Scoptocratic coins a term from the Greek word skropos, meaning a watcher or spy and a mark to shoot at, and the verb krateo, meaning to be strong, to rule. This implies not just rule by surveillance, but the tyranny of the gaze and the condition of being looked at – ‘speculated’ – and being constructed by the gaze. Taking her cue from narratives of melodrama and film noir, where female hysteria is provoked and contained by male paranoia, Nancy Shaw investigates the hidden and liminal spaces of these constructions.