A Psycho-feminist Study Of Malèna

This thesis aims to interpret the patriarchal ideology in Malèna in light of LauraMulvey’s psycho-feminism theory. It tends to make a detailed exploration on thefemale spectacle and the patriarchal narrative in order to real its hidden patriarchalideology and how the audiences are compelled to identity with the male characters.Meanwhile, the author has added Graeme Turner’s sociological survey in order toillustrate how the contemporary films become spectacle-centered and ultimately effectthe audience’s visual pleasure.The creativity of this thesis lies in the detailed analysis on the spectaclephenomenon in the film industry. The pleasure from scopophilia and narcissism arethe two main clues of the thesis. Female characters are just visual spectacles in orderto satisfy male desire. Meanwhile, the image of women causes male castration threatfrom psychological point of view. The paper argues that the arrangement of Malèna’snarrative structure within patriarchal framework is to invade the castration complex.Besides, the cinema mechanism stimulates the audience’s voyeurism greatly andsatisfies their visual pleasure. Besides, the paper has analyzed the audience’spsychological identification in order to reveal the origin of their narcissistic pleasure.In addition, the thesis has extended to the entire film industry. It is not difficult tofind out that the spectacle tendency has become much more evident as the films’primary task is to satisfy the audiences’ pleasure. Although the spectacles can providethe audience visual feast, it also transform their psychological state from active look into passive acceptance and hence derive greater desire demand.Malèna is not an isolated phenomenon but a typical case which reveals thepatriarchal ideology in mainstream film. The analysis on the film is helpful tounderstand the nature of the patriarchal culture of films and the control on theaudience. What’s more, to a certain extent, the thesis possesses a practical significanceas it contributes to expose the patriarchal ideology in popular culture.