Laura Mulvey's theory

Laura Mulvey's theory

Laura Mulvey's theory is 'The Male Gaze'. She explains how a males dominate the Hollywood industry, which has led to women become objects of 'desire'.
Mulvey explains how women usually have a very passive role in hollywood, and men have a more action role, which emphasises how women are seen as objects.

Mulvey goes on to explain that this has led to the female viewer experiencing the narrative secondarily, by the identification with the male, not the female.

Laura Mulvey's theory can be replicated into the music industry by looking at lyrics sung by male artists. For example, Scouting For Girls sing 'I love the way she fills her clothes'. This talks about a female's curves and assets, and rather than identifying with her the audience and artist view the female as an object.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew goodwin’s theory from meganncooper

Claude Levi-Strauss's Theory

'Audiences understand one because they understand the other'

Claude Levi-Strauss found that as humans we makes sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites. He also found that narratives are arranged around the conflict of binary opposites.

Claude Levi-Strauss and Roland Barthes together found that the way we understand certain words is not only down to its meaning, but rather our understanding between the word itself and its 'opposite', they then called this the 'Binary Opposite'. They realised that words act as symbols for society's ideas and that the meaning of words is in fact a relationship between opposing ideas rather than having a fixed meaning.

For example:
    Good Vs Evil
    Boy Vs Girl
    Black Vs White

Theory Summary

   Claude Levi-Strauss's theory says that conflict is based around binary opposites, and that binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.