With the emergence of cinema in the early 20th century, the landscape of material culture became a more widespread phenomenon, and film productions became a profound artifact to due to the information provided about the culture of users and creators. Prompted by the growth of Hollywood's media industry, films began to explore a range of cultural concepts and draw on social structures in their plots. Irrefutably, the explosion of the film industry has had positive impacts in terms of its association with leisure, however, its negative connotations stem from the way films reflect different social issues and, in a sense, encourage them . Specifically, the film “The Wolf of Wall Street” is a cultural artifact that is particularly inspired by this concept, and in this essay I will focus on how this film relates to the methodology surrounding the visual pleasure of the cinematic experience. My aim is to observe and analyze how this particular film relates to the methodology proposed by the likes of Laura Mulvey and Roland Barthes and, furthermore, touch on the work of other psychoanalytic researchers, such as Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, in order to analyze how 'The Wolf of Wall Street' refers to their theories. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street" depicts the real-life journey of Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio who describes the famous financial scam artist and his evolution to fortune through money laundering and the manipulation of shares. This film can be considered a cultural artifact due to both the widespread evaluation and condemnation it received in response to its relentless depiction of the cultural connotations involved. While the main plot is about Belfort's involvement in the stock market, the foundations of the story are slightly more obscured by the eccentric lifestyle that runs parallel to this. The film's depiction of Belfort's reckless antics however presents a very accurate depiction of social structures and gender differentiation, making it relevant to the culture. Despite its popularity, the film gained negative publicity "for glorifying the exploitative and hedonistic lifestyle it depicts" and this refers to the film's depiction of Belfort's heavy indulgence in alcohol, drugs, and sexual behavior. Laura Mulvey examines cinema and its relationship to phallocentrism in terms of how women are symbolically represented and the meaning of the "male gaze", which is the main point of her methodology. In this case, her analysis is relevant because it provides insight into the exploitation of women in cinema, an aspect of "The Wolf of Wall Street" that has attracted heavy criticism. This particular film features an abundance of sexualized women and various women who are purely objectified for the pleasure of the male characters, which relates to Mulvey's theory of “woman as image and man as bearer of the gaze.” Within this, look at the ideas of the “male gaze” and how women are demoted to only having two functions; being “an erotic object for the characters within the story on the screen, and as an erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium.” Ideological foundations have driven this theory in which male figures cannot be the object of sexual objectification, so naturally the woman is forced to bear the burden of being exploited both in the film itselfby the characters, and by the consumers who watch the film. This is evident in "The Wolf of Wall Street" as there is a clear division between male and female roles and the respect their characters have; statistically women have much less dialogic input and their physical representation is done exclusively for the pleasure of the male actors and spectators, considering the fact that women are often present in suggestive clothing or are naked. Undeniably, this is a concept conceived with the desired intent of stimulating visual pleasure for male audiences, thus further succumbing to the notion of female exploitation in cinema. This idea of ​​the dominance of the male gaze connects to the ideas held by Jacques Lacan on the concept of the mirror image associated with film. His predominant argument is that when you look in the mirror, the "other" you consider to be yourself is actually more powerful and accomplished than you actually are because your body is not fully equipped to do the things you want to do. . The relevance here comes from the fact that Mulvey looks at Lacan's theory in the comparable context of cinema; observes how “the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, projects his gaze onto that of his similar, his surrogate on the screen”, in the sense that male spectators see male characters in films, such as 'The Wolf of Wall Street ', and establish comparable links between the two parties. They experience a "moment of recognition in front of the mirror" which is the cinema screen, and for this reason it favors the exploitation of women as spectators, then assuming this patriarchal and superior position that belittles women. Furthermore, Mulvey draws on Freudian theory when he uses the castration complex in his analysis. It proposes how women, like those represented in this cultural artefact, symbolize the threat of castration due to their lack of male genitalia and therefore “raise their children in the symbolic”. This means, in semiological terms, that the woman "transforms her child into the signifier of her own desire to possess a penis" which conveys the fact that women believe that they are not fully complete human beings as they do not possess the same biological conditions as males. . This subsequently means that in the existing patriarchal culture, women are simply a “signifier for the male other” and are silenced when subjectized to male desires. This theory is particularly prevalent in "The Wolf of Wall Street" because women are shown exclusively as sexualized objects in male possession and Mulvey expresses how this is the "leitmotif of the erotic spectacle." Throughout the film, women are underrepresented and marginalized, which further reflects the film industry as a whole. Irrefutably, there is strong male dominance in the industry and a study on the subject conducted by Stacey Smith recognizes that women are in the minority within cinema and furthermore, the women who appear in film are “overwhelmingly white, able-bodied, straight , thin and partially naked”. ”. 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is a great example of this, evident by the fact that the few women who are allowed to appear on screen are always accompanied by male characters and objectified by said men. Intertwined with this are ideas of eroticism. The film in question is loaded with erotic connotations and Roland Barthes explores this concept through his theory of the 'cinematic situation' and the meaning of the cinematic environment in relation to these cultural ideas. He refers to the cinema as "The Cube" which accurately describes the cinema and the strange environment it is. Before even watching a movie like "The Wolf of WallStreet", the consumer enters a pre-hypnotic situation due to the darkness of the cinema. Barthes elaborates on this concept by describing how black is the “color of widespread eroticism”, and this concept develops as the film progresses, particularly for this film due to the strong focus on eroticism and sexual encounters. He evokes how the appeal of the film is exemplified by the cinematic experience which creates a stronger intensity between the film/characters and the viewer, which is also refers to the mirror theory of Lacan. Barthes uses Lacan's analysis and considers it in ideological terms; he says “How to detach oneself from the mirror? Do I complicate a relationship with a situation” and here he is expanding on his observation that spectators remain “glued to the ideological discourse” integrated in films For "The Wolf of Wall Street" in particular, this is relevant because the concept of patriarchy in culture and the inferiority of women is extremely prevalent in this film as well, and what Barthes is implying is like this. ideology is deeply rooted in material culture, so its affects are much less elusive, because society is so consumed by it. Here he is identifying the difficulties inherent in "breaking away" from such a prejudicial ideology which highlights the pervasive nature of visual pleasure within the cinematic experience. In expanding ideas on the concept of visual pleasure, Mulvey examines two theories that inclusively present all the ideas I have drawn on above. The first is the idea of ​​“scopophilic” pleasure which arises from the use of sight to use “another person as an object of sexual stimulation” and the second is the “ego libido” which is formed from self-identification in a character presented in the film. . Both pursue “eroticized phantasmagoria” and this is relevant to 'The Wolf of Wall Street' in particular because there is a clear intent behind the plot and representation of the story to stimulate eroticized visual pleasure. Although the film is predominantly based on a much larger context, the recurring theme in it always returns to an erotic and sexually motivated undertone with the intention of satisfying these two modes of pleasure. Mulvey examines this through his analysis of how viewers construct their gaze. As previously mentioned there is the concept of the male gaze, but to delve deeper into this theory Mulvey examines the “three different gazes associated with cinema; that of the camera recording the pro-filmic event, that of the audience watching the final product and that of the characters against each other in the illusion of the screen”. He observes how the complex relationship between these aspects is very individual to the film and the development of this is why the film was able to move away from the traditional monolithic system it began with, to transform itself into a more radical and facilitate films like "The Wolf of Wall Street" that encourage this concept. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom article from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay To conclude, when you analyze a cultural artifact such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” in relation to the analytical methodology, presented by figures such as Roland Barthes and Laura Mulvey, psychoanalytic connotations deeply rooted in material culture become prevalent. Clearly from this film and many others, it is evident how the film industry draws on cultural concepts and social ideas to reflect on through mass media storytelling. The long-standing foundations of a patriarchal power that acts as a dominant trend across cultures are reflected in entertainment and the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" in particular, depicts this in.