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Voyeurism In Rear Window And The "Post-War Crisis of Masculinity"

" (3). This paper will demonstrate how the production and reception contexts of Rear Window most definitely affect how and what the film means in relation to voyeurism and the post-war masculinity crisis.
             Jeff's voyeurism links the two plot lines of the murder mystery and the love story. Although he is able to unravel more details to the murder mystery by gazing out of his window, this obsession also allows him to refuses to commit himself to the love story. Jeff chooses to spy on other people's lives even when his beautiful girlfriend is throwing herself at him repeatedly. By doing this, John Belton argues that "he opts for a one-way relationship based on voyeurism instead of a two-way relationship rooted in mutual regard, recognition and concern; he would rather look than love" (4).
             Laura Mulvey has played a key part in the discussions about the psychodynamics of cinematic spectatorship, with the publication of her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in 1975. Mulvey was amongst the first feminist scholars in the aftermath of the Women's Rights Movement of the 1960s to have an impact on this debate. Mulvey used Hitchcock's 1954 film Rear Window to demonstrate how gender plays a vital role in the dynamics of cinematic spectatorship. Mulvey argues that Jeff's voyeurism makes him representative of film spectators as previously discussed, only because he is privileged as a man. The camera follows Jeff's perception, providing the spectator with Jeff's point of view. This is demonstrated from the very beginning of the film, when Jeff and the camera begin to watch Thorwald enter a building across the courtyard at the same time that Jeff is complaining to his boss over the phone about being stuck in his apartment for six weeks. The camera then pans to follow Thorwald into his living room, and also shows Mrs Thorwald in the bedroom. Hitchcock's use of eyeline matches indicates that the camera is supposed to be reproducing Jeff's point of view.


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