Comparing Laura Mulvey’s Essay, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” to Luis Buñel’s Film, Belle de Jour
By Connor Pyne, Edited by Micah Slater
The arts, despite their ability to push boundaries, have historically been unable to avoid impulsively expressing biases against the expression of female sexuality. In her essay, “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema,” film theorist Laura Mulvey explores how expressions of female sexuality are overlooked outside of the context of satisfying the fantasies of male characters, by proxy, male viewers. While Mulvey was famously the first to identify the “male gaze” and the secondary role female characters are forced to play, there are numerous cases of feminist films that preceded Mulvey’s highly significant essay. Filmmakers have been directly challenging patriarchal ideals since the release of what is widely considered to be the first feminist film, La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923). Coming out more than four decades after La Souriante Madame Beudet, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967) is an outstanding example of a film combining misogynistic tendencies within the cinematic form. While Belle de Jour does represent and reflect many of the issues Mulvey describes in her essay, Buñuel commits those sins intentionally, to draw attention to cinema’s biases against expressions of female sexuality.
The characterization of Belle de Jour’s central character, Severine (Catherine Deneuve), as a masochist initially reflects Mulvey’s identification of the male gaze. Masochism is defined here as enduring pain as a way to derive sexual pleasure. One interpretation of Severine’s masochism sees the film as appealing to the sexual pleasure that male audiences derive from watching her submission and dehumanization. However, Buñuel does not frame Severine’s masochism as something for men to derive scopophilic pleasure from. We only get to see Severine perform masochistic acts in her fantasies. While this could be read as Buñuel framing Severine’s sexual acts in a way that is pleasurable for the male audience, it emphasizes Severine’s sexual autonomy. Severine dictates when the audience gets to see her perform acts of masochism. For example, in the opening scene of Belle de Jour, Severine upsets Pierre (Jean Sorel), her picture-perfect husband, by acting cold towards him. As a result, she is subjected to physical and sexual torture [00:03:08-00:05:35]. This scene seems to illustrate Mulvey’s argument that “the man controls the film fantasy and… emerges as the representative of power” (Mulvey). However, Buñuel reveals that the opening scene was not real: rather, it is Severine’s fantasy. The revelation that Severine imagined sexual assault completely reshapes the meaning of the scene: not only does the scene become inconsequential, but it also emphasizes Severine’s autonomous role in figuring her suffering.
The idea of female masochists as inherently submissive people who unilaterally capitulate to the patriarchy fails to account for the fact that masochism is an autonomous sexual fantasy fulfilled by voluntary submission. In her book Female Masochism in Film, theorist Ruth McPhee illustrates this point: she writes that equating female masochism with patriarchal oppression “denies the masochist her agency and refuses to acknowledge the commingled physical and psychical sensations and intensities of masochism” (McPhee, 17). By neglecting the fact that Severine is the one fantasizing about the submissive role, one inevitably ignores the fact that Severine is capable of agency in the form of sexual fantasies. While Severine herself is theoretically capable of possessing sexual autonomy, cinema deprives her of this capability due to her status as a married woman. The audience hopes that Severine finds a way to inconsequentially fulfill her desires. However, Buñuel declines to grant the audience this wish to point out cinema’s biases against female sexual expression. It is not Severine’s sexual preferences that deprive her of sexual freedom, but rather her cinematic castration that punishes her for seeking the fulfillment of her sexual desires as a married woman.
It is also important to note that a male character, Professor Henri (Marcel Charvey), also possesses masochistic fantasies. Professor Henri, in his only scene, visits the brothel (Severine’s secret workplace) and pays a sex worker named Charlotte (Françoise Fabian) to carry out his masochistic fantasy. While Charlotte is playing the dominant role in the fantasy, Henri is still clearly in control: he corrects Charlotte inside the fantasy, taking back his flogger when she takes it from him too early [00:44:32]. Professor Henri is still granted sexual freedom despite, like Severine, being a masochist. The inclusion of Professor Henri illustrates that being a masochist alone does not prevent someone from having sexual freedom. Severine’s masochistic preferences do not serve to demean or devalue her. Buñuel does not seek to punish Severine for her unique sexual preferences. The film’s depiction of her fantasies reflects Buñuel’s ability to illustrate the nuanced sexual desires of his female characters.
As mentioned before, Severine is completely in control of her fantasies, but the fundamental nature of her imagination is that it is not reality. In reality, Severine is sexless. According to Mulvey, “she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it” (Mulvey 59). She describes that all female characters are castrated by cinema, and Buñuel concurs by casting Severine’s society as her castrator. Throughout the film, Buñuel utilizes the color red as a symbol for sexual pleasure. For example, in the opening scene where she fantasizes about her assault, Severine is wearing a red coat [00:04:33]. Later, when Severine and Renée are discussing brothels in a cab, the cab driver mentions that brothels are still around but that the red lights are out [00:12:01]. Through this line of dialogue, Buñuel explicitly communicates that the absence of red is equivalent to the absence of unsuppressed sexual expression. The brothels may continue to operate, but only in secret, much like how Severine is allowed to have sexual desires as long as they are not expressed in the real world. With this statement, Buñuel confirms that Severine is castrated, but she has been made that way. Therefore, Buñuel desexes Severine to draws attention to the forced repression of female sexuality on the screen, which serves to validate Mulvey’s claim about the castration of female characters in cinema.
The narrative of Belle de Jour is overwhelmingly dictated by male characters. While Severine inevitably experiences conflict, male characters have the agency to set those events in motion. Henri Husson (Michel Piccoli), a friend of Severine and Pierre, is the first to tell her about Madame Anaïs (Geneviève Page), the woman in charge of the brothel, which eventually leads to Severine’s employment there. Additionally, Henri’s eventual discovery that Severine is working at the brothel contributes to Severine’s decision to leave. Another male character, Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), asks Severine to enter a relationship with him[01:14:23]. Marcel’s request is not given too much levity initially, but when Marcel shows up at her apartment [01:24:55], Severine is much more direct in shooting him down. Severine initially responds to Marcel’s request by explaining that she loves Pierre, and her relationships with both of them give her two different things. Pierre fulfills her emotionally, and Marcel fulfills her sexually. Severine is acutely aware that she is unable to have a relationship that fulfills her in both ways. This further emphasizes Mulvey’s point that cinema deprives women of sexual expression when they are married. Later, Marcel shoots Pierre because Severine refuses to leave him. Severine feels extreme shame over her part in Pierre’s shooting, and even though Marcel is the one who directly caused Pierre’s death, Severine is forced to bear the consequences of his actions. Aside from Marcel and Henri, less significant male characters also drive the story, and in turn, impact Severine. Marcel’s friend Hippolyte (Francisco Rabal) is the reason that Severine and Marcel even connect in the first place. Hippolyte brings Marcel to the brothel and allows him to have sex with Severine. Analyzing the narrative progression of Belle de Jour through the actions of its male characters reflects Mulvey’s theory that cinema allows male characters agency, while female characters act as motivators and accessories forced to experience the consequences of their male counterparts’ actions.
The audience watches the film mostly from Severine’s perspective. Therefore, we are forced to sit with Severine’s conflicted feelings of guilt and adrenaline. We feel for Severine as an outcast, and sympathize with her shame for desiring something ‘taboo’. Even though Buñuel does not argue that Severine is completely in the right, he endeavors for the audience to understand her and her motivations. She is more than a sex object for male audiences to gawk at: she has complex feelings and desires. A key aspect of Mulvey’s argument is that male characters act as surrogates for the male audience and that female characters are meant to bear the consequences of the actions of male characters throughout the film. Here, the male characters are given far less development than Severine. Depriving male characters of the development given to Severine prevents them from becoming surrogate characters. By preventing audience members from inserting themselves into the narrative via a surrogate, Buñuel forces us to view the narrative from a more objective lens, allowing us to notice aspects of the film that highlight cinema’s biases. We observe these biases impacting a character that we care about, which evokes both a feeling of empathy for Severine and anger towards the biases that cause her pain.
While the narrative of Belle de Jour does emphasize Mulvey’s theories, Buñuel uses it to communicate the film’s feminist message. Kyle Barrowman, in an essay contesting Mulvey’s criticism of the film industry, writes, “Can Hollywood cinema, classical or contemporary, be ‘saved’ for, or ‘useful’ to, the project of feminism, or must it be, in contemporary parlance, ‘canceled’? According to Mulvey... the answer was a resounding ‘No.’” (Barrowman 206). While Barrowman is right that Mulvey does not believe that Hollywood cinema in its current form can contribute to the feminist movement, she does not believe that cinema itself can never contribute to the feminist movement. Instead, Mulvey argues in favor of radical cinema that destroys the gaze. Belle de Jour is one such radical film that deconstructs the gaze. In order to solve a problem, the problem must first be acknowledged. Knowing this, Buñuel created a film that is both outside of what can be called “classical Hollywood” and that calls attention to the existence of the male gaze.
Laura Mulvey advocates for alternative cinema to combat the gaze, which Belle de Jour reflects by purposefully committing the transgressions that Mulvey describes in her seminal essay. Even though the film commits those transgressions, it still develops its female protagonist and advocates for her sexual autonomy. Depictions of women expressing unique sexual desires are not unilaterally patriarchal: Buñuel makes it clear that they are not inherently castrated, but are repressed in their expression by the dominant structures that Mulvey diagnoses. Reflecting patriarchal dominance over female sexuality, the male characters in Belle de Jour control the film’s narrative. Even as the male characters are dictating the narrative, Severine dictates the perspective from which we view the narrative. Buñuel does this intentionally to further the audience’s sympathy for Severine and her feelings of powerlessness. The film Belle de Jour commits the sins described in Mulvey’s essay to raise awareness of cinema’s harmful biases, which would be further spotlighted in Mulvey’s monumental essay less than a decade later.
Work Cited
Barrowman, Kyle. “Contesting Feminism: Pedagogical Problems in Classical Hollywood Cinema, Feminist Theory, and Media Studies.” Tandfonline.Com, 13 Oct. 2023, www-tandfonline-com.libproxy1.usc.edu/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2023.2268305.
“Belle de Jour.” Paris Film, 1967.
McPhee, Ruth. Female Masochism in Film, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, VT, 2014, pp. 1–22.
Mulvey, Laura. “‘VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA.’” Feminist Film Theory: A Reader, edited by Sue Thornham, Edinburgh University Press, 1999, pp. 58–69. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctvxcrtm8.10. Accessed 8 Apr. 2025.