Psychoanalysis is a collection of theories many people have come up with about the human unconscious, sexuality, and subjectivity. Freud was an early pioneer in the science of Psychoanalysis and his work has be added to and revised several times by multiple people throughout history. Freud came up with the idea that scopophilia, pleasure of looking, in humans is in them at birth. Lacan takes that idea and says that it is certain moments of seeing in which humans develop their subjectiveness and sexuality. The chapter then goes to talk about feminist authors and their way of trying to understand sexual differences in way besides Frued’s castration complex. Two of the terms described in the chapter were subjectivity and unconscious. Subjectivity is the way humans have their own unique ways of thinking whether it be logical or irrational responses to our emotions. Going further into subjectivity is the idea of the unconscious. This is where our repressed instincts and desires manifest themselves outside of our consciousness and we are unable to acknowledge them. However, there are moments in which our unconscious thoughts come out without us knowing. The chapter then goes to talk about sexuality and the Castration complex before moving on to the phallus idea where the penis is an antonomical difference that decides sexual difference in a person. The next term was voyeurism, which is the way men look at women, in films for example, in a way that is at first investigative and then punishing or saving. Next was the way women are shown as simply beautiful objects to display which is called fetishistic scopophilia. Because of these aspects to Psychoanalysis, I do not believe it is a good approach to understanding this image.
First off is the lack of any human subjects in the image, yes there are soldiers, but they are not the main part of the image. Because of this, there is no connection between the image and the male gaze, castration complex, or fetishistic scopophilia. The image is simply a photo of a helicopter taking off and while men are more likely to find this image more pleasing to the eye, it can not be studied from a psychoanalysis approach.
Images that can be approached from a psychoanalysis perspective are of course advertisements, movies, and all most any sorts of mass media. This is because the people in charge of creating an ad to sell something know very well that sex sells. And an psychoanalytic study can help show why that particular ad appeals to the viewer whether they are female or male at an unconscious level where they aren’t even aware as to why they like it.
Unfortunately, Psychoanalysis tries to hard to uncover the ways of the unconscious and ultimately crumbles at the fallacies of having to explain everything. While some images can be seen through a psychoanalytic approach, it is mostly outdated and no longer relevant.