Does the 'female gaze' exist?
mulvey was writing about classical hollywood cinema —not claire denis or chantal akerman
mulvey was writing about classical hollywood cinema —not claire denis or chantal akerman
Game over.
Meh, a female gaze or female enjoyment/perception is still possible within classical hollywood.
The bitch is wrong.
whatever, sandwiches. it’s only a theory
Is Sandwiches female?
I have a sneaking suspicion here that Sandwiches is a single male.
Send Trinh T. Min-ha an email and ask her.
I’m just preparing a small paper on the topic of female, androgynous and lesbian gazes. Was hoping for some interesting responses.
Although an echo chamber is fine.
Thanks Blue, Not sure about sending an email but it looks like my library has some of her books, will check her out.
Blue K wins the thread.
Ok, I’ll play. Sandwich, is your paper dealing with classical hollywood?
I don’t want it to. Again, I said I was probably misreading Mulvey and I guess I was. But it turns out she later retracted some of her views.
It’s probably going to focus more on Akerman’s La Captive and the different gazes (male, female, lesbian, male lesbian…yes, I’m going there) in the film and Claire Denis’ presentation of the male body. The latter I’m less sure about.
Also, I don’t really want this to be a “do my homework thread.” Was just hoping for some interesting discussion that goes beyond Mulvey and classical hollywood. I probably should better edit my posts when I make threads…
Mulvey’s ideas (or any overarching theory about cinema) can’t consistently apply to all films, since there will always be exceptions. Her theory about “visual pleasure in narrative cinema” applies most accurately to classical Hollywood films, where you could argue that even films centered on a female protagonist (like Rebecca) have the “male gaze” as a reference point. Post-feminism, and with more women behind the camera, I’d say there are plenty of exceptions to be found. Off the top of my head, I’d point to the scene in Cleo From 5 to 7 where Cleo walks down the street taking note of all the men looking at her.
Off the top of my head, I’d point to the scene in Cleo From 5 to 7 where Cleo walks down the street taking note of all the men looking at her.
I don’t know- this a Hollywood cliche (not that Varda doesn’t handle it brilliantly, but she doesn’t undermine it). I think Le Bonheur presents much more of a female gaze perspective.
Speaking of Rebecca, there’s always the eternally wistful and yearning looks of Joan Fontaine…
the eternal victim ^ i just wanna slap her. sorry!
letter from an unknown woman is the worst. i actually love rebecca
don’t know that this is at all relevant to the discussion but i couldn’t help myself. she’s such a doormat!
in suspicion i’m always rooting for cary to kill her. he never does :(
Come to think of it, every movie I’ve seen Joan Fontaine in, she was in love with an undeserving jerk…
YES! ^
i once read that letter from an unknown woman is a feminist film because she’s freely and determinedly pursuing her own masochism. that’s when i signed up for the cause. you can do anything.
LOL! ^
wow according to her bio, ‘Fontaine was also a licensed pilot, champion balloonist, prize-winning tuna fisherman, expert golfer, licensed interior decorator, and Cordon Bleu cook.’ feeling somewhat better about her
sorry for the derail, sandwiches
fisherMAN? Sounds far from a simpering doormat in real life, did she fly a De Havilland?
I love Letter from an unknown Woman though i can see why she would annoy some women.
Le Bonheur is a good film for Jerry to mention, for further investigation on the subject. There are some basic similarities with Letter, and the ending is tragic too, but the pastel shades and summer light are not only a long way from Ophuls’ Vienna but most other films.
i once read that letter from an unknown woman is a feminist film because she’s freely and determinedly pursuing her own masochism. that’s when i signed up for the cause. you can do anything.
Tag Gallagher did a brilliant video essay on this very subject for Letter. I’m sure it will pop up in your mailbox one of these days.
me too plz ^ :) it is different from most films of the period as it’s told from the woman’s pov. and i still give it high marks for ophuls’ magnificent style. i’d like to see a new interpretation
Letter and Le Bonheur raise interesting questions not just about male behaviour causing pain but what really constitutes weakness of character. Fontaine may gaze adoringly and simper but seems to me finally a less pitiful, a stronger and more admirable character than Jourdain, while in Le Bonheur what struck me in turn was the wife’s apparent acceptance of infidelity, then the sharp shock we get, and then life goes on without the expected deep regret; both films are ripe for different readings.
“Meh, a female gaze or female enjoyment/perception is still possible within classical hollywood.
The bitch is wrong."
This seriously made me lol. Can’t say I’m enthused about pigeonholing “gazes”, at all.
Fontaine may gaze adoringly and simper but seems to me finally a less pitiful, a stronger and more admirable character than Jourdain
Yes. Fontaine’s love is so heroic that she can only be true to it by casting it on the least worthy man possible. What Tag demonstrates in his video essay is that Fontaine’s obsession is for love rather than a man, and that Jourdain is an accidental bystander.
The gaze is a tough subject to talk about to begin with because it’s a concept that Mulvey wants to take from Jacques Lacan but, whether due to haste or something else, never quite does in a way commensurate with Lacan’s theory. For many, the gaze might as well mean “the look” or “point of view.” If we want to use the word “gaze,” we need to realize that the gaze comes from without, so while one may feel the “male gaze” (which is a concept that becomes slippery the second we include any way of speaking about sexuality outside heterosexual relations…), the notion that the camera can represent or present us with “the male gaze” seems to me, well, less than interesting. Why not go somewhere else with Lacan? I don’t think I’ve read an essay talking about how Lacan says we “lay aside the gaze” when we look at images in relief (his example is Holbein’s The Ambassadors). Maybe Todd McGowan has? Mulvey’s essay has a very pointed purpose and takes place at a very particular moment in history and culture, which isn’t to diminish some of the smart things it does (for an essay that’s taken to task for generalization, name one that’s done as much work in terms of affecting popular conceptions about the cinema) but to suggest that Mulvey’s political purposes and her accomplishments therein might be more important than continuing to work on the concepts therein (Mulvey has spent the rest of her career trying to get her name past that essay… her newest book is too good for her to remain primarily known for a 40 year old essay).
To me, most work done on “the male gaze” or “the female gaze” seem to amount to, “Men/Women directors can photograph women/men in a way that we can see that they’re attracted to them, that may objectify them.” That’s why directors who are normally so willfully stupid about sexuality fascinate me. What’s Greg Araki’s gaze? The male gaze? The queer male gaze? The queer male male gaze at a woman? Do we need these categories?
I guess what I mean to say is that “the gaze” has been done to death. Can’t we figure out more interesting ways of talking about the body of the actor?
“And God saw the light, that it was good”
several verses later God becomes “he”
In Le Bonheur, Varda plays with and subverts expectations. Pastels are considered pretty and feminine, but she goes with it, like Akerman in Jeanne Dielman. There aren’t so many US pastel films that immediately come to mind- Edward Scizzorhands had the pastel houses. Everything seems rosy in the garden, but isn’t (actually that applies to Scizzorhands too)- audience surprises give room for thought, about the accepted way of things, social conditioning, relationships, gender behaviour, love and sex.
Re: “The gaze is a tough subject to talk about to begin with because it’s a concept that Mulvey wants to take from Jacques Lacan but, whether due to haste or something else, never quite does in a way commensurate with Lacan’s theory.”
Boy, I wish I had said that. Because it’s the most succinct and accurate analysis I’ve ever seen.
I was roaming the halls of various English departments in that era when you could still find whole faculties who had never called into question the presumed authority of Lacan, Derrida, Foucalt, and sundry lesser demons.
And yet I recall working with a group of fellow students on some project requiring readings
of Mulvey’s work in this area, and all of us, male and female, needed less than an afternoon to recognize that she simply was not persuasive, and in many places she was spectacularly wrong.
It was child’s play to find numerous instances in mainstream Holywood films (of the golden era) where
almost nothing Mulvey contended held up.
That wasn’t surprising with directors Vincente Minnelli or George Cukor,
but I actually used Henry Hathaway’s
NIAGARA as a basis for dismantling Mulvey’s claims.
So yeah, Toddj, in that particular realm, it was a whole lot of Mulvey and not much Lacan.
> What’s Greg Araki’s gaze? The male gaze? The queer male gaze? The queer male male gaze at a woman? Do we need these categories?
> I guess what I mean to say is that “the gaze” has been done to death. Can’t we figure out more interesting ways of talking about the body of the actor?
That’s pretty much exactly what I was trying to articulate.
sandwiches
When a female gazes, is she just adopting an inherently masculine gaze? Could we identify a gaze which is uniquely female? Maybe I’m misunderstanding Mulvey, but I feel strongly against her notion that gaze is always male. Is Claire Denis or Chantal Akerman perpetuating a male gaze? I think not, though they are highly aware of it.
If we can have a male gaze, why not a female gaze, androgynous gaze, asexual gaze, transvestite gaze?
What do you guys think? Any good film recommendations?