Contextual & Theoretical Studies

Lecture 3: Psychoanalysis & the Gaze

For this particular lecture I have decided to post up my notes, the lecture as a whole relied on the presumption of understanding Freudian theories and unlike some of the other lectures I found some of the content difficult to grasp.

Psychoanalysis refers to the theories of the mind in particular about how through the conscious we can study the sub-conscious. Looking at the ego and how it is derived into several different categories, our ego being what we show to everyone else, our super-ego which is the conscience and the I.D. which is our natural human behavior and drives such as sex and death. What we aimed to look at in the lecture was how through the regulation of behaviour in a similar sense to the theories on Panopticism, how the subconscious, your social morals and repression of instinctual behaviour we fit in with society.

The opening scene of Notorious (1946) by Alfred Hitchcock.

The Gaze looks at the power of looking and in similar to last weeks lecture on looking at how the media protrays the sexes, the lecture looked at how we achieve narcissistic identification (imagining a more perfect version of yourself) through viewpoint and perception but also how it can be used in media to confuse and protray different meanings depending upon its context. In modern context the gaze can be seen in the Peep Show where you become literally in the body of another and your feel a certain power, sympathy, sadness, anger etc for that person whom's emotions are being reflected in that first person view. Viewpoint can also give an understanding based on these theories about the viewer how he/she may prefer to be in the first/third person on screen, whether they are scopophilic and may enjoy looking at people as if they were objects, in essence the thrill of watching could tell of some sub-conscious element in the viewer's mind. In short, the Gaze evokes different structures of power in the subconscious mind, psychoanalysis identifies and aims to interpret these feelings.