Representation of Women in the Film "Great Expectations" (1998) by Alfonso Cuarón (PDF)

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject Gender Studies, grade: B, Université Toulouse II - Le Mirail (English Department), course: Master in English Studies and British Cinema Studies., language: English, abstract: Laura Mulvey states in her work 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' that ' in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/ female.' She implies that women are displayed as sexual objects for the men's gaze and she calls this concept to-be-looked-at-ness. From the above several shots we may consider that to be -look -at -ness concept is at present. Estella displays herself for Finn's gaze but she is not passive. She enjoys her power over him and uses her sexuality to hold his look and disturb him. He has become like a toy for her.
On the other hand, Annette Kuhl suggests in chapter one of her work under the name 'The Power of Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality' that 'It is now a commonplace that the transformation of the unclothed woman from being naked to being nude(one of the major 'achievennts' of the european high traditions) also bring about,in all forms of representations , the transformatin of women into objects , the site of stuctures both of exchange and of looking. The spectator is the buyer, the buyer is the spectator. To posses a woman's sexuality is, however mass-produced the image, also in the same way to posses, to maintain a degree of control over, woman in general' . Even though at first sight we tend to underestimate Finn and to think of him as a victim of the cold Estella, we realize that he, by drawing her naked, transforms her into an object of men's gaze as the above citation suggests. Thus, he maintains certain control over her. By exposing her paintings later in the film, in a galary, he in a way confirms to the public he posses her.
Merrie Johnson argues that narrative cinema produces a "masculinization" of the female spectator who 'may find herself secretly, unconsciously almost, over the diegetic world that identification with a hero provides, gains access to repressed material' Many of us may have fantasized that they were great doers of deeds and the slayers of dragons, for example, all kinds of gendered roles as Supermen, but here, in Great Expectations one definitely wouldn't want to be in Finn's position. Just as in the first sequence under study Estella leaves him once her portraits are finished and he is once again lured into a trap of seduction and left alone . He only looks after her while she leaves the room.