Last blog. Yea!!!

The three theories on the final that I struggle with is Action Women, Excitable speech and sexual innuendo, and Spectatorship.  Though I can write something about them, I really don’t feel as strong as I do about the others.

In Action Women I am pretty sure I get the fact that women who are dominate and top boyish.  But there is an excuse in the narrative or storyline to make her weak.  In Strange Days there is a strong visual image of Mace wearing a dress.  She is weaker wearing a dress, though she tries to be hard as rocks.   As a viewer you see her get beat up, cry, hurt, and kiss a man in a dress.

Excitable speech, really is kiss a man in a dress.

Excitable speech really is understood, but I have not read as much as I would like to.  I understand  that speech is trained into us as being plan.  I used an example of Real women have curve as she using the F word, but really what this article is about is what is not said.  In the Virgin Suicides, there is a sexual tension.  There is an understood perversion being understood by the audience.  There is a part where a group of boys watch Lux and a boy have sex on the rooftop.  One of the boys has a telescope and says they are finished.  And the boys ask “is that it”?  Nobody looks at the telescope after that.

Spectatorship is hard for me to relate to women film alone.  It is such a broad concept.   Really what I get out is how a woman can relate to a mainstream film to a film that expects men to watch.  In double indemnity, there is very little room for a woman to relate to anything, yet there can be negotiation made by the female viewer to the other woman, though it is a projection of a man fantasy, there can be pride made about manipulating the man.

Strange days

Before I start I just want to say that this is one of the best movies, in my opinion that describes Mulvey and the pleasure in viewing.

In Tasker’s Action Women there explanation about how women protagonist in action movies are “active/masculinised”.   Often situated within the Oedipal narrative of the tomboy, this body ‘undermines patriarchal gender boundaries that separate the sexes’(72).  Angela Bassett’s character Mace is a tomboy.  Not a woman, but replicated man.  Though she is not the main character she is put there in the narrative to help out Lenny Nero.  There is a friendship between them. Not lovers! They don’t become lovers until the end when Angela Bassett is wearing a dress and is weak. It is also interesting to note that when she is in the dress she is open to danger.  She is the is beat up by cops and it almost looks like a gang rape scene.  This sadistic scene could not take place if were dressed like a tom boy.   “Against this background, it is interesting to note that whilst sole female protagonists remain relatively rare, central male/female partnership are increasingly common in American action films”(74).  He helped him out in the movie, then the tables turn and the partnership becomes something else.   He is her knight when he try to protect her from the bullet.

In Rich’s film categories I would pick this film as a Projectile.  I really think this is a movie of a man trying to understand a woman.  “These are male fantasies of women-men’s projection of themselves and their fears onto female characters”(41).  The whole idea of the squid is being that person: feeling, tasting, thinking, and so forth.  So being a woman is possible, but this is a more subtle idea, what is more obvious in this movie is Mace.  She is a woman, but she is one with balls. She is strong, yet she falls apart at the end, and shows a weak part.  What is neat about this character is that Lenny is weaker than Mace.  She in a way takes away his manhood by calling him a “pussy”.  It is although that this very sexist term is used in an ironic way, but is also used to redefine “pussy”.  But this hard core woman is a fantasy and “wishful thinking”(40), because there is still a strong weakness to her being a woman.  She has to wear a dress to a party and she has needs a man in the narrative. Why?  This is a man projection.

Research Report

Here is my research paper!!!

Sofia Coppola

Born in Flames

This is an attachment to my blog!

Born in Flames.doc

Real Women have Curves

Real Women have Curves

This movie was very entertaining and it is easy to see feminism. First of all I believe that this movie is a product of the third wave feminism. The overall plot of this movie is a coming of age film of a Mexican girl growing up to be a woman. Thus, this is a third wave because it is about self discovery and pride. In this wave, it is more than discovering you are a woman, but everything that is part of your life and what type of woman you are. Hence economic, social status, culture, and in this case weight play a factor in being a woman. There is an individualist wave, yet I believe this individual attitude does affect the other people around them and thus they become individuals and a group together. This in the film is obvious in the scene that the Ana is working in the factory and she takes off her shirt because it is hot. Her mom is embarrassed and asks Anna if she is ashamed. Ana asks “why, we have the same parts”? Then all the other women in the factor share there stretch marks and fat. There is a sense of individual pride, but also a community in it. They feel good about themselves and not self conscious.

In the feminist film categories created by B. Ruby Rich I would put this under Validative because there is a strong woman view. “One of feminist filmmaking’s greatest contributions is the body of films about women’s lives, political struggles, organizing and so on”(37). In addition this is a truth shown in film and is suppose to teach someone. Sure, this is a entraining film and there is humor, but not irony, but one that is true in a cultural. There is a feminist view. There is a peek into a frustrated girl becoming a woman and like Dance Girl Dance there is sense of pride and discovery. The entertainment part is to prove a point. There is escapism. A great example is when the women in the factory are working in their bra and underwear. But the point in that scene is not to be ashamed of who you are. I think looking at validative is important look beyond a documentary style.

In Angela Failler, “Excitable Speech: Judith Bulter, Mea West and Sexual Innuendo” gives an insight to speech. As wonderfully as a fundamental of language “Essentially, recongnition by others through verbal address, legitimates our participation in discourse as agents of speech. We are not, however, “free agents,” so to speak; because we are vulnerable in another sense to the regulatory norms and conventions of language” (51). Where she is going with this is that harsh language and sexual speech is shocking and can offend; however, it can be used as a powerful tool. In this movie Anna says that she wants to lose weight but not losing weight tells the world “F@#$ you”. (I want to be PC, but do you see the irony in me noting spelling out the F-word). The point is given strongly and forcing a point. We may be offending, but we listen more as an audience. I am not sure, if I consider this mainstream film.

Though Laura Mulvey core analysis is based off mainstream film, she does talk about another form. “ The alternative cinema provides a space for a cinema to be born which is radical in both a political and an aesthetic sense and challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film”(Mulvey). In a way there is a political sense to the film; I am putting the assumption that anything of a feminist feel or a woman having pride is political. Though like any film there is voyeurism and a real life feel to, but there the viewer is not a man nor is a woman the object. Ana wanted sex (so did the young man), but she is the one who did not want to keep in touch (even though he was in love with her). In a way her boyfriend can be an object. It can be seen that the viewer is a mother or a daughter. There is a relationship that is shown by entertainment (humor and drama).

Notes and Rough Draft Based on Heck-Rabi and Acker Traits. Heck Rabi Considered attractive- Very much so. She is young and pretty. She looks like a model and has probably modeled before> (Do research on that). Dynamic-Her movies are critically praised for being original. Her worked it very mind capturing and there is a unique version in The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. Energetic- Based off a documentary found in The Virgin Suicides DVD there is a definite energy found in her directing as well as praise from the cast and crew. “Most have had training in the art”—Her father is Francis Ford Coppola “Most are married and work with collaboration with men”—she was married to Spike Jonze who is another famous director. Her father also is a big help in her movies, being producer in The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. Acker 1. “From very early on these women see the world in a unique way. They often see themselves as outsiders.”- Though not seen through her childhood necessary, but through her movies there are unique and eye in her work. And since she has written her work, it can be safe to say that she is in these pictures. Both The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation seem to share the some of the same themes: isolation and misunderstanding. 2. “They are born in families that range from middle-class to well-to-do, and are generally highly educated. They are given the opportunity to pursue eclectic, wide-ranging interests…”—this is very much true for Sofia Coppola considering her father is Francis Ford Coppola—who is the diretor most famous for the Godfather. 3. “Most would consider themselves workaholics”. It is not enough, it seems, to be a director, in all three of her movies, Marie Anntorintee being her latest film she has written the screenplay. As a side note, her being both writer and director means that her vision of the story can come alive on screen. It also means that any female anynalis can be on both her image and narrative of her movies. 4. “Most have a tremendous drive, and fell that the necessity to make films is a ‘mission’”. It is hard to say what her films are trying to do, except to produce art; however she is a success as a director in general. She being a woman makes it political. But her mission, it seems is to put her vision on screen. 5. “The majority of women in the directoring category did not have children.” (look up) 6. “Many in the early period came to sad or tragic endings. Divorces and nervous breakdowns were particularly prevalent in many of the careers. (She is still young, but she had a divorce). Look up to see any bad problems. 7. Many, especially from the early group, don’t tend to think of themselves as “women” in their professions. Their gender, as women, never entered their consciousness. (Find something to prove this. Rough Draft Starting with Waves of Feminism! Sofia Coppola is an obvious third wave feminist in almost all acspects of third wave feminist. Through her films especially it is easy to see how this is true. In The Virgin Suicides, there is a scene where a group of boys are prying into a young woman’s diary who has committed suicide. As they are reading through it the narrator says that they knew what it was like to be a girl. Thus, an idea found in the third wave is that gender can be learned. Though the boys were not girls, but they felt like it. This idea is feminist, but a personal and internal journey that can lived or at least understood by boys. Lost in Translation serves as another movie that is internal put not only sympathy, but insight to the female character. It is by Sofia Coppola’s insight and commentary that she brings to her films makes her a third wave feminist. It is difficult alone to put Coppola’s films into any specific category nonetheless put her into a feminist film type. In an article by B. Ruby Rich, feminist films are put into six categories. It is safe to assume that since Coppola’s is a woman that her films will have some kind of feminism. This may not be true for all woman directors, but it is safe to come to take conclusion with Coppola, because her films are so different. What is unique and strange about her films is how the women in her movies. For The Virgin Suicides, there is a suggested tragedy suggested by just reading the title. It was not until I watched the movie that I realized that it was not a tragedy or a melodrama, but a simply a movie observing something. I did not feel suggested to cry or feel sympathy for the girls, but was fascinated and wondered on how a group of girls could have committed suicide. This film could be a validative that is “ the body of films about women’s lives, political struggles, organizing, and so forth” (37). This movie is about 5 sister who all commit suicide. The story is based off their struggles and loneliness and makes somewhat of a political statement about suicide, though it is very low key. But in the movie there is no sense of suicide being right or wrong. I, however, argue that this is movie is not validative because the movie is narrated by a man. (More an the subject, when I talk about Mulvey and Visual Pleasure). Because a man is a narrator, the story is a male looking into these young women’s world. Any insight into a woman’s character made by a man is not validative. How can you a woman fully validate or relate to another woman character seen through a man? This movie could be projectile “These are male fantasies of women—men’s projections of themselves and their fears onto female characters. The name ‘projectile’ identifies these films’ true nature and crates an added awareness of the destructive impact of male illusions on the female audience” (41). This may be true on the surface. It is as though the girls in the movie are struggling with the image that boys in general are projecting on to them. How, I asked myself could this be projective, if the boys were fascinated by the girls struggling? Is this a man’s fantasy to be lost and confused by seeing boys lost and confusing seeing girls who are also lost and confused? I think this is a woman’s view or projectile of a man’s view being lost and confused, because that is all a man can be by trying to understand the opposite sex. This point is made clear when (find exact quotes). Though the novel, which the movie was based on, was written by a man, Jeffrey Eugenides, Soffia Coppola wrote the screen play. Hence, because it was written by a woman there was probably a lot of insight put into the screenplay that only a woman could have made, even in if it was subconscious. Obvious, though is that this movie is reconstructive. Thus, this movie really does not have a form or category expect for the fact that The Virgin Suicides is a feminist film, but a film that is making it’s own genre or form. “By reconstructing forms in a constructive manner, these films build bridges between the needs of women and the goals of art” (39). It seems in this films case, though, that reconstruction is obvious not through mainstream genres (because that argument be easily made), but though Rich’s feminist categories. Lost in Translation, Coppola’s second full length film, I argue also reconstructive. The genre that Lost in Translation is put into by The Internet Movie Database is put under “Comedy / Drama / Romance”( IMDb). First of all this displays how broad the movie is. As a comedy the humor does not seem to be sexist, though it is very racial. As a drama, there does not seem to be displayed in a classic form. The drama from both Bob’s and Charlotte’s character is internal. Bob seems to be going through a mid life crisis, and at the down slope of his career as an actor, he is in Japan promoting a liquor. He seems depressed, lonely, and confused in a big city. Charlotte seems to be suffering the same, even though she is with her husband. She is alone too. But the character’s both suffering the same way. There is an attraction between them, hence the romance. What the film does is creates insight and I found it the strongest through Charlotte’s character. Says, critic Alan Dale “If Coppola connects with any aspect of the story it’s with Charlotte’s muted but welling feelings as she sits on the sill of her window looking out at the city, or makes a phone call to a woman who fails to pick up on how upset she is, or is unable to convey to her husband how phony and irritating the bouncy starlet who flirts with him is”( Dale). Thus because the movie gives the audience more than just a conventional love story, but a gaze into the minds of the main characters’, especially Charlotte’s character, showing a female view, put this film into a Rich’s category as reconstructive.

Rethinking Women’s Cinema

There was something about this article that made me think about the quality of films and feminism. When I think of aesthetics, the words that come to my head is good and of value towards art. I like the quote, “art is what is enjoyed publicly rather than privately, has an exchange-value rather than a use value, and that value is conferred by socially established aesthetic cannon”(142) In the movie, Lost in Translation, there is a sense of art. Beautiful images came out of nowhere and it is a visual pressure, for no reason, it seems at times. It is hard to say if the movie is feminist or has themes of feminism, but there is a strong sense of a female gaze in the way the Bob Harris is the main character of the movie but seen through Charlotte, thus making the gaze possible. This gaze a feminist movie, but the sense is art. It is not political, but an art.

There is also a talk about space and isolation, where everything seems closed up inside. “I think it is this other kind of division that is acknowledged in Christa Wolf’s figure of “the divided heaven,” for example, or in Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own”: the feeling of an internal distance, a contradiction, a space of silence that is there alongside the imaginary pull of cultural and ideological representations without denying or obliterating them. Women artists, filmmakers, and writers acknowledge this division or difference by attempting to express it in their works”(147). There is that space or boredom, that feeling of being divided in Lost in Translation. The theme of this is found in Charlotte, but also in Bob. So I must ask? Is this projection on a male character a female gaze.

Most of the article is space. Many people found this movie boring, yet it had rave reviews. “there has been a shift in women’s cinema from an aesthetic centered on the text and its effects on the viewing or reading subject-whose certain, if imaginary, self-coherence is to be fractured by the text’s own disruption of linguistic, visual, and/or narrative coherence, where the spectator is the film’s primary concern”(154) Again it is although Lost in Translation not only views the characters, lonely and lost and confused, but makes the audience be bored, lost, and confused. It is an irony that makes this a work of genius. That is all!

Research Notes

Sofia Coppola

 
Based on Heck-Rabi and Acker Traits.

Heck Rabi

Considered attractive- Very much so.  She is young and pretty.  She looks like a model and has probably modeled before>  (Do research on that).

 
Dynamic-Her movies are critically praised for being original.  Her worked it very mind capturing and there is a unique version in The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation.

Energetic- Based off a documentary found in The Virgin Suicides DVD there is a definite energy found in her directing as well as praise from the cast and crew.

 
“Most have had training in the art”—Her father is Francis Ford Coppola

 
“Most are married and work with collaboration with men”—she was married to Spike Jonze who is another famous director.  Her father also is a big help in her movies, being producer in The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation.   

Acker

1. “From very early on these women see the world in a unique way.  They often see themselves as outsiders.”- Though not seen through her childhood necessary, but through her movies there are unique and eye in her work.  And since she has written her work, it can be safe to say that she is in these pictures.  Both The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation seem to share the some of the same themes:  isolation and misunderstanding.
2. “They are born in families that range from middle-class to well-to-do, and are generally highly educated.  They are given the opportunity to pursue eclectic, wide-ranging interests…”—this is very much true for Sofia Coppola considering her father is Francis Ford Coppola—who is the diretor most famous for the Godfather.

Mayne article!

There was a lot of different things going on in this article and it was hard to find the authors voice. Mayne was taking many different views and making something out of them. I was not able to find a paradox but many paradoxes. To try to apply this to a film I have watched as part of this class. I will use Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I really like this movie, because there is a sense of fun and entertainment, but it also I find it highly educational for film theory in sexuality and heterosexuality and even lesbian buddy films, and the way of dancing and musicals… In other words, it is more than entertainment! It can be used to what we as humans find entertaining and what we desire. I like this quote because even though the two women are close and hate each other and be with each other, there is a need for a man, not a want. “The insistence upon sexual difference has had a curious history in film studies, by collapsing the shifting terms of masculinity and femininity into a heterosexual mater code”(169)

A movie in the past that I watched is The Virgin Suicides and it is by Sofia Coppola (my director I choose for research). The part that I was fascinated on was the section on desire and how there is a desire for castration. I really did not understand this in our other readings that it is a desire, but I looked back at The Virgin Suicides and saw this clearly. The boys in this movie were reading a girls diary and traveling in her world. There was a line in the movie that said they were becoming girls, and looking at the world in a new light. Thus a fantasy about women or girls is seen though a man or boys eyes, but it is only subtly sexual. “Despite the claims to anti-essentialism of many apparatus theorists, there is a consistent tendency to conflate literal gender and address its subject as male, then it is the male viewer who is thus addressed. The reading of cinematic fantasy allows no such reduction. (167) Even though the main characters are female, they are seen through a male eye.

This brings me to the “viewing experience” that I have seen. One of my favorite movies is Evita and I have seen the stage version, both apply to a narrative, but sense the blog post said “viewing experience” I want to talk about the play because it is more obvious on stage. The story is about Evita who rose to power basically by her sexuality and her choice in men. She is a real women, though she is dead. What is interesting about the movie and that also goes with the quote above is that the story is seen through Che a revolutionary. And it is not about her, but the idea of her. And though the story is about a woman in power, she is criticized about it by a man. Also, this is a musical and this is told through song and dance. The most insight from the show was when Evita and Che dance and sing about politics in a waltz. On stage, there is a sexual and aggressive tension between them and they never touch. In a quote form the article ”Gender is blurred and sexual preference less homogenously heterosexual” There is a desire on stage to be in control of Evita but she does not aspect the female role as be dominated. In the movie, however, she plays a female role and only on tension in the movie, is that they look like they will have sex at anytime or at least kiss. The stage shows a gender blurriness about it, because the male wants the power, but she will not let him and she fights back. In a moment on stage there is no gender. On movie, Evita is aggressive but in a masochistic sexual way. Anyway, I hope I made some sense of this article and films.