Best Answers

During the ‘Home Invasion’ scene, the spectator is implicit in the attack as the victim, meaning the woman is held back while her clothes are cut off of her.  However, her clothes are being cut off in a very provocative way, which is exposing her body for a long time. This is shown in a way, which is prolonging her agony as she is kept on screen for longer and we see her body in sections, which adheres to Mulvey’s idea of the ‘Male Gaze’, which is a part of her ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ theory. We as the spectator are shown how the woman is expected to answer the door as her husband looks over to her and she knows that it is expected of her, this supports Mulvey’s theory in that women are an erotic object for bot h the characters within the movie and for the spectator as when she walks over to answer the door, we as the spectator see her in every angle as there are mirrors surrounding her. It is also evident that she victim is wearing a bright orange colour which automatically allows the spectator to be the first thing to look at as the others such as Alex and the droogs being dressed in all white.

As spectators, we are faced with extreme close ups and medium shots of the victims body which emphasises that women are passive and merely an object for desire for both the spectator and the characters within the film. Alex and the droogs are also lifting the victim, this suggests that she is weak and is controlled by men, as she is not powerful enough to override them. When Alex hits the victim, it suggests that she is unimportant and that her personality is not considered and that all Alex and the droogs are considering is how she is merely an object for their desires and to be used for and this emphasises how she is the ideal woman who is controlled and compelled by men. It is also evident throughout this scene that the attack is presented from the point of view of several men including the victim’s husband whom the camera focuses on, (even though he is not the victim in this case) instead of female characters that are denied their point of view. As a spectator, Kubrick does not allow us to see how it feels to b sexually assaulted, but rather how it feels to commit the assault which is Alex’s point of view and the droogs, even the victim’s husband – even though the victim is the most vulnerable in this case and who us as spectators should empathise with, however Kubrick does not allow this by preventing us from obtaining a woman’s point of view.

The spectator is punished as throughout the first part of the film we are aligned with Alex and we have given him our allegiance, however during the scene we witness Alex being almost tortured by the scenes that he is seeing and it makes us feel uncomfortable during the entirety of the scene. This is punishing us as the first part of the film is used for our own entertainment and as Alex is our protagonist and is the character we’ve given our alignment to we enjoy his violent acts, but seeing him in a position like this were he is weak and being treated in such a manner causes us to sympathize with him in the scene and feel as uncomfortable as him in it.

There are various ways in which the spectator is caused to feel uncomfortable in the scene, through various camera shots and through the use of mise-en-scene. An example would be the close ups of Alex during the treatment scenes. This causes us to feel his punishment as we can clearly see him not enjoying it, and the cold metal bars in his eyes makes us feel extremely uncomfortable and pulls us out the comfort zone that we have built while aligning with Alex during the first part of the film. His performance also makes us feel uncomfortable as we know it is the non violent side of Alex that we are seeing and it is very uncomfortable to see him the predicament he is in during the treatment.