Voyeurism in Rear Window and the

The historical and social context of American life in the 1950s gives many different understandings and interpretations to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, in particular to the central character Jeff as he typifies a victim suffering from a masculinity crisis.

Jeff’s voyeurism links the two plot lines of the murder mystery and the love story.

This was also an era in American society that began to change its traditional opinions about men who didn’t want to marry being “emotionally immature” or “latent homosexuals” (13). Mulvey used Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window to demonstrate how gender plays a vital role in the dynamics of cinematic spectatorship. Mulvey exposes this type of “sadistic voyeurism” in Rear Window by emphasising these aspects present in Jeff’s relationship with Lisa. Jeff chooses to spy on other people’s lives even when his beautiful girlfriend is throwing herself at him repeatedly. Although Mulvey acknowledges that the images portrayed on screen in the cinema are not forbidden, she argues that the whole point of film is that “the conditions of screening and narrative conventions give the spectator an illusion of looking in on a private world” (6) and is therefore acting as if it is forbidden. Mulvey further argues that only men are allowed to view their desires projected onto the screen in such a patriarchal society, whereas women are there to be desired. She argues that the man will objectify a female figure whereas a woman will identify and empathise. She wants to be the object of his gaze in order to control his voyeuristic element. This fear of castration makes the male child give up his incestuous feelings, as he does not want his father to castrate him, therefore instead of competing with his father the male child begins to identify with him and takes up his masculine role within society. There was a huge trend to move to the suburbs, and in 1954 the year that Rear Window was released, one and a half million new homes were built in the suburbs and twenty per cent of the American population already lived in suburban neighbourhoods (10). Mulvey argues that in contrast to this, Lisa is never allowed to be in the position to motivate point of view shots.

In addition to the feminist theories of spectatorship, Lemire argues that the “conditions and dynamics of fifties culture in the United States” (10) must also be examined to explain Jeff’s attitudes and his voyeuristic nature and therefore give some indication to the historical specificity of gender dynamics.