Page 20-23. Feminism film theory 1. It. 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. Evidence that feminist film theory not only changes how you see the world, but changes the world itself. "New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and the development of women's studies within the academy. Yahoo Entertainment's Gwynne Watkins makes the argument of why 'The Little Mermaid' is a feminist film. See also. [2], In contrast, film theoreticians in England concerned themselves with critical theory, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism. The study of feminist legal theory is a school thought based on the feminist view that law’s treatment of women in relation to men has not been equal or fair. Camera Obscura is still published to this day by Duke University Press and has moved from just film theory to media studies. Its aim is to adequately represent female subjectivity and female desire on the silver screen. Prominent scholars: Christine Gledhill, Tania Modleski, Annette Kuhn, Jackie Stacey, bell hooks Let us know in the comments if you agree … The inference is that she includes female spectators in that, identifying with the male observer rather than the female object of the gaze. Page 1 of 50 - About essays. Feminist film theory here becomes more focused on context, history, and lived experience rather than the generalizing tendency of psychoanalysis. VDM Verlag Dr. Müller: 2009, 128 p. (German), This page was last edited on 31 January 2021, at 02:41. Like feminist theory in general, feminist film theory has undergone considerable change and revision since its heady days of the early 1970s. Feminist film theory criticizes classical cinema for its stereotyped representation of women. The emergence of feminist film history in the 1970s owed little to theoretical interest and much to political film reception. Feminist theory has been foundational to the establishment and development of film studies as a discipline. [3], 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[4] was influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. as. Some scholars says that roots of feminism … 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). 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. [9], From 1985 onward the Matrixial theory of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha L. Ettinger[10] revolutionized feminist film theory. feminist film theory -and that image has often been cited, rightly, by feminists, Although it often gets reduced to key theoretical—primarily psychoanalytic—analyses of spectatorship from the 1970s and 1980s, it has always been and continues to be a dynamic area with many objects of focus and diverse methodological practices. hooks, bell. Eventually, these ideas gained hold within the American scholarly community in the 1980s. 2. With the advancements in film throughout the years feminist film theory has developed and changed to analyse the current ways of film and also go back to analyse films past. The first is the perspective of the male character and how he perceives the female character. Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by Second Wave Feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. Feminist Film Theory: A Reader: Amazon.it: Thornham, Sue: Libri in altre lingue Selezione delle preferenze relative ai cookie Utilizziamo cookie e altre tecnologie simili per migliorare la tua esperienza di acquisto, per fornire i nostri servizi, per capire come i nostri clienti li utilizzano in modo da poterli migliorare e per visualizzare annunci pubblicitari. Beyond the Gaze: Recent Approaches to Film Feminisms. The emergence of feminist film history in the 1970s owed little to theoretical interest and much to political film reception. [37][38] Feminist film theory of the last twenty years is heavily influenced by the general transformation in the field of aesthetics, ncluding the new options of articulating the gaze, offered by psychoanalytical French feminism,[39]. Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. Rich, B. Ruby. 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. [11] Home Page Research Feminist film theory. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen. Prominent scholars: Christine Gledhill, Tania Modleski, Annette Kuhn, Jackie Stacey, bell hooks [7] 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". The idea of feminist film theory is to study film from multiple feminist theoretical perspectives and not in an unilateral singular manner. 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. 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. Feminism, a belief in the political, economic and cultural equality of women, has roots in the earliest eras of human civilization. Feminist Film Theory documentary by Summer Konechny, Kjersten Gaminek, Brianne Anderson. The... Queer theory. By using our site, you agree to our collection of information through the use of cookies. List of select feminist film theorists and critics. The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and women's studies in the 1960s and 1970s. 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 transgender identification with men as the active viewers of the text. This gave rise to a contradiction: whereas feminist film The relationship between the two female protagonists, one black and the other white, highlights the complex relationship between gender and race, which in turn throws … She argues for a removal of the voyeurism encoded into film by creating distance between the male spectator and the female character. Feminist film theory. It also examined how the process of cinematic production affects how women are represented and reinforces sexism. 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. To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser. Feminist film theoryFeminist view film to be a cultural practiserepresenting myths about women and femininity aswell as men and masculinity. Academia.edu uses cookies to personalize content, tailor ads and improve the user experience. Feminist scholars began taking cues from the new theories arising from these movements to analyzing film. The only way to do so, Mulvey argues, is by destroying the element of voyeurism and "the invisible guest". [21], As of recent years many believe feminist film theory to be a fading area of feminism with the massive amount of coverage currently around media studies and theory. [12] Her concept, from her book, The Matrixial Gaze,[13] 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,[14][15] by female directors, like Chantal Akerman,[16] as well as by male directors, like Pedro Almodovar. The heyday of second-wave feminism, saw the birth of feminist film theory, which became concerned with female representations in the Continue Reading. forthcoming from Oxford University Press, edited by Michael Kelly by Cynthia A. Freeland Note: This html conversion does not include some format conventions such as underlining or italics in titles. [23]:28, 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. Collections Focus July: Feminist Cinema Sophie Mayer, for many years a frequent BFI Reuben Library visitor, has personally selected our display of 40 books to coincide with July 2016’s library event. Documentary and feminist film studies have long been separate or parallel universes that need to converse or collide. Feminist Film Theory Draft for the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Mulvey identifies three "looks" or perspectives that occur in film which, she argues, serve to sexually objectify women. 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. Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by Second Wave Feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. Contemporary film theory syllabi tend to represent feminist film theory as a moment in the past, signified by Laura Mulvey‟s 1975 Screen manifesto, “Visual fPleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Though the piece is itself almost too well-known, students often encounter it out of context (see Merck). 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. Scholars are also taking increasingly global perspectives, responding to postcolonialist criticisms of perceived Anglo- and Eurocentrism in the academy more generally. [4], 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. With the advancements in film throughout the years feminist film theory has developed and changed to analyse the current ways of film and also go back to analyse films past. 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. 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. 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." Over the years, feminist film theory has used psychoanalytic theory to underline these points, emphasising not only that looking is central to cinematic pleasure but that the … Feminist Film Theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from Feminist Theory that was brought about during the second wave of feminism and largely developed by the introduction to Women’s Studies in 1960 and 1970. Feminist film theory is an amalgam of different theoretical frameworks. “In the Name of Feminist Film Criticism. Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz used psychoanalytic ideas in their theoretical accounts of cinema. "Women’s Cinema as Counter Cinema.". References. [27], B. Ruby Rich argues that feminist film theory should shift to look at films in a broader sense. [19] Scholars in recent years have also turned their attention towards women in the silent film industry and their erasure from the history of those films and women's bodies and how they are portrayed in the films. Mulvey's contribution, however, initiated the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Feminism has altered predominant perspectives in a wide range of areas within Western society, ranging from culture to … List of notable feminist film theorists and critics. Additionally the film incorporates aspects of feminist film theory, including notions of the male gaze. xvi. "Visual Pleasure" is one of the first major essays that helped shift the orientation of film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework. Feminist film history is often seen as having emerged as an academic subfield in the mid- to late s, alongside a general “historical turn” by which film scholars came to emphasize archival research and historical contextualiza- tion over high theory and semiotic analysis.1 However, this founding myth con- ceals the profound degree of imbrication between feminist film history and … Introduction In the 1960s and 70s the second wave of feminism and the development of women’s studies influenced the development of feminist film theory. [24], 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. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history and feminist literary criticism. [17] 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. [5], In 1976 the journal Camera Obscura was published by beginning grad students Janet Bergstrom, Sandy Flitterman, Elisabeth Lyon, and Constance Penley to talk about how women where in films but they were excluded in the development of those films or erased from the process. McHugh, Kathleen and Vivian Sobchack. To learn more, view our, Feminist Film Theorists (Routledge Critical Thinkers) pdf, Routledge Critical Thinkers Shohini Chaudhuri Feminist Film Theorists Routledge2006, Pain and pleasures of the look: The female gaze in Malaysian horror film, The Female Spectator: Contexts and Directions. Feminist film theory here becomes more focused on context, history, and lived experience rather than the generalizing tendency of psychoanalysis. a metaphor for feminist film theory's search for an analytical. [1] 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. Analysis generally focused on the meaning within a film's text and the way in which the text constructs a viewing subject. 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. Patricia Erens, ed. 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. Feminist film theory of the last twenty years is heavily influenced by the general transformation in the field of aesthetics, including the new options of articulating the gaze, offered by psychoanalytical French feminism, like Bracha Ettinger's feminine, maternal and matrixial gaze. This anthology charts the history of those debates, bringing together the key, classic essays in feminist film theory. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.”, African-American women's suffrage movement, List of female film and television directors, http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/mulvey-visualpleasure.pdf, "Feminist Film Criticism in the 21st Century", Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, New Review of Film and Television Studies, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Feminist_film_theory&oldid=1003870319, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Bracha L. Ettinger (1999), "Matrixial Gaze and Screen: Other than Phallic and Beyond the Late Lacan." In order to under s tand how feminist film theory has shaped, we must first look at the history of feminism briefly. The third "look" joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience member's perspective of the male character in the film. we do not own any of the clips used in this film. [30] A new version of the gaze was offered in the early 1990s by Bracha Ettinger, who proposed the notion of the "matrixial gaze". The feminist movements focused on combating the roles associated with being a woman and, in turn, lead them to critique how women are represented in media. While Lola Young argues that filmmakers of all races fail to break away from the use to tired stereotypes when depicting black women. Ettinger's notions articulate the links between aesthetics, ethics and trauma. Smelik, Anneke. The idea of feminist film theory is to study film from multiple feminist theoretical perspectives and not in an unilateral singular manner. 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. "[23]:28 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."[23]:31. 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". “Introduction: Recent Approaches to Film Feminisms.”, Johnston, Claire. such, to. 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. [26] 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. Feminist Film Theory Feminist Film Theory. "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. Smelik, Anneke. [23]:28 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,"[23]:28 and as a result contends that in film a woman is the "bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning. framework, which goes beyond the question. Feminist Film Theory 1729 Words | 7 Pages. March is Women’s History Month, the perfect time to dust off your copy of The Feminine Mystique—or hit play any one of these amazing films made for, by, … Feminist film theory is a film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. For Mulvey, it is the presence of the female that defines the patriarchal order of society as well as the male psychology of thought. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. is, of. For the past twenty-five years, cinema has been a vital terrain on which feminist debates about culture, representation, and identity have been fought. This anthology seeks to chart the history of those debates, bringing together the key statements in feminist film theory in Britain and the United States since 1970. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. Laura Mulvey was one of the first to propose a feminist perspective on film analysis and criticism. Feminist Film Theory, generally is about theoretical film criticism that arises from feminist... Feminist Film makers. "And The Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory. Raberger, Ursula: New Queer Oz: Feministische Filmtheorie und weibliche Homosexualiät in zwei Filmen von Samantha Lang. Page 7-8. 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. [29] 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. In: Laura Doyle (ed.). Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. "And The Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory. Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory influenced by Second Wave Feminism and brought about around the 1970s in the United States. As these areas have grown the framework created in feminist film theory have been adapted to fit into analysing other forms of media.[22]. Increased focus has been given to, "disparate feminisms, nationalisms, and media in various locations and across class, racial, and ethnic groups throughout the world". (They see this type ofrepresentation as unreal)Representation and Spectatorship are central toFeminist Theory. For the past twenty-five years, cinema has been a vital terrain on which feminist debates about culture, representation and identity have been fought. The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and women's studies in the 1960s and 1970s. seeing with the mind's eye. [20][21] Jane Gaines's Women's Film Pioneer Project (WFPP), a database of women who worked in the silent-era film industry, has been cited as a major achievement in recognizing pioneering women in the field of silent and non-silent film by scholars such as Rachel Schaff. Twenty-five years ago, at the time of writing, Patricia Erens, in her introduction to Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, wrote that “the rise of feminist film criticism is an outgrowth of the women’s movement, which began in the United States in the late 1960s, of feminist scholarship in a variety of disciplines, and of women’s filmmaking.” [8], Beginning in the early 1980s feminist film theory began to look at film through a more intersectional lens. Criticism. With the advancements in film throughout the years feminist film theory has developed and changed to analyse the current ways of film and also go back to analyse films past. Feminist film history is often seen as having emerged as an academic subfield in the mid- to late 1970s, alongside a general “historical turn” by which film scholars came to emphasize archival research and historical contextualization over high theory and semiotic analysis. Some Film Theory Focuses: Apparatus theory. Feminist film theory, however, like most film theories, has a tendency to be ahistorical. [23], Mulvey's argument is likely influenced by the time period in which she was writing. 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) analyz… The essays in this volume, written by prominent scholars and filmmakers, demonstrate the challenges that feminist perspectives pose for documentary theory, history… 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. of. This theory, dominant in the 1970s, says that ALL movies were made to reflect some reality and... Feminist Film Theory. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. [28], 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. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. pp. Mulvey calls for an eradication of female sexual objectivity, aligning herself with second-wave feminism. [30] 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. Feminist theory is highly influential on film theory and criticism; it investigates how mostly women/femininity and also men/masculinity are represented. [18], Recently, scholars have expanded their work to include analysis of television and digital media. "New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. the male gaze and its voyeurisms. History. The development of feminist film theory and criticism in the United States has been shaped by three major forces, all of which are, like feminist film theory itself, phenomena of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the women's movement, independent filmmaking, and academic film 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. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analyzed and their theoretical underpinnings. 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. Rich goes on to say that because of this feminist theory needs to focus on how film by women are being received. Emily Poole J320 3/9/2018 Final Paper The Other Feminist Film Theory During the mid-20th century, second and third wave feminism swept the nation. Feminist film history is often seen as having emerged as an academic subfield in the mid- to late 1970s, alongside a general “historical turn” by which film scholars came to emphasize archival research and historical contextualization over high theory and semiotic analysis. [25], Claire Johnston put forth the idea that women's cinema can function as "counter cinema." [6], 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. [30] 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".[31].
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