Laura Mulvey, John Storey and Richard Dyer all offer an interpretation of cine-psychoanalysis and gender in film. Laura Mulvey, as a pioneering feminist film theorist, argues that films are designed to play to the male gaze by both offering a male for the viewer to reflect on, and offering a female for the viewer to gaze upon and objectify. John Storey discusses and simplifies Mulvey's view in a way appropriate for the media, which is a textbook for undergraduates. Richard Dyer takes an alternative approach in his own essay, and proposes an argument: why does Mulvey assume the viewer is always a heterosexual male? Dyer, who is a well-respected academic specialising on queer rights brings about the point of the audience potentially being homosexual or female, and identifies that the male form and body are also displayed and objectified on film. He also makes the point of heterosexual male-on-male desire being suppressed in film by the male actors being overly "aggressive or threatening" in order to divert attention away.
Mulvey's main points:
1. Males are active/viewers, females are passive/performers (men look and women exhibit)
2. Both genders are playing to the male desire
3. Women don't have a penis and so have less power and desire than men (Castration fear)
4. The male figure cannot bare the burden of objectification
Dyer's counter points:
1. The male form is also displayed and objectified by female and queer audiences
2. Males in film have historically uses overly aggressive behaviour to divert attention from other males
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