Mulvey's Point in Miss Congeniality

Miss Congeniality, a movie thought to be about a strong female heroine, is actually an excellent example of trapping and taming women. Mulvey talks about the two dominant pleasures that we has viewers have while watching a movie: Scopophilia (or, the love of simply looking at things) and Narcissism (being able to watch a movie and feel like it was made specifically for you.) However, she argues that the camera presents those two pleasures through a man’s point of view, which is very evident in Miss Congeniality. At the beginning of the movie the main character, Gracie Hart, is a tomboyish girl that her later love-interest, Eric Matthews, barely acknowledges. However, when she has her makeover for her undercover operation, he suddenly is entranced by her beauty and becomes more interested in her. There is a famous slow motion scene where Gracie steps out for the first time after he makeover wearing a short dress and flipping her hair. This is a perfect example of how the audience sees through the male perspective. We are looking at her body as she walks toward the camera slowly (allowing us to view her body for an extended amount of time), she cannot see us, we see Eric’s positive reaction to her, and she does not even notice Eric’s reaction. Eric and the audience is able to look at her without her knowing, which Mulvey would argue is what men especially like to do. Also, Gracie gets “put in her place” at the end of the movie by the undeniable fact that she and Eric will end up together. Instead of having a strong woman who is fulfilled simply why solving the crime, she needs to have a man at the end of the movie to feel complete.