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David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is a shocking cinematic experience. The act of looking is distorted in several ways by Lynch in order to render his audience displaced and horrified. From the opening scenes of the film, two very different worlds are established: one of bright, surreal images and the other of a dark and evil world hidden beneath the surface. By allowing his audience to view the underground world, Lynch is satisfying their voyeuristic fantasies and also alerting them to a similarity between it and his characters. In a noir style detective plot, Jeffrey moves between the two worlds discovering his desire for the perverse in his relationship with Dorothy. Through Mulvey’s theory of the controlling male gaze, Blue Velvet clearly challenges its audience’s ability to watch and to derive pleasure from looking. This psychoanalytical approach provides a deeper understanding of Lynch’s clear Freudian references and themes. Through the looks of the camera, male characters and audience, the female characters are sexually objectified and made powerless to the active male gaze. However, Lynch does temporarily subvert his gendered scenario through the character of Dorothy, whose sexual power over Frank and Jeffrey is defined by