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​Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist who is best known for her essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", written in 1973. In the essay she argues that the cinematic apparatus of classical Hollywood cinema inevitably put the spectator in a masculine subject position, with the figure of the woman on screen as the object of desire and “the male gaze”.

Basically, her theory centers around the idea that woman are portrayed as erotic objects in film and that the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. This is mainly achieved through the use of various camera angles, shot sizes, and camera movements, which accentuate the physical attributes of female characters. Tying into this theory, she also propounded the view that films generally showcase an inherent patriarchal society where men set the majority of rules, and play active roles, whereas women are more often than not relegated to secondary or passive characters, with little or no importance.
 
Martin Scorsese, the director of 'Goodfellas', in my opinion, completely subverts Laura Mulvey’s Feminist theory in the Karen-Henry gun sequence. By placing the woman, i.e. Karen in control of the entire scene, Scorsese does an extraordinary job of putting us, i.e. the audience, in the perspective of the female character, and making us feel and relate to her emotions throughout. He achieves this not only through the construct of the story and dialogues, but also through the visual depictions, which subconsciously plays with our notions of point of view and control.
 
The sequence begins with a POV (point of view) shot looking down on Henry. This immediately makes us view Henry through the eyes of the person holding the gun. It also showcases that Henry is in danger and clearly not in control of this situation. We then cut to the POV of Henry looking down the barrel of the gun held by Karen. This shot achieves two things. It tells us that the shot prior to this was from the subjective lens of Karen, and that she is the one in possession of power here. By not cutting to an objective shot at this moment, Scorsese masterfully puts us in the mind of Henry for that brief moment, making us feel what he's feeling, which in the context of the situation is tremendous fear.
 
Scorsese finally cuts to an objective shot of both of them at under a minute mark, but quickly goes back to the POV shot of Henry looking up at Karen. Now normally, this would indicate that we've gone back into Henry's perspective, but at that very moment, we start to hear Karen's voice over which puts us as viewers, back in her head. It's an amazing technique, which plays against our expectations of what constitutes subjectivity and objectivity.
 
The voice over then guides us through the scene as we hear Karen contemplate whether to shoot Henry or not. We hear the narration play over a close up shot of the gun directed at Henry's face, signifying that even though Karen is conflicted inside, she is the one who has the power and is in control of the outcome.
 
Finally, as Karen gets emotional and starts to slowly lower her gun, Henry lashes out and slaps her to the floor, gaining control of the situation. At this moment, rather than showing us a close shot of either Karen or Henry, Scorsese decides to just utilize an objective medium shot showing both of them from a distance. In doing so, he makes us the audience view the violence and aggression exuded by Henry in an objective fashion and doesn't portray Karen as an oppressed victim through the lens of Henry.
 
Hence, by following all these simple, yet highly effective techniques, Scorsese is able to make sure he doesn’t make the audience view the film from a sole male perspective, but rather through the combined subjectivity of both the characters in the sequence, especially the woman.
 
Now, some people would argue that Scorsese just gives us an illusion that Karen has power and that in actuality she’s quite ineffective, considering she gets punished for her actions in the end. I personally don’t think so. In my view, Scorsese portrays Karen Hill as an independent woman who feels trapped in her marriage, and rather than accepting it as her fate, has the courage to fight back. Even though she fails in the end. But that’s beside the point.
 
Other things to note would be that Karen has her own voice over, and that Scorsese constantly utilizes freeze-frames on her whenever we hear her thoughts through these voice-overs. Again, reinforcing my assertion that Karen in an important character who plays an active role in the narrative.
 
But those are my thoughts, and perhaps I might be in the minority here. In any case, I would love to know what you think. Do you agree with my analysis or do you think Scorsese falls in the same trap Laura Mulvey had theorized?  Do leave your answer in the comment section below.