Peeping Tom In Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window

The term “Peeping Tom,” which is used today to describe “a pruriently prying person,” actually has its origins in an English legend. As recounted by popular belief, Tom was a tailor in the town of Coventry, England, who was struck with blindness (some accounts assert that he was struck dead) as a result of watching Lady Godiva ride through the streets naked to protest the lofty taxes imposed on the residents of the town. Similarly, L.B. Jeffries is a Peeping Tom in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 Rear Window, as he uses binoculars and a camera lens to observe the activities of his neighbors. This act of surreptitiously gazing at others raises questions about the motives behind such glances and how they relate to visual pleasure, gender, and subjectivity

Mulvey discusses this patriarchy at length, starting with a reference to castration anxiety. She asserts that since the phallus has been established as a symbol of power and order, females cannot attain the same authority as men because they lack this member. Females perpetuate this cycle of male dominance by birthing children and raising them under this lack, as well. As Mulvey explains, “woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.” Mulvey is critical of the idea that phallocentricism can exist in isolation of women, as she finds that an inherent contradiction in this theory. Although women are defined by the perceptions of men, they also aid in the formation of these very perceptions. The entire phallocentric order relies on the woman lacking something, namely the phallus and the associated power. She therefore lacks something, but this lack would be meaningless if it was not juxtaposed by the male possession of something. Thus, the system is reciprocal: just as a female is defined under a male,

Mulvey asserts that, “in their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” Under this view, men are the voyeurs who are sexually satisfied in objectifying women by concentrating on their bodies. E. Ann Kaplan concurs in her definitions of voyeurism and exhibitionism, stating, “voyeurism refers to the erotic gratification of watching someone without being seen oneself, i.e. the activity of the Peeping Tom. Exhibitionism refers in psychoanalysis to the erotic gratification derived from showing one’s body—or part of it—to another person, as in the pleasure of being seen, or seeing oneself on screen” While Mulvey’s definition implies that women are resistant to exhibitionism, Kaplan’s definition implies that women are also pleased in this process, meaning that they find excitement in this display of desire. However, both theorists do agree that males are dominant in this relationship, making females passive and submissive to the male gaze. Mulvey’s “to-be-looked-at-ness” is exemplified in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, particularly through the role of Lisa Fremont, the girlfriend of the protagonist, L.B. Jeffries. In the film, Jeffries is a photographer who is stuck in a wheelchair due to a broken leg. Since