Voyeurism/Fetishism

This reading discussed voyeurism which is a term I am very familiar with because I have taken a film class that focused on feminine critique. The idea of voyeurism and how the spectator receives pleasure from watching a film in a theatre is an idea that relates to the way women are often portrayed as a sex symbol in film. However, I did not know as much about fetishism and how women's body parts are often picked out by the camera and therefore over invested in meaning. Both these ideas are formulating due to men and therefore films are aimed at the male and cater to the needs of a male spectator. I found it interesting that this article explained the terms from a psychoanalytical standpoint and noted that fetishism is a strategy to disavow difference. Further, the idea that the male is seeking to find the hidden phallus in the woman on the screen is quite disturbing. It is always troublesome to look at films from this point of view and I think slowly the industry is doing a better job at eliminating these ideals but there is still a long way to go.