imaginary Signifier: Identification, Mirror," Christian Metz argues that viewing film is only possible through scopophilia (pleasure from looking, related to voyeurism), which is best exemplified in silent film.^[3]

According to Cynthia A. Freeland in "Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films," feminist studies of horror films have focused on psychodynamics where the chief interest is "on viewers' motives and interests in watching horror films".^[4]

More recently, scholars have expanded their work to include analysis of television and digital media. Additionally, they have begun to explore notions of difference, engaging in dialogue about the differences among women (part of movement away from essentialism in feminist work more generally), the various methodologies and perspectives contained under the umbrella of feminist film theory, and the multiplicity of methods and intended effects that influence the development of films. Scholars are also taking increasingly global perspectives, responding to postcolonialist criticisms of Anglo- and Eurocentrism in the academy more generally. Increased focus has been given to, "disparate feminisms, nationalisms, and media in various locations and across class, racial, and ethnic groups throughout the world".^[5]

In considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to the "male gaze" that predominates in classical Hollywood filmmaking. Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" gave one of the most widely influential versions of this argument. From an explicitly psychoanalytic viewpoint, Mulvey argues that that cinema provides visual pleasure through scopophilia and in identification with the on-screen image (arising from Jacques Lacan’s idea of the mirror stage). Using various film techniques, such as the point of view shot, men are able (consciously or unconsciously) to influence film production to create images that satisfy their desires. The camera makes the woman an object of the male lead’s gaze. The woman exists for the possession of the male lead, and, by extension through identification through visual pleasure, for the viewer as well. ^[6]

Critics of Mulvey’s analysis of the gaze challenge that she does not allow for the female spectator. B. Ruby Rich argues that women’s relationships with film is instead dialectical, consciously filtering the images and messages they receive through cinema, and reprocessing them to elicit their own meanings. ^[7] bell hooks, coming from a black feminist perspective, put forth the notion of the “oppositional gaze,” encouraging black women not to accept stereotypical representations in film, but rather actively critique them. ^[8] Janet Bergstrom’s article “Enunciation and Sexual Difference” (1979) uses Sigmund Freud’s ideas of bisexual responses, arguing that women are capable of identifying with male characters and men with women characters, either successively or simultaneously. ^[9] Miriam Hanson, in “Pleasure, Ambivalence, Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship” (1984) put forth the idea that women are also able to view male characters as erotic objects of desire. ^[10] In "The Master's Dollhouse: Rear Window," Tania Modleski argues that Hitchock's film, Rear Window, is an example of the power of male gazer and the position of the female as a prisoner of the "master's dollhouse".^[11]

Laura Mulvey, in response to these and other criticisms revisited the topic in “Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ inspired by Duel in the Sun” (1981). In addressing the female spectator, she revised her stance to argue that women can take two possible roles in relation to film: a masochistic identification with the female object of desire that is ultimately self-defeating or a transsexual identification with men as the active viewers of the text.^[12]

The early work of Marjorie Rosen and Molly Haskell on representation of women in film was part of a movement to make depictions of women more realistic both in documentaries and narrative cinema. The growing female presence in the film industry was seen as a positive step toward realizing this goal, by drawing attention to feminist issues and putting forth alternative, more true-to-life views of women. However, these images are still mediated by the same factors as traditional film, such as the “moving camera, composition, editing, lighting, and all varieties of sound.” While acknowledging the value in inserting positive representations of women in film, some critics asserted that real change would only come about from reconsidering the role of film in society, often from a semiotic point of view.^[13]

Claire Johnston put forth the idea that women’s cinema can function as "counter cinema". Through consciousness of the means of production and opposition of sexist ideologies, films made by women have the potential to posit an alternative to traditional Hollywood films.^[14] In reaction to this article, many women filmmakers have integrated "alternative forms and experimental techniques" to "encourage audiences to critique the seemingly transparent images on the screen and to question the manipulative techniques of filming and editing".^[15]

• Laura Mulvey
• Dai Jinhua
• Claire Johnston
• Teresa de Lauretis
• Kaja Silverman
• Women's cinema

• Sue Thornham (ed.), Feminist Film Theory. A Reader, Edinburgh University Press 1999
• Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Diane Carson, Janice R. Welsch, Linda Dittmar, University of Minnesota Press 1994
• Beyond the Gaze: Recent Approaches to Film Feminisms. Signs Vol. 30, no. 1 (Autumn 2004).