Alfred hitcock and how his movies are still socially releavant today Essay

Alfred hitcock and how his movies are still socially releavant today - Essay Example Alicia Huberman in Notorious and Lisa Fremont in Rear Window were characteristically intelligent and assertive women who rarely submitted to the domineering status of men. Feminism In Beyond the Gaze: Visual Fascination and the Feminine Image in Silent Hitchcock, Jessica Brent uses two Hitchcock films, Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954), to exemplify her feminist theory that these films are designed to satisfy male desire. They are tailored to the fantasies and fears of the male viewer, who bears an intrinsic desire to see the female fetishized and controlled. These two films support the feminist thesis that classic film negates the view of the female spectator. This is because they confine the viewer’s interpretation of events in the film to the hero’s perspective and vision of events. They focus on the man’s point of view throughout the story. Consequently, the spectator is left with no option but to identify with the perspective of the male protagonist. Oft en, this male protagonist has a domineering control over a female object. Rear Window’s Lisa Fremont is obsessed with dress and style and is consequently reduced to an image of visual perfection. Jeff is the male figure who exerts a bossy control over the passive Lisa. His profession of photojournalism places him in pole position to descend into the act of voyeurism. Compounded with his enforced inactivity, this behavior puts him in a fantasy position for a patriarchal audience. The character of Norman Bates in Psycho (1960) serves as an indicator of the images that individuals of both genders are likely to view in Hitchcock’s films, which serve as images of ambiguous sexuality that have the potential of destabilizing the protagonist’s gender identity and that of viewers alike. The mother – daughter relationship is a balanced theme in Psycho. However, in Hitchcock’s films from Rebecca onwards, this vital feminine relationship is not portrayed from a gender neutral perspective. As a result, it evokes a critical threat to the protagonist’s and viewers’ gender identity, and serves as one of the main â€Å"problems† in Hitchcock’s films. For example, Madeleine, the heroine in Vertigo, is so thoroughly possessed by her grandmother Carlotta Valdez, that she loses her individuality (Brent, 78 – 81). In other films of Hitchcock, a mother-in-law plays the role of a mother figure. In addition, she has such a striking resemblance to the heroine that the implication which comes out is that of a mother – daughter relationship. For example, in the movie Notorious, both Alicia and her mother-in-law have foreign accents and blonde hair. There is also a striking resemblance between Mitch’s mother and Melanie Daniels in The Birds. Moreover, Hitchcock adapts a point of view that induces the spectator to naturally identify with the mother figure (Tay, 276). Hitchcock’s movies helped to acce lerate the spread of feminism in modern society. Feminist movements have undertaken widespread campaigns for women’s rights throughout the world. These campaigns have raised the status of women in society by achieving equal pay for women, women’s suffrage, the right to own property, and reproductive rights for women among many others. Voyeurism Hitchcock incorporates aspects of voyeurism in nearly all his movies. However, one film in particular explores this concept more than any of the others. This is Rear Window, which epitomes the convergence of voyeurism, visual pleasure,