Current Forum: Session 6: Ideology and Gender	Read 13 times 	
Date: 16-Feb-2001 13:29:17	
Author: FRANK, KYLE G. <kgf4068@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Imbalance and balance between masculine and feminine 	
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       “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Mulvey 134). The beginning of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is coded to what Laura Mulvey describes as the sexual imbalance of pleasure in looking. After a series of pans across the cityscape of Phoenix, Arizona, the camera begins to focus on one particular location with cuts and zooms that bring the camera’s eye up close to the dark crack of an open window in what we later learn is a “cheap hotel”. The camera does not stop there, but must probe into the darkness, revealing its (although some might say ‘her’) secrets. 
       The following shot captures the active/male and passive/female dichotomy that Mulvey refers to in her article “Visual Pleasure”. The character Sam Loomis stands to the left, his body extending beyond the height of the screen. Sam’s verticality contrasts sharply with the horizontal figure of Marion, whose lack of dress emphasizes her sexuality and, in a way, her mystery. The opening frames of this shot allude to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century paintings in which a lightly-veiled, recumbent female cadaver lies underneath the watchful eyes of a male anatomist. Ludmilla Jordanova suggests that these paintings reveal a discourse that aligns female with mystery, one that must be unveiled, dissected, and explored (for a complete discussion of these paintings, see Ludmilla Jordanova’s Sexual Visions). 
       Ironically, this is the fate of Psycho’s Marion Crane. However, unlike the female cadavers of the paintings discussed above, Marion “equalizes” the sexual imbalance (i.e. she makes the stable dichotomies of gender roles in Hollywood become temporarily unstable), and it is because of her actions that see must be unveiled, dissected, and explored (though not necessarily in that order).
       Determining that Marion is guilty of being a female threat to a phallocentric society is not difficult. If the spectator does not already feel her “lack of penis [implies] a threat of 
castration . . .” (Mulvey 135), it is made obvious by her criminal activities of stealing Mr. Cassidy’s $40,000. To avoid the “unpleasure” of Marion’s threat, Mulvey asserts that the cinematic narrative and structure provides two different avenues of escape: (1) “re-enactment of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving of the guilty object . . .” and (2) “complete disavowal of castration by the substitution of a fetish object . . . (overvaluation)” (135). Hitchcock’s Psycho definitely pursues both avenues of escape. Not only is Marion overvalued time and time again (there are three bedroom scenes of her in undergarments, one with the overt reference to voyeurism through Norman’s eye), but also punished by murder. Ironically, the shower scene 
combines both fetishism and punishment.
       However, I feel that Hitchcock’s film is more than a direct portrayal of “female as icon gets overvalued and punished.” Instead, part of the guilt and/or threat of Marion seems to be displaced onto Norman Bates (hence the “abnormal” masculinity). Part of this I attribute to the fact that the audience sees Marion show signs of remorse and restitution. More importantly 
though, at the point of Marion’s murder the audience is no longer focused on Marion’s crime, but Norman’s (even if we do not suspect him of murdering Marion, he is definitely complicitly involved). Thus, Norman takes on the role of female not only narratively (acting as his mother), but also cinematically (i.e. in its form).
       Norman’s “abnormal” masculinity takes on a number of complicated forms. For example, when Marion first meets Norman Bates, there is a similar composition to the opening scene: Norman stands to the side, with only part of his torso showing on the screen. This time, however, Marion stands vertical. If we compare the two shots, then the latter reveals that Norman does not maintain the same dominant position with regard to Marion as the “normal” or “authorized” character of Sam. 
       I think there is another interesting parallel between the scenes of Marion and the police officer, and Norman with the detective, Mr. Arbogast. Both scenes entail an investigation. In the 
former, an “authorized” masculine character interrogates the “guilty female”. The sunglasses leave the officer without specific identity—he is a symbolic representative of the power of the “masculine” state. The latter scene, presents the investigation of the private detective, Arbogast, in his search for Marion. However, just like the audience’s “investigation” of Marion is shifted to Norman, so too is Arbogast’s. What begins as a search for Marion ends as an interrogation of 
Norman. I think it is interesting to note that in a way Norman becomes “female icon”. As the two are looking at the hotel registry there is a worm’s eye-view of Norman’s neck and face, which renders him a stylized, “fragmented body” without depth and that lies literally across the screen (see Mulvey 134). However, the worm’s-eye view does not fetishize or overvalue, it contorts and distorts. However, this scene complicates the power dichotomy between “authorized” masculinity and the other (be it female or abnormal male), because here Norman Bates is considerably taller than Arbogast. Thus, the power dynamics of the shot-reverse-shots in the former scene are reversed in the latter.
       Nonetheless, this is Hollywood. However much Psycho complicates the dynamics of the active/male and passive/female dynamics, it does not leave them unresolved. By the end of the 
film, Hitchcock has restored what Mulvey calls the “sexual imbalance”. First, Norman is apprehended and punished for his guilt. Second, the patriarchy asserts its authority through the 
voice of the psychoanalyst. Third, and most important, the “abnormal” male and “guilty” female are replaced by their substitutes: Sam and Lila.