Feminist
film theory rose out of Second Wave feminism in the 60’s and 70’s, the
theorists based their work on the issues that were brought to attention in the
women’s movement. Studies have revealed experiences in which women alone have
faced throughout history that once more, creates a division between sexes.
·
Political
oppression. Women, especially historically, haven’t had a substantial role in
politics, not having control in what changes the society in which they live in.
·
Domesticated
roles. Women have assigned to domestic roles, even in the work place women are
usually given roles in which can be seen as a ‘women’s’ job. For example,
cooking, cleaning, catering, caring for children and the elderly.
·
Violence
against women. Women have and continue to be victims to violence at the hands
of men. Rape, sexual harassment and physical abuse, are all issues that can be
applied worldwide.
Josephine Donovan (2012:168-169)
Although
Second-Wave feminism is said to have began in the 1960’s, the book ‘The Second
Sex’ written by Simone de Beauvoir in 1949 was a key text, which influenced
feminists in this movement. She had noticed how women at the time were very
unhappy in their day-to-day lives, which encouraged her to write the book. Even
after the beginning of the 20th Century, and the suffragists being
the first women to openly voice their opinions of oppression, after the
second-world war it seemed Europe had only gone backwards. With the scare of
communism spreading throughout countries, the role of the traditional housewife
was yet again pressured onto the women for stability. Any kind of uprising
within society was thought as a possible way to weaken the country in their
time of panic, so once again women were oppressed to their traditional
ideological roles of being domesticated figures ‘Woman was ordered back into the home the more harshly as her
emancipation became a real menace.’ De Beauvoir (1949:24)
It was this
same issue of women being forced into a domesticated housewife role that Betty
Freidan wrote her book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ (1963), which became another key
text in the movement, she questioned women’s position within society, which was
a question central to Second-Wave feminism Hannam (2013:137). Betty Freidan
labelled this issue as ‘the problem with no name’, as she interviewed white,
middle-class, suburban housewives that stated their lives had no sense of
fulfilment.
‘Personal is
Political’ was one of the biggest slogans to come out of Second-Wave feminism,
as feminists were bringing to attention the way in which women were portrayed
as sexual objects to sell products within advertising. This created an issue of
the ‘ideal body shape’, leading to anxiety within women for the ‘perfect body’,
with possible eating disorders emerging. ‘‘Norms of feminine appearance’, they
promote are unobtainable for most women’ Saul in Chaudhuri (2006:7)
A lot of texts
were written within the movement that helped show the ideas expressed by the
feminists. One of the most influential texts was Kate Millett’s book, Sexual
Politics (1969), where she expressed that patriarchy was the reason in which
social forms were underpinned, giving feminists a way to challenge the division
between public and private that was critical to liberal political thought.
Hannam (2013:145)
Alongside these
issues, feminists fought for equal pay, an end to sexual discrimination at
work, pre-paid housework, childcare facilities and contraceptive advice,
although reproductive rights, including free contraception and abortion on
demand were the issues central to the women’s movement (Hannam 2013:143). ‘No
woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can
call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not
be a mother.’ Rossi in Donovan (2012:51)
Second-Wave
feminism challenged women’s roles within society, which were widely accepted,
and in turn, made huge steps in changing aspects of life for women. In most
countries the movement helped the aid of legislations that were made for equal
pay, against discrimination in the work place and the legalisation of abortions
(Hannam 2013:155). Also women’s organisations were put in place and shelters
for battered women also were made available. But it has to be said that there
is a level of controversy around the movement, as it was lead by white,
middle-class, educated, heterosexual women. Women from other minorities mention
how the movement cannot speak for all women, as there was not a range of
experiences from different classes, races and cultures. ‘when the women’s
movement raised the issue of sexist oppression, we argued that sexism was
insignificant in light of the harsher, more brutal reality of racism.’ hooks
(1987:1)
The
issues that arose within the movement, influenced a new way to critically
analyse films and pin point the issues enforced by patriarchy in society and
how these are reflected into the cinema by the use of narrative, camera angles,
sounds and even what happens behind the scenes, the ‘Cinematic Enunciator’
(Silverman 1983).
Psychoanalysis plays a big part in some feminist film
theories, although accepted by some theorists, not all agree with the concept.
Lucian Freud's Oedipus complex is very controversial, he analysed children and
their sexual development from a very young age, stating that male children have
a sexual attraction to their mother, but fear ‘castration’ when they see their
mother's ‘lack’ of a penis. The child then identifies with the power of this
father, moving his attraction for his mother onto other objects or fetishes.
The female child on the other hand, has penis envy and moves her sexual desire
from the mother onto something else.
Not all feminist film theorists approve of Freud’s
findings, they are predominantly sexist towards women. His mention of the women’s
‘lack’ of a penis, and the boy’s identification with the power of his father,
only enforces societies ideology of women, as lesser to the man. The ‘other’ of
man.
‘Freud is target number one as a personal male
chauvinist whose so-called ‘scientific’ propaganda has been responsible for
damning a generation of emancipated women to the passivity of the second sex.’
Juliet Mitchell (1974:303)
Although the theorists who do use this approach for
their own theories, see it as an important tool, focusing on how his theory
relates to women, understanding how women are oppressed by men from an early
start within life, and use this as a tool to figure out strategies for change.
‘An
entire system has been built up in this perspective, which I do not intend to
criticize as a whole, merely examining it’s contribution to the study of woman.
It is not an easy matter to discuss psychoanalysis per se. Like all religions –
Christianity and Marxism, for example – it displays and embarrassing
flexibility on a basis of rigid concepts.’ de Beauvoir in Mitchell (1974:305)
Laura
Mulvey is a feminist film theorist who bases her work around the importance of
Freud’s psychoanalysis theories. She is mainly noticed for her theory of the
‘Male Gaze’, where she explores film as it ‘reflects, reveals and even plays on
the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which
controls images, erotic ways of looking and spectacle’ Mulvey (1975:1). She
claims that the camera angles, editing, narrative and dialogue all coheres the
audience to view the film with male spectatorship. She states that there a two
ways in which you can gain pleasure through cinema, one being Scopophilia, a
term created by Freud, which is the pleasure of looking, Freud also ‘associated
schopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a
controlling and curious gaze.’ Mulvey (1975:3), this is applied to Mulvey’s
‘Male Gaze’ theory as she points out how women are objectified within cinema
and are used for the object of male desire. Mulvey claims that the cinema
surroundings, the dark atmosphere and the characters unaware they’re being
watched, forces the audience to take on this way of viewing, almost like a
‘peeping-tom’. The second way is a voyeuristic gaze, which in Freud’s Oedipus complex,
can be a fetish in which the child can replace the mother’s desire for.
Mulvey
explains how cinema is made by man, for man, and how female roles are there as
an erotic object for the male characters and an erotic object for the male
audience (Mulvey 1975:6). With this concept she states that every film is
viewed with the male gaze and how this is unavoidable as the female characters
are mirroring societies ideologies of women.
‘The
image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of a man takes
the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a
further layer demanded by ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out
in its favourite cinematic form – illusionistic narrative film.’ Mulvey
(1975:11)
The
‘Male Gaze’ theory is well acknowledged as useful film analysis, with examples
in cinema, media and art. But the question of whether this could change would
be difficult if Mulvey was right when she said everything was made by man, for
man. De Lauretis said that through Women’s Cinema, the male gaze is no longer
forced upon the spectator.
‘When
I look at the movies, film theorists try to tell me that the gaze is male, the camera
eye is masculine, and so my look is also not of a woman’s. But I don’t believe
them anymore, because now I think I know what it is to look at a film as a
woman’ de Lauretis (1987:113)
Women’s
cinema is films by women, made for women, or dealing women or all of these
combined, de Lauretis says that with these elements, the notion of the ‘Male
Gaze’ is no longer present. Although, these are examples of film, which are not
designed for the male viewer, these films are rarer than the popular Hollywood
Cinema. With Martha Lauzen’s research into the ‘Celluloid ceiling’ (2005)
bringing the problems within the Hollywood Film Industry to attention, as
women’s chances to advance within the industry are much harder than it is for a
man (Chaudhuri 2006:6), meaning that women’s cinema and the absence of the
‘Male Gaze’ will still only be the ‘other’ to Hollywood’s male spectatorship
films.
The concept of ‘otherness’ is also used a lot within
feminist theories, relating it to how women are the ‘other’ to the man. There
are a lot of examples of this within film, by analysing the camera angles,
shots, narrative and genres you can see how these patriarchal ideologies show
through. Although the concept of 'otherness' was first developed within
philosophy in 1807 (Hegel, G), it has been adapted over time by numerous
theorists. It was only in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir related this to the way in
which men treat women in her book, The Second Sex.
'Otherness' is how the majority within
patriarchal societies label minorities; this can be within different cultures,
societies and gender.
'Woman is the other of man, animal is the other of
human, stranger is the other of native, abnormality the other of norm,
deviation the other of law-abiding, illness the other of health, insanity the
other of reason, lay public the other of the expert, foreigner the other of
state subject, enemy the other of friend' (Bauman 1991: 8).
Edward Said wrote Orientalism in 1978, on how
the East represent the West as 'other', portraying the cultures using
stereotypes, creating a false image for others to believe in, this is what he
called Orientalism.
‘No one today is purely one thing. Labels like
Indian, or woman, or Muslim, or American are not more than starting-points,
which if followed into actual experience for only a moment are quickly left
behind. Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a
global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to
believe that they were only, mainly, exclusively, white, or Black, or Western,
or Oriental. Yet just as human beings make their own history, they also make
their cultures and ethnic identities. No one can deny the persisting
continuities of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages, and
cultural geographies, but there seems no reason except fear and prejudice to
keep insisting on their separation and distinctiveness, as if that was all
human life was about. Survival in fact is about the connections between things;
in Eliot’s phrase, reality cannot be deprived of the “other echoes [that]
inhabit the garden.” It is more rewarding - and more difficult - to think
concretely and sympathetically, contrapuntally, about others than only about
“us.” But this also means not trying to rule others, not trying to classify
them or put them in hierarchies, above all, not constantly reiterating how
“our” culture or country is number one (or not number one, for that matter).’
― Edward W. Said, Culture and
Imperialism
Simone de Beauvoir on the other hand, uses the
concept of 'otherness' to demonstrate how patriarchal society (men) categorise
women.
'Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not
in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being…
She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with
reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the
essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.’ De
Beauvoir (1949:8)
Beauvoir's concept of the 'other' with regards
to feminism, is now widely used within feminist film theory, using it as a way
to analyse how images and social conventions relate to gender inequality.
Semiotics is
another tool used by feminist theorists to analyse film. Semitics is almost
like another language, used to interperate hidden meanings. Semiotics (semiology)
was first started in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, where he stated that
there are hidden signs within text that isn’t its usual meaning, but an
alternative meaning, which derives from social behaviours. Using semiotics can
show how ideologies are shown within films by semiotic signs. For instance,
traditional ideologies of women are commonly represented within a lot of films,
with female characters playing a housewife, being maternal or emotional, these
are only a few example of the ideologies of women that patriarchal society
enforce upon us, condemning women to an oppressed existence.
Chaudhuri
writes how Althusser’s idea of the ‘Ideological State Apparatus’, which is the
media, schools, family and law courts all promote representations of gender,
which are taken in and accepted by society (2006:67). This is how we don’t
question the representation of genders within media and film for example, as
these establishments drive this in to us from a young age.
Ronald Barthes’
theory on ‘myth’ is also important when looking at ideologies, as the two go
hand-in-hand, it is through history and culture that we create myths. For
instance, the colour red is seen to be a symbol of many things, but if we
choose ‘love’ as an example, it has no real connection to love at all, other
than it being the colour of roses, which we also use as a signifier of love,
but it is only through history and culture that we have made this connection, through
the act of giving this object as a way to show affection. But it is these ways
of finding the small, possible connections between things that we can start to
analyse text or image.
‘Myth divests
the sign ‘woman’ of it’s denotative meaning (a human being or person with the
potential for bearing children) and replaces it with connotative meanings, such
as ‘woman as other’, ‘the eternal feminine’, or ‘object of male desire’, which
give the air of being woman’s ‘natural’ characteristics when in fact they have
been constructed through patriarchal discourse’ Creed (1987:300)
A number of
feminist film theorists acknowledge the importance of semiotics as a tool of
analysis within films, using it as a way to find hidden connotations,
ideologies and uses of myths within the narrative, camera angles and dialogue.
Claire Johnston, driven from the works of Louis Althusser and Roland Barthes,
applies their concepts of semiology and applies it to feminist analysis of
films. She discovers that ‘signs’ show myths of ‘woman’, created by patriarchy,
reflecting societies sexist views on women.
‘Iconography as
a specific kind of sign or cluster of signs based on certain conventions within
the Hollywood genres has been partly responsible for the stereotyping of women
within the commercial cinema in general, but the fact that there is a far greater
differentiation of men’s roles than of women’s roles in the history of the
cinema relates to sexist ideology itself, and the basic opposition which places
man inside history, and woman as ahistoric and eternal.’ Johnston in Kaplan
(2000:23)
I think the changes that i made since the previous tutorial has really improved the chapter as a whole, it now clearly defines the issues brought to light within second wave feminism, and how the theorists used these issues within their work. I also think these outlined issues will come in useful within my next chapters as i can relate analysis back to the issues.
