Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window centers around a voyeuristic male character (Jimmy Stewart’s L.B. Jeffries) who is more interested in turning his gaze on men than on women. The voyeurism is not sexual however; Hitchcock takes pains to actually asexualize Jeffries. His background as a photography indicates that he might very well have a purely professional interest in spectacle. He sees his neighbors as subjects, not as objects of desire. He does enjoy watching the dancer who practices in her underwear, but no more than the composer or any of his other subjects. In fact, when Jeffries’ girlfriend Lisa visits him, he seems mostly disinterested in her presence, even when she is trying to arouse some sexual desire in him. At one point, the two are kissing near Jeffries’ window and Lisa can clearly tell that his attention is focused not on her, but on the people outside of his window. Until the end of the film, Jeffries has little to no sexual interest in Lisa or really anyone.
That being said, he does seem to prefer men to women when it comes to his subjects. He watches a newlywed couple, but after an initial shot of the wife, it is really only the man who comes into his frame of view. The woman is only heard off screen. Jeffries also spies on Miss Lonelyhearts (as he calls her), but is more concerned with the lack of a man in her life than with her. His attention is only really drawn to her when she finally succeeds in getting a male companion to take her on a date. Only when the man comes back to her apartment does Jeffries give her more than a cursory glance or mention. He also mostly skims over the dancer, though when he does look at her, she is mostly in the company of at least one man. And the subject with whom he eventually becomes obsessed is a man, Lars Thorwald. Thorwald is conspicuous precisely because there is NOT a woman in his life. He has killed his wife and this lack of a woman is what brings him to Jeffries’ attention.
This goes against Laura Mulvey’s claim in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” where she states that “the presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film” (203). Rear Window is entirely concerned with spectacle – the film revolves around the act of looking out a window – and yet women seem to quite dispensable to the primary spectator. Mulvey also claims that a woman’s “visual presence tends to work against the development of a story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (203). Again this does not hold true for Rear Window. Women on screen do not freeze Jeffries’ gaze more than men do. As for the women he sees out the window, their effect on the development of the plot is no different than the effect of the men. In fact, in the case of Lisa, she actually drives the action when she leaves Jeffries’ room, digs for evidence in the garden, and enters Thorwald’s apartment to gather evidence.
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Cullen, you bring up several valid points during your blog, however I think there is some sexual element of voyeurism in the film. One can argue that his background of photography implies a somewhat sexual background. Because the audience is never told exactly what he photographed, the audience can imagine what he photographed. He could have photographed females, they could have been "objects of erotic imagery" as Mulvey discusses. Also, the inclusion of Miss Torso in the film is clearly solely as an "erotic object." She is always prancing around doing gymnastics and she is never fully clothed.
I enjoyed reading your argument. It made me really begin to question Mulvey’s article and your post has made me realize that Rear Window may not be the best example to support Mulvey’s claims even though up till this point I had thought it was. The women in Rear Window do take a back seat- but I would say this somewhat supports Mulvey’s psychodynamic claims. Jeffries, according to Freudian theory, may have been disinterested in females only because he was intimidated. He was stuck in a wheelchair and that fear of castration is more powerful when a man has a disability. Powerful beautiful women like Lisa and Ms. Torso may intimidate Jeffries so much that he just does not focus on them. He doesn’t focus on Lisa till she is in a position where his help is needed. So even though your post rejects Mulvey’s claims, the psychodynamic motives of Hitchcock’s in Rear Window is something you could have commented on to make an even more persuasive post.
Hmmmm, interesting. I hadn't really thought of the whole watching males aspect of Stewart's voyeurism. That's a really good point, especially about simply glancing over Miss Torso. For some reason it hit me that he thought he was kind of violating her when he watched her. Also there were several times in which he wanted to keep watching her but Lisa was in the room and he did not want things to be come awkward. At least, that's what I thought. On the same token, I have been thinking about the other posts and I believe that the sexual object is created as the film continues. It develops into Lisa, who takes the responsibility into her own hands. I also think it's funny that she does it to win over Stewart, but obviously finds him a funny individual as she trades her mystery novel for a woman's magazine at the end. It is as if she has him figured out: typical male.
ok, but let's remember that Mulvey is discussing more than just the on-screen gazes, which is what your post mostly focuses on. How are Jeffries and Laura differently subjected to the gaze from the audience?
Goodness, I had absolutely no idea that Jeffries' gaze was specifically fixated on his male neighbors. If anything, it seemed as if he were taking pleasure not just from watching any specific person or group of persons, so much as from his involvement and assimilation by proxy into the mundanities of his neighbors' lives. He enjoys watching them as much as I should imagine a child enjoys watching an ant farm develop - in both cases, the watcher becomes absorbed into the day-to-day activities of people or beings outside of himself, and as a result of this, exults from a sense almost of superiority over these beings.
For Jeffries, I believe, watching his neighbors took away some of the feelings of isolation and especially of helplessness that resulted from his handicap. For this reason, I couldn't really see a gender-specific bent to his gaze, despite the obvious attractions of Ms. Torso and Lisa Freemont.
However, your post definitely raised an important issue as to how much we take certain conventions for granted in watching a film. Your one line "... turning his gaze on men than on women" had a jarring effect on me, but in a good way, because it made me realize how deeply the "male protagonist / female love interest" character design has been embedded into cinema. Anything outside of that general framework seems almost alien to us...
Cullen,
You make several interesting and intriguing arguments. I do disagree with you about Jeffries only being interested in male subjects. I think that he is just as interested in female subjects, you did leave out the woman whose dog dies, and the woman who is creating a sculpture. Two more women who he seems very interested in.
I do agree that he is not interested in Lisa that much at first. But this changes when she begins to share in the voyeurism with him. So I would agree with Mulvey when she says that “the presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film” (203).
I do agree that there do seem to be many more male characters that he observes. Perhaps the reason Jeffries is so interested in men is because he is attempting to see and evaluate their relationships with women. He wants to see if the married man is happy, if the single composer is unhappy to see what would be good for him in his own life.
I want to respond to your thoughts on Lisa, just because I have not really taken any opportunities to think through her character carefully and write about her yet. Like you mention, I think that she drives the plot at least as much as Jeffries does (probably even more), which goes against Mulvey's claims. However, at the same time, I think that Grace Kelley's presence does certainly "freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation," if not for Jeffrie, then for the audience. This is interesting in two ways. First of all, the quotation you use from Mulvey suggests that a woman character's presence works against the development of narrative if she evokes such erotic contemplation. I think that it doesn't necessarily have to be all or nothing, as Lisa proves. Lisa moves the plot forward, yet her beauty and glamour is undoubtedly at focus throughout the film. The second thing that I find interesting, is that (I agree) Jeffries does not seem contemplate Lisa's beauty until the end of the film, while the audience nonetheless does. We always talk about how we are sutured directly into character POVs, but this is an instance where our train of thought and mentality differs from a character whose visual POV we assume.
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