Cagney and Lacey Revisited

Abstract

Much contemporary writing within the field of cultural studies addresses the agenda set by feminist film theory. Work on female representation in the has, since the mid-seventies, been informed by Freudian psychoanalysis in attempting to explore the mechanisms by which patriarchy organizes psycho-sexual structures within ideology. Two articles by Laura Mulvey have been crucial in this respect: 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema' (1975) and 'Afterthoughts on Visual pleasure and narrative cinema inspired by Duel in the Sun' (1981). In the first article, Mulvey unashamedly pillages Freud as a means to unpacking patriarchal texts (Hollywood films) and investigating the male gendering of film audiences. In the second, she moves to a consideration of the position of the female spectator. These articles, although intended as radical forays into enemy territory in search of weaponry that might be useful in the ideological struggle, formed, paradoxically, the basis for what became the orthodox feminist approach. While it is true that subsequent feminist work, which leant heavily on psychoanalysis, has provided insights into the workings of patriarchy, it is also true that it has obscured alternative approaches; for at least a decade we appeared to be stuck with the Oedipal baby and the Freudian bathwater, so to speak! With the proliferation of work on popular cultural forms, particularly television, the early eighties saw a shift in emphasis away from the text and towards the reader. In fact the need to conceptualize some kind of space for the female spectator, to account for the pleasures women clearly derive from and TV, was addressed by Mulvey herself in the second article 'Afterthoughts' and has since been located as an