Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera (E. Ann Kaplan)

The avant gardes in Europe and the USA

• Avant Garde refers to new and unusual or experimental ideas, normally within the context of the arts.

• 1976 Peter Wollen attempts to distinguish two main categories of avant gardes which “differ in aesthetic assumption, institutional framework, economic support, and kind of critical backing and historical/cultural origin.”
  • First, “Co-op movement” – confined to the US, involved with the established art world and its values
  • Second, “Political avant garde” – Derived from the works of Godard and Straub-Huillet, barely represented in the US

• Wollen updated his theory of the avant garde in 1981 after realizing that the movement was much more complex than the two tiered division he earlier defined.

• Wollen mentions the difficulty in defining film semiotics with regard to avant garde film
  • first difficulty is in defining concepts that encompass semiotics outside that of the classic Hollywood style
  • second difficulty is in tendencies to look for generalized concepts of film theory instead of addressing the flexible nature of semiotics in film

• (Mis)Representation as a form of oppression
  • exclusion from mainstream history
  • left-activist omission of women’s political issues

• Three broad groups of women’s film categorized by cinematic strategies:
  • Formalist, experimental, avant garde film
    • roots in: French surrealism and impressionism, German expressionism, and Russian formalism
  • Realist political and sociological documentary
    • roots in: American and British documentaries of the 1930s, and by association Kuleshov in Russia, Italian neo-realism, and British Free Cinema movement
  • Avant garde theory (political) film
    • roots in: Brecht, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, French New Wave, Godard, and Straub-Huillet

• These three categories were largely developed by white men and women working in any of the three categories found themselves attempting to redefine the conventions of categories as they are hyperaware of previously established male artistic traditions

• Germaine Dulac and Maya Deren (two feminist filmmakers)
  • Dulac’s work is quiet and poetic whereas Deren’s work is shocking, forceful, and violent
  • Both worked during a time that was uninterested in independent/avant garde film, especially those made by women filmmakers
  • Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Baudet, although not a feminist film, uses surrealist techniques to depict the inner struggles of women in a provincial marriage.
  • Dulac’s work served the purpose of exposing the position of women in patriarchy.
  • Deran, known by Jacquelyn Zita as the “Mother of American experimental film,” made surrealist films which explore female splitting, alienation, jealousies, and nightmares.
  • Daren symbolically looked at the inner psyche of the feminine personality

• Experimental films are a medium for women filmmakers that allows a distancing  from the often oppressive and false representations of women in classical Hollywood.

• Women filmmakers have used experimental film as an “outlet for their inner experiences, sensations, feelings, [and] thoughts.”

• Experimental form allows for the expression of inner emotional discourse, where as documentary form focuses more on women’s roles in a societal context

• Lesbian filmmakers use avant garde style to avoid male co-optation of images as pornographic. However, lesbian filmmakers are often drawn toward images of lesbian sexuality because it challenges the dominating nature of patriarchal society by acknowledging male tendencies to co-opt sexual images as pornographic because of an Oedipal regression.

Questions:

Can films about female bonding can lead to a less objectifiable representation of female characters in cinema? Or is the representation of women in films inherently co-opted by the assertion that in a patriarchal society female sexuality is, at least for male viewers, representative of an Oedipal regression?

What advantages does the avant garde bring to women filmmakers? What disadvantages do Hollywood, European, or other styles of film bring to women filmmakers? Do these limitations account for female filmmakers desire to stray from classic styles as to search for an independent definition of film semiotics?

The ending of the latest of episode of How to Get Away With Murder shows Viola Davis taking off her wig and makeup after receiving some very shocking news.  It is such a powerful moment. The article associated with the clip compared the scene to lyrics in Beyonce’s song Flawless: “When you’re alone all by yourself/And you’re lying in your bed/Reflection stares right into you/Are you happy with yourself?/You stripped away the masquerade/The illusion has been changed/Are you happy with yourself?”

Definitely watch the clip because it is great, but the article and the end of the clip will spoil the plot for you, if that is a problem for anyone.

http://hellobeautiful.com/2014/10/17/viola-davis-takes-off-wig-how-to-get-away-with-murder/

So I’m waiting to talk about filming desire with the rest of the class before I post about it because if I’m being 100% honest it made me extremely uncomfortable. I’m curious to see what other’s reactions were. However, I do have something to share. I know I talked the other week about yoga pants being banned in high schools, but I came across this article, and it’s even better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/15/all-the-items-of-clothing_n_5989098.html

I think we got our answer after watching “Filming Desire” in class.  Several of the filmmakers that were interviewed discussed the difficulty of shooting a woman’s sexuality without exploiting it for the male character’s pleasure.  One of the filmmakers stated that all female film directors had to reinvent how to make a film because all of the usual film tropes have been created by men and many objectify and insult women.  They said creating a feminist love scene was one of the most difficult parts of making the film, more difficult then any scenes with action sequences or large groups of people.  These filmmakers said they wanted to do their best to not objectify their female characters, given that many women on screen are objectified before they even begin speaking.

Nonetheless, it does appear that a feminist sex scene is possible.  It is possible to show the woman getting just as much respect and pleasure from the sexual act as the man.  Many filmmakers choose to do this by not explicitly showing the sexual act.  They will never show the naked body of a woman and the sex is implied or talked about in a voice over.  If a naked body is shown it is shown in its entirety, never cut up into segments.  This is a way around the inherent objectification that exists in many viewers that cannot be prevented by the filmmaker.  This is a reason shooting lesbian sex scenes or even romantic scenes between two women is difficult.  As the filmmakers in the documentary and as Kaplan writes about in “The Avant Gardes in Europe and the US” any relationship between two women is seen as pornographic and can be objectified even more than when it is a man and a woman together.  Thus although the feminist sex scene is possible, it is only possible when considering and working around the inherent opinions of the viewer.

In the film we watched last class, that touched on the filming of intimate love scenes, it was really great seeing so many interviews featuring female, film experts. I was very intrigued by their input on many of the topics that have been coming up in class. I also think the article “Avant Gardes in Europe and the USA” ties into the film because it discusses the tactics of  feminist filmmaking and where it is headed. Filmmakers Sally Potter and Lea Pool talked about similar things – mainly how the majority of desire comes from the imagination (making it difficult to depict on screen). If the filmmaker has an idea of what he or she wants his characters to be thinking/feeling in an intimate scene, that doesn’t necessarily mean that viewers will infer this information. Kaplan’s article discusses how it’s important to present new images of women that belie those that the commercial cinema constructs out of its patriarchal position.

“This often involves trying to represent relationships that are not constructed by the dominant order,” says Kaplan. My favorite part of the film was an interview with one of the female filmmakers whose name I can’t remember (in my eyes she resembled Susan Sarandon, if that helps). She talks about how feminists have been enraged by the objectification of women in the history of filmmaking. However, she says: “I’ve never had a problem with this. I think it’s natural, while being intimate, to view the other as an object of desire. I have a problem with the obvious fear of filming male genitals that has always been present.” The problem lies in the fact that males have not been depicted as objects of desire – which they obviously are seeing as half of the people on this earth are attracted to men…

This was the argument in the film that struck me the most because I completely agree with it. There has always been a huge stigma against shooting male genitals, while the erotic areas of a women’s body have always been cut up and exploited. Equalizing this double standard could be a great stride in feminist filmmaking. It is the shooting of men that also needs work.

I really appreciated this article because for once it put the focus not on what women can change and do differently, but what America’s society today can change in regards to the way we view mothers in the professional world. Slaughter is a successful working woman and mother who points out that the idea of women being able to have a satisfying amount of time with their children in addition to a high-powered career is unrealistic (particularly trying to do both at the same time). However, Slaughter emphasizes that this is not something the mothers are doing wrong, but is rather a problem within the professional world and how it views female parents.

One of my favorite moments in the article was when Slaughter said: “Whenever I am introduced at a lecture or other speaking engagement, I insist that the person introducing me mention that I have two sons. It seems odd to me to list degrees, awards, positions, and interests and not include the dimension of my life that is the most important to me – and takes an enormous amount of my time.” Slaughter commented on how genuinely sad it is that working women feel the need to suppress their maternal circumstances while on the job, and act like their situation has no effect on them whatsoever while at work. This is a problem in our working society.

I agree with Slaughter in the sense that the “family” discussion needs to be worked into the mix more during professional conversation. She brought up a female principal who continued to reference her children and end meetings early to get back to her family. Although many thought the principal was demeaning herself and making her co-workers see her in a less-serious light, it was in fact a deliberate choice. Her point was that reasonable compromises can start to be made for working mothers if the professional atmosphere becomes slightly more welcoming and understanding on the topic.

Women who want to be mothers these days are faced with three choices: either choose between the career and motherhood, become a mother while settling for a less demanding job, or try to juggle an extremely high-maitenance position with caring for your children. Slaughter points out that none of these options, at least for women who desire to be mothers, are very appealing. The fourth option could benefit everyone: changing the values of society today and creating a society that puts professional and personal choices on the same level.

So below is a link to an article examining what men and women look at when they look at various advertisements. Some of the data is broken down by gender others aren’t but this kind of data explains the differences (when they exist) between genders. It’s  a fairly quick read and the data is easy to interpret.

The results are rather shocking however, While you’d expect men to ogle a women’s breasts in an ad the opposite is true, men look more at faces while women take in the body as a whole. Except the opposite is true when looking at male models, men will look at the body, women at faces.

http://www.businessinsider.com/eye-tracking-heatmaps-2014-7

Let me start off by saying that I had a very happy childhood and for  all intents and purposes I never really wanted for anything.

However given our discussion of Slaughter’s piece today I feel it necessary to bring up that my mother is a politician. In addition to a Politician she is an engineer.  for some background information my mother graduated from Lafayette in 1981,  as one of the first female metallurgical engineers, she worked after college at Alcoa in upstate new york overseeing aluminum recycling. For a time she made more money than my Father when that changed she stopped working at Alcoa. Fast forward a few years and some of my first memories are of my mother working as a realtor.

Once again fast forward a few years and my Mother became involved in politics first on the Bernards township environmental commission, then on the planning board, the Township committee and finally she was appointed Mayor in 2013.  Given the discussion today of Women, particularly in the political sector giving up either their families or their jobs I feel this anecdote is particularly relevant. I have never once heard my mother complain about how she was treated in any of her jobs simply because she was a women, she did mention of course that she was always in a minority but she never once expressed that she felt in any way oppressed or disadvantaged because of her gender or her choice to have a family.

http://www.bernards.org/township_committee/tc_gaziano.aspx

I found this article just published today on mic.com, titled “Who Has the Right to Tell the Stories of Marginalized People?”

It was a great read, so here’s the link: http://mic.com/articles/101230/who-has-the-right-to-tell-the-stories-of-marginalized-americans

This was so appropriate for our class and multiple conversations we’ve been having in class the past few weeks. It touches on our discussion on the criticism surrounding The Help and what it did (or rather, did not) include and why or how that matters, to issues of responsible film making and the lengths to which we can or ought to go when producing a narrative. It gets at the ways in which Brandon Teena’s story was told and retold through different news stories about his “betrayal” versus the documentary several people posted about versus Peirce’s portrayal. Even what we were talking about today, the significance of casting actors in opposite gender roles in Orlando, and the inclusion of women with experience as mothers in leadership positions in the hopes of changing policy to enact social change (think Sheryl Sandberg’s parking space example).

I haven’t watched the Amazon series the article talks about, but I have seen some of the episodes of Orange is the New Black and have heard much of the celebration of Laverne Cox and the importance of her inclusion in the show and the ways in which the producers have authentically told her character’s story (like the article mentions, for example, using Laverne’s twin brother to play her character’s pre-transition self).

I would love to hear people’s thoughts about either series, if they’ve watched them, or just general thoughts about this topic!

Janet Wolff

Can there even be feminine writing?

…Questioning, due to the patriarchal culture and the marginalization of women’s experience, if it is even possible for women to articulate their suppression by using new aesthetic strategies

The idea of “Womens sentence”:

-Literary forms can be changed to accomadte and express womens experience

-This has been establishished in some areas of feminist criticism

As an example of this development of rediscovered work, she talks about Julia Kristeva, and her analysis called, the revolution in poetic language”:

Her analysis talks about certain texts from the late 19^th century that potentially subvert the patriarchal order by writing from the semiotic chora ( which is the earliest stage in your psychosexual development (0-6 months) where you are dominated by a chaotic mix of perceptions, feelings, and needs. Kristeva tries to examine the origins of a type of writing that gets away from the boundaries of the predominating male-controlled culture

-She then talks about feminine writing and how it has been extended to the visual arts.. “the idea that women can write, paint and produce culture”

In order to know what exactly women’s art is, We need to know about ideas of womens knowledge

-She then discusses the recent work on (women and science) and women and philosophy to full understand the idea of womens knowledge

-she talks about how a male dominated culture caused it to be fifteen or more years of feminist work in literary and art criticism for womens voice to be raised in culture because of these three ways:

1) the institutions and ideologies of production and reception

-Why the history of art is mostly a history of mens work

2) representation

-The way women have been depicted in literature in painting by stereotypes, or how the “woman” is constructed in representation such as the impossibility of a feminist heroine, a subversive plot, or a female body without the connotations and meaning of a male dominated system of representation and viewing

3) formal and textual characteristics

-The immasculation of the reader and the need for women to take on the point of view of men

She paraphrases Elaine Showalter, a literary critic, who said that the primary mission for feminist criticism is the identification of the key characteristics of women’s writing, she called this gynocritics.

Showalter uses the concept of the “wild zone” which talks about the experiences of men and women overlap but the dominant culture describes them. The wild zone is all of the experiences that women had that are excluded from articulating or sharing this information

-The issue with the wild zone is that there is no way that women can talk about their oppression and women’s writing is the embodiment of social, cultural and literary heritage of the silenced women and the dominant men

-The assumption that women are excluded from culture

-culture and knowledge are male

Institutional Organization of knowledge

-Mirrors and produces the gender biases and inequalities

-Women have always been secondary or marginal to the public sphere, they are secondary in knowledge

She concludes by saying that development of disciplines, growth of professions and the separation of work and home, and linguistics (such as the tag questions of “isn’t it? Or didn’t they? Which shows an apprehension less common in males. Men are said to speak more and interrupt more often) had produced partial and male knowledge`

1)From the movies we watched in class, can you think of an example where you saw partial and male knowledge being produced linguistically?

2) If the wild zone was represented in a movie how do you think it would look?

3) Based on the three ideas of institutions of production and reception, representation , and formal and textual characteristics, what do you think Wolffs position would be on Orlando’s opinion of other women?