Gaylyn Studlar

Who is Gaylyn Studlar?

Gaylyn Studlar is a professor of film studies, specializing in theory, particularly working with issues of gender and orientalism in Hollywood cinema. She is well known for her refutation of Laura Mulvey's seminal essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," arguing that spectators often derive masochistic, rather than sadistic, pleasures. She has also authored This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age and has edited four anthologies: John Ford Made Westerns, Visions of the East, Reflections in a Male Eye: John Huston and the American Experience, and Titanic: Anatomy of a Blockbuster. She currently serves as the David May Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, chairing the department in Film and Media Studies. She has previously taught at Emory University, the University of Michigan and the University of North Texas. Studlar earned a Ph.D. in cinema studies from the University of Southern California, where she had previously received a master of music in cello performance.