Feminist film theory is a theoretical film
criticism derived from feminist politics and
feminist theory.
Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis,
regarding the film elements analyzed and their
theoretical underpinnings.
== History ==
The development of feminist film theory was
influenced by second wave feminism and women's
studies in the 1960s and 1970s.
Initially in the United States in the early
1970s feminist film theory was generally based
on sociological theory and focused on the
function of female characters in film narratives
or genres.
Feminist film theory, such as Marjorie Rosen’s
Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American
Dream (1973) and Molly Haskell’s From Reverence
to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies
(1974) analyze the ways in which women are
portrayed in film, and how this relates to
a broader historical context.
Additionally, feminist critiques also examine
common stereotypes depicted in film, the extent
to which the women were shown as active or
passive, and the amount of screen time given
to women.In contrast, film theoreticians in
England concerned themselves with critical
theory, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism.
Eventually, these ideas gained hold within
the American scholarly community in the 1980's.
Analysis generally focused on the meaning
within a film's text and the way in which
the text constructs a viewing subject.
It also examined how the process of cinematic
production affects how women are represented
and reinforces sexism.British feminist film
theorist, Laura Mulvey, best known for her
essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema",
written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the
influential British film theory journal, Screen
was influenced by the theories of Sigmund
Freud and Jacques Lacan.
"Visual Pleasure" is one of the first major
essays that helped shift the orientation of
film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework.
Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis
Baudry and Christian Metz used psychoanalytic
ideas in their theoretical accounts of cinema.
Mulvey's contribution, however, initiated
the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis
and feminism.Other key influences come from
Metz's essay The Imaginary Signifier, "Identification,
Mirror," where he argues that viewing film
is only possible through scopophilia (pleasure
from looking, related to voyeurism), which
is best exemplified in silent film.
Also, according to Cynthia A. Freeland in
"Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films," feminist
studies of horror films have focused on psychodynamics
where the chief interest is "on viewers' motives
and interests in watching horror films".Beginning
in the early 1980s feminist film theory began
to look at film through a more intersectional
lens.
The film journal Jump Cut published a special
issue about titled "Lesbians and Film" in
1981 which examined the lack of lesbian identities
in film.
Jane Gaines's essay "White Privilege and Looking
Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film
Theory" examined the erasure of black women
in cinema by white male filmmakers.
While Lola Young argues that filmmakers of
all races fail to break away from the use
to tired stereotypes when depicting black
women.
Other theorists who wrote about feminist film
theory and race include bell hooks and Michele
Wallace.From the 1990 onward the Matrixial
theory of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha
L. Ettinger revolutionized feminist film theory.,
Her concept The Matrixial Gaze, that has established
a feminine gaze and has articulated its differences
from the phallic gaze and its relation to
feminine as well as maternal specificities
and potentialities of "coemergence", offering
a critique of Sigmund Freud's and Jacques
Lacan's psychoanalysis, is extensively used
in analysis of films.
by female directors, like Chantal Akerman,
as well as by male directors, like Pedro Almodovar.
The matrixial gaze offers the female the position
of a subject, not of an object, of the gaze,
while deconstructing the structure of the
subject itself, and offers border-time, border-space
and a possibility for compassion and witnessing.
Ettinger's notions articulate the links between
aesthetics, ethics and trauma.Recently, scholars
have expanded their work to include analysis
of television and digital media.
Additionally, they have begun to explore notions
of difference, engaging in dialogue about
the differences among women (part of movement
away from essentialism in feminist work more
generally), the various methodologies and
perspectives contained under the umbrella
of feminist film theory, and the multiplicity
of methods and intended effects that influence
the development of films.
Scholars are also taking increasingly global
perspectives, responding to postcolonialist
criticisms of perceived Anglo- and Eurocentrism
in the academy more generally.
Increased focus has been given to, "disparate
feminisms, nationalisms, and media in various
locations and across class, racial, and ethnic
groups throughout the world".
== Key themes ==
=== The gaze and the female spectator ===
Considering the way that films are put together,
many feminist film critics have pointed to
what they argue is the "male gaze" that predominates
classical Hollywood filmmaking.
Budd Boetticher summarizes the view:
"What counts is what the heroine provokes,
or rather what she represents.
She is the one, or rather the love or fear
she inspires in the hero, or else the concern
he feels for her, who makes him act the way
he does.
In herself, the woman has not the slightest
importance."Laura Mulvey expands on this conception
to argue that in cinema, women are typically
depicted in a passive role that provides visual
pleasure through scopophilia, and identification
with the on-screen male actor.
She asserts: "In their traditional exhibitionist
role women are simultaneously looked at and
displayed, with their appearance coded for
strong visual and erotic impact so that they
can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness,"
and as a result contends that in film a woman
is the "bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning."
Mulvey argues that the psychoanalytic theory
of Jacques Lacan is the key to understanding
how film creates such a space for female sexual
objectification and exploitation through the
combination of the patriarchal order of society,
and 'looking' in itself as a pleasurable act
of scopophilia, as "the cinema satisfies a
primordial wish for pleasurable looking."While
Laura Mulvey's paper has a particular place
in the feminist film theory, it is important
to note that her ideas regarding ways of watching
the cinema (from the voyeuristic element to
the feelings of identification) are important
to some feminist film theorists in terms of
defining spectatorship from the psychoanalytical
viewpoint.
Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives
that occur in film which, she argues, serve
to sexually objectify women.
The first is the perspective of the male character
and how he perceives the female character.
The second is the perspective of the spectator
as they see the female character on screen.
The third "look" joins the first two looks
together: it is the male audience member's
perspective of the male character in the film.
This third perspective allows the male audience
to take the female character as his own personal
sex object because he can relate himself,
through looking, to the male character in
the film.In the paper, Mulvey calls for a
destruction of modern film structure as the
only way to free women from their sexual objectification
in film.
She argues for a removal of the voyeurism
encoded into film by creating distance between
the male spectator and the female character.
The only way to do so, Mulvey argues, is by
destroying the element of voyeurism and "the
invisible guest".
Mulvey also asserts that the dominance men
embody is only so because women exist, as
without a woman for comparison, a man and
his supremacy as the controller of visual
pleasure are insignificant.
For Mulvey, it is the presence of the female
that defines the patriarchal order of society
as well as the male psychology of thought.Mulvey's
argument is likely influenced by the time
period in which she was writing.
"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" was
composed during the period of second-wave
feminism, which was concerned with achieving
equality for women in the workplace, and with
exploring the psychological implications of
sexual stereotypes.
Mulvey calls for an eradication of female
sexual objectivity, aligning herself with
second-wave feminism.
She argues that in order for women to be equally
represented in the workplace, women must be
portrayed as men are: as lacking sexual objectification.Mulvey
proposes in her notes to the Criterion Collection
DVD of Michael Powell's controversial film,
Peeping Tom (a film about a homicidal voyeur
who films the deaths of his victims), that
the cinema spectator’s own voyeurism is
made shockingly obvious and even more shockingly,
the spectator identifies with the perverted
protagonist.
The inference is that she includes female
spectators in that, identifying with the male
observer rather than the female object of
the gaze.
=== Realism and counter cinema ===
The early work of Marjorie Rosen and Molly
Haskell on the representation of women in
film was part of a movement to depict women
more realistically, both in documentaries
and narrative cinema.
The growing female presence in the film industry
was seen as a positive step toward realizing
this goal, by drawing attention to feminist
issues and putting forth an alternative, true-to-life
view of women.
However, Rosen and Haskell argue that these
images are still mediated by the same factors
as traditional film, such as the "moving camera,
composition, editing, lighting, and all varieties
of sound."
While acknowledging the value in inserting
positive representations of women in film,
some critics asserted that real change would
only come about from reconsidering the role
of film in society, often from a semiotic
point of view.Claire Johnston put forth the
idea that women's cinema can function as "counter
cinema."
Through consciousness of the means of production
and opposition of sexist ideologies, films
made by women have the potential to posit
an alternative to traditional Hollywood films.
Initially, the attempt to show "real" women
was praised, eventually critics such as Eileen
McGarry claimed that the "real" women being
shown on screen were still just contrived
depictions.
In reaction to this article, many women filmmakers
integrated "alternative forms and experimental
techniques" to "encourage audiences to critique
the seemingly transparent images on the screen
and to question the manipulative techniques
of filming and editing".
=== Additional theories ===
B. Ruby Rich argues that feminist film theory
should shift to look at films in a broader
sense.
Rich's essay In the Name of Feminist Film
Criticism claims that films by women often
receive praise for certain elements, while
feminist undertones are ignored.
Rich goes on to say that because of this feminist
theory needs to focus on how film by women
are being received.Coming from a black feminist
perspective, American scholar, Bell Hooks,
put forth the notion of the “oppositional
gaze,” encouraging black women not to accept
stereotypical representations in film, but
rather actively critique them.
The “oppositional gaze” is a response
to Mulvey's visual pleasure and states that
just as women do not identify with female
characters that are not "real," women of color
should respond similarly to the one denominational
caricatures of black women.
Janet Bergstrom’s article “Enunciation
and Sexual Difference” (1979) uses Sigmund
Freud’s ideas of bisexual responses, arguing
that women are capable of identifying with
male characters and men with women characters,
either successively or simultaneously.
Miriam Hansen, in "Pleasure, Ambivalence,
Identification: Valentino and Female Spectatorship"
(1984) put forth the idea that women are also
able to view male characters as erotic objects
of desire.
In "The Master's Dollhouse: Rear Window,"
Tania Modleski argues that Hitchcock's film,
Rear Window, is an example of the power of
male gazer and the position of the female
as a prisoner of the "master's dollhouse".Carol
Clover, in her popular and influential book,
"Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the
Modern Horror Film" (Princeton University
Press, 1992), argues that young male viewers
of the Horror Genre (young males being the
primary demographic) are quite prepared to
identify with the female-in-jeopardy, a key
component of the horror narrative, and to
identify on an unexpectedly profound level.
Clover further argues that the "Final Girl"
in the psychosexual subgenre of exploitation
horror invariably triumphs through her own
resourcefulness, and is not by any means a
passive, or inevitable, victim.
Laura Mulvey, in response to these and other
criticisms, revisited the topic in "Afterthoughts
on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'
inspired by Duel in the Sun" (1981).
In addressing the heterosexual female spectator,
she revised her stance to argue that women
can take two possible roles in relation to
film: a masochistic identification with the
female object of desire that is ultimately
self-defeating or a transsexual identification
with men as the active viewers of the text.
A new version of the gaze was offered in the
early 1990s by Bracha Ettinger, who proposed
the notion of the "matrixial gaze".
== List of notable feminist film theorists
and critics ==
Lola Young
== See also ==
Bechdel test
Cinesexuality
Film theory
List of female film and television directors
List of lesbian filmmakers
List of LGBT films directed by women
Misogyny in horror films
Women's cinema
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Sue Thornham (ed.), Feminist Film Theory.
A Reader, Edinburgh University Press 1999
Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism,
edited by Diane Carson, Janice R. Welsch,
Linda Dittmar, University of Minnesota Press
1994
Kjell R. Soleim (ed.), Fatal Women.
Journal of the Center for Women's and Gender
Research, Bergen Univ., Vol. 11: 115–128,
1999.
Bracha L. Ettinger (1999), "Matrixial Gaze
and Screen: Other than Phallic and Beyond
the Late Lacan."
In: Laura Doyle (ed.) Bodies of Resistance.
Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University
Press, 2001.
Beyond the Gaze: Recent Approaches to Film
Feminisms.
Signs Vol. 30, no.
1 (Autumn 2004).
Mulvey, Laura (Autumn 1975).
"Visual pleasure and narrative cinema".
Screen.
Oxford Journals.
16 (3): 6–18.
doi:10.1093/screen/16.3.6.
Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon.
Routledge, London & N.Y., 1999.
Griselda Pollock (ed.), Psychoanalysis and
the Image.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
Raberger, Ursula: New Queer Oz: Feministische
Filmtheorie und weibliche Homosexualiät in
zwei Filmen von Samantha Lang.
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller: 2009, 128 p. (German)
