Voyeurism in Rear Window and the
Voyeurism in Rear Window and the "Post-War Crisis of Masculinity" Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 production Rear Window is undoubtedly a film that is concerned with voyeurism. It has been argued that it thematises cinematic spectatorship in the sense that it is a movie about watching movies. This is because the central character Jeff is confined to his wheelchair watching the people in the windows across the courtyard similar to the cinemagoer that is confined to their seat with the sole purpose to gaze upon the screen that tells the story of other peoples' lives. This voyeuristic element that is fundamental to the plot of the film can be seen as a response to the crisis of masculinity that occurred in America in the era immediately after the Second World War. This paper will examine key arguments put forward by leading theorists such as Laura Mulvey, Elise Lemire, John Belton and Tania Modleski to elaborate upon the intentions and complications of voyeurism in Rear Window. However, as well as the historical information of 1950s American society, it is also important to acknowledge the role and influence of Paramount on its productions in the 1950s. Paramount wanted financial success in the box office from its big productions
Hitchcock is able to provide an insight to relevant issues of fifties American society through his theme of voyeurism. The years following the end of the Second World War in 1945 saw immense changes in American society, culture and overall way of life. However, the business suit was seen as a sign of conformity and it becomes apparent that Jeff like "many middle-class men of the fifties felt emasculated by conformity" (12). 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. That is one reason Lemire argues for the increased popularity of the Western genre amongst men in this period, as it was a way "for men to live in fantasy what they felt unable to live in reality" (11). However when the child notices the anatomical differences between the mother and father, the child assumes that the mother's penis was cut off as some sort of punishment. Psychoanalytic film theorists have suggested since about the 1960s, that cinematic spectatorship is similar to being in a dream like state in the sense that the spectator can symbolically fulfil their unconscious wishes according to Freud. Freud argues that the complex begins with the child's desire for their parent of the opposite sex and their subsequent perceived competition with the other parent. 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. It highlights that whatever pleasure is reaped from voyeuristic activity, it is accompanied by anxiety and pain also. Elise Lemire's discussion of Rear Window also exposes how Jeff's pleasure that he gets from secretly watching his neighbours and therefore invading their privacy is also sadistic. However when they reverted back to their old jobs and adapted to life at home, there was a crisis of masculinity as men did not "feel as masculine as the risk and adventure they had experienced overseas" (11). , the other line involving another sphere - work, war, a mission or quest. The camera then pans to follow Thorwald into his living room, and also shows Mrs Thorwald in the bedroom.
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Acceptance Essays
