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

The Oedipus complex also explains how children become gendered beings. 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. 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. 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. The female child in contrast to this feels she has already been castrated and therefore has no option but to identify with her mother and therefore take up her feminine role in society. Mulvey argues that because cinema functions within a patriarchal society, the pleasure of looking at can only be enjoyed by those that through the Oedipus complex have taken their place as the dominant ones in society, i.e. men in a patriarchal society.

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. Mulvey further investigated psychoanalytical film theory in order to confirm her theories on the dynamics of cinematic spectatorship. Mulvey was particularly interested in Freud's theory of how children become gendered beings, called the Oedipus complex, as she argues that this is similar to the process of pleasure that a spectator gains from their cinematic experience. Freud argued that children engage in voyeuristic activities in an attempt to discover the forbidden; this desire to see then becomes a part of that person's sexuality in their adult life. 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.

Tania Modleski, a feminist film critic of the 1980s, questioned Mulvey's views on cinematic spectatorship, and in particular those relating to Rear Window in her book The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory. Modleski argued that although women are inherently different to men, it does not mean that they are less powerful, as she argues that men are in fact more afraid that women aren't castrated at all. Modleski also demonstrates how Lisa's point of view is evident as the film shows many differences in the way that Jeff, the man, and Lisa, the woman observe the same thing. She argues that the man will objectify a female figure whereas a woman will identify and empathise. An example of this is with the different observations of Miss Torso. Whilst Jeff sees her as a "queen bee with her pick of the drones", Lisa considers her to be "doing a woman's hardest job - juggling the wolves" (9).

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. Belton argues that any type of voyeurism is sadistic because it is "a pleasure based o

Some common words found in the essay are:
Rear Window, Freud Mulvey, Whilst Jeff, Tom Doyle, Bordwell Thompson, Jeff Modleski, Commitment Playboy, Elaine Tyler, World War, John Belton, rear window, cinematic spectatorship, mulvey argues, love story, american society, crisis masculinity, murder mystery, voyeurism rear window, hollywood cinema, patriarchal society, belton argues, central character jeff, example classical hollywood, murder mystery love, dynamics cinematic spectatorship,
Approximate Word count = 2290
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)