EXHIBITIONISM / VOYEURISM

‘Voyeurism has become identified with masculinity, and exhibitionism with femininity’ (Grosz 1992: 448). Hitchcock's films conform quite strongly to the first half of this statement, but more loosely to the second. The fact that Hitchcock's voyeurs are generally male is well known. In her seminal article ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Laura Mulvey uses Hitchcock to support her theoretical discussion about the function of ‘the male look’ in identification processes in the cinema (Mulvey 1975: 6-18), and numerous feminist critics have followed suit.

In Hitchcock's Films Revisited, Robin Wood challenges Laura Mulvey's model of identification, noting in particular its failure to account for our identification with (Hitchcock’s) heroines (Wood 1989: 303-310). I am in sympathy with Wood's critique, but a consideration of the play of exhibitionism and voyeurism in Hitchcock's films necessarily brings in gender politics, and I want to take account of this. My comments on the look occur later, when I also consider the implications of the scarcity of female voyeurs in Hitchcock.

Hitchcock's exhibitionists may be mainly women, but there are occasional male examples. For instance, the startling last shot of NUMBER SEVENTEEN, when the working-class Ben whips open his raincoat like a flasher to exhibit himself in his long johns wearing the missing necklace. Or the chilling moment in THE 39 STEPS when Professor Jordan dramatically displays his amputated finger and so reveals himself to Hannay as the master spy.