Gaze of The Male
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In the film titled "The Wedding Planner," we encounter a romantic comedy that is about an ambitious wedding planner that does anything to make the event perfect and memorable. In this film it is almost undeniable that the spectator in the movie is Mary, from when she is about five watching her first wedding (Barbie dolls) to when she is older gazing at the many weddings that she is organizing. When viewing this film there is also another undeniable fact that point of view that the camera holds is essentially male and because of this there is pleasure and anxiety when viewing this film through a male gaze, but according to Mulvey there are two solutions to this problem; the first being voyeurism and the second being fetishistic scopaphilia. Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has associations with sadism: 'pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt - asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness' (Mulvey, 39). Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves 'the substitutions of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous.
In the fist solution there is a need to demystify her mystery throughout the movie. This is done perpetually by reminding the audience that Mary's goal throughout the movie is to be the bride instead of just simply being the planner. Mary in the movie is seen as an organized, strong headed business woman, but even with this image it is forecasted with her need to be married, which makes her less dangerous. Maria's passion that makes her a great business woman is seen as actually just her passion to be a future wife and bride. When Marry runs into her ex-fianc, she repeatedly mentions that he is married and having a baby...