Mulvey’s essay has been criticised by several theorists, who, as summarised by Norman K Denzin, believed that the essay was far too limited in its conception of the gaze, ignoring alternative models of spectatorship and gazing. There was no positive version of the female character that was put forward, and only a single meta narrative provided that clung to the narrow perceptions of male and female sexuality. There was a refusal on Mulvey’s part to explore an interaction between the spectator and the gaze, or to even explore the idea of a female driven gaze. (Denzin, 1995; page 43). Mulvey’s ignorance in investigating a female gaze is a subject also raised by David Gauntlett in Media, Gender and
Identity, who states that Mulvey’s denial of the heterosexual female gaze is troublesome and
problematic, and means that, whilst the argument is an illuminative account of of certain films and spectator positions, it cannot provide a comprehensive understanding of the breadth of Hollywood
cinema that it intends to. (Gauntlett, 2008; page 42/3) Mulvey herself responded to criticisms of her theory, and her denial of the female gaze, with an essay titled ‘Afterthoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ inspired by King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun’, with an introduction that attempts to validate her previous argument by stating that she was interested in the masculinisation of the spectator position in relation to the image of woman on screen, ‘regardless of the actual sex of (or possible
deviance) of any real life movie-goer’ , and the idea that this was being imposed as a primary point of view in Hollywood cinema. (Mulvey, 2009; page 31).
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