As per tradition: this semester's bullshit essay

[FreeMyLand]

No punk this time. "Cinefeminism" and horror movies. Entirely written and conceived between 5am and 9am. Please don't think I actually believe this stuff...I wonder if this would still have the same impact if I included a data disc of anime porn I masturbate to, y'know, for reference?* But regardless, this paper is the symbolic middle-finger-shaped-a-bomb-cloud I'm dropping on this wack ass semester. FUCK YOU.

M. Colin Tappe
LTWR 460
Dr. Moukhlis

Horror Films through the Cinefemist Lens

Starting this year, 2007, my goal has been to watch a horror movie a day. I’m not sure exactly why I made this decision, as I’ve never been a big fan of the genre, but for whatever reason I have stuck to this task, and I’ve seen over 100 horror movies this year as of May. When watching genre films in this quantity, one can’t afford to be discriminate, and thus I’ve seen everything from celebrated genre classics such as Diabolique and Psycho to recently canonized slasher films such as Friday the 13th and Eaten Alive to absolute z-grade slop unworthy of mention. One thing that makes me very uncomfortable in a lot of these movies is the malicious portrayal of women, especially in the z-grade variety of horror. When I came across the concept of cinefeminism in Ben Agger’s “Feminist Cultural Studies” essay, I was fascinated with the concept of the “male gaze” of the camera lens, and how that concept might apply to the horror films I now watch on a daily basis. I feel viewing horror films through the cinefeminist scope is a very rewarding, yet challenging experience; how does one process, for instance the 1980 Roggero Deodato film The House on the Edge of the Park in which literally every female character (5 of the 9 characters total) is at some point sexually assaulted or raped? And does a film like that invalidate a film such as the1979 George A. Romero film Dawn of the Dead, in which the female lead defiantly breaks the “prostitute, lesbian and mother” paradigm Agger condemns? To address these questions it’s essential to first gain a greater understanding of the concepts of cinefeminism, then look at how the horror genre functions in relation to cinefeminism, and finally, examine how to watch horror films through a cinefeminist lens.

In the essay “Feminist Cultural Studies,” Agger proposes “The male representation of women is necessarily self-serving and thus one can investigate patriarchy by examining the ways in which it portrays women—marginalia to men’s center” (9). Cinefeminism is the study of this representation, namely as it manifests itself in film. One method of this representation is through the male gaze of the camera. Agger describes the twofold function of this male gaze: “First, the male gaze of the camera presents women as sexual objects, prostitutes, lesbians and mothers; then, second, men in the audience gaze upon the film and receive/reproduce these aspects of womanness” (14). Judith Mayne summarizes feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey’s take on the power of the gaze when she states “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Mayne, 82). Agger and Mayne’s message here is clear: the male “gaze” or “look” implicitly puts men in the role of aggressor, and women in the role of victim. This victimizing role of the gaze is an interesting concept to apply to horror films, namely because the genre itself is based on victimization.

In “Fear Without Belief,” John Morreall summarizes the nature of horror when he states “[Horror movies] are representations of monsters threatening the people in the movie, and they work by presenting those people, getting us interested in them and feeling emotions for them, and then having them face danger” (Morreall, 366). It is all too often in horror films when the people being threatened by monsters are women, and the monsters are oftentimes men, either wielding knives, guns or some similar phallic symbol--a thinly veiled rape metaphor--or the men are outright attempting to sexually assault the women. Though the Agger and Mulvey model of cinefeminism would claim that any portrayal of woman as a passive object is a victimization at the hands, or rather eyes, of the men viewing her, it’s important to distinguish from standard horror faire and horror films which explicitly portray violence against women.

In a review of the 1980 Siskel and Ebert presentation Sneak Previews: Women in Danger, Jeffrey Chin summarizes Siskel and Ebert’s designation between horror films, which the two find favorable, and “slash” films, “which follow a redundant pattern in which women are depicted as the prey of psychopathic killers” (Chin, 118). Chin goes on to summarize the critics’ theory for the reasons behind these films: “These films attempt to appeal to men who are threatened by women and changes in society resulting from the women’s movement” (118). Not only is this victimization of women a thematic aspect of slash films, it is a stylistic choice as well: “They point out that in the ‘slash’ films, the action is shot through the eyes of the killers, effectively enlisting the support of the audience for the killer rather than sympathy for the victim” (118). Thus, the voyeuristic quality in which these more exploitative horror films are shot directly place the aggressive male gaze on the passive female victim.

The question, then, is if it’s possible to enjoy such exploitation films without you, the viewer, reinforcing the patriarchal ideologies embodied by the film? In “Film Theory and Aesthetics: Notes on a Schism,” film theorist Carl Plantinga warns against such a distinction: “A pure aesthetic interest is inadequate…A better investigation of a film topic will consider film not only as an art form, but as a technology, an industry and/or a cultural force” (Plantinga, 451). It’s thus dangerous to simply turn a blind eye to the sexist nature of exploitative horror movies, even if one claims to not be sexist him or herself; and so only through viewing the film in its complete context, as a tool of representing woman as a victim, can any significant meaning from the film be gained. Agger posits that “Cinefeminist viewers learn to watch male film as women, resisting the leering cinematic gaze by reading across the grain of the film for what is really going on—the objectification of women” (Agger, 15). It is thus possible, through the tenants of cinefeminism, to view even the most outright sexist, exploitative films as a cultural text, and resist the voyeuristic quality that puts the male viewer in the role of victimizer.

One might speculate that the danger in viewing inherently sexist films as feminist study pieces is that, despite one’s intentions, he or she may still become physically excited in watching the grizzly brutalizing of women. These exploitative horror films do, after all, often share similar methodologies to pornographic films. In “Sleaze Mania, Euro-Trash, and High Art: The Place of European Art Films in American Low Culture,” Joan Hawkins posits “One set of cultural uses—one kind of audience pleasure—doesn’t necessarily preclude the other. It is possible for someone to be simultaneously intellectually challenged and physically titillated; ant it is possible for someone to simultaneously enjoy both the physical and intellectual stimulation” (Hawkins, 17). Hawkins continues, specifically addressing the marriage of intellectual and physical stimulation in regards to seeing violent acts against women on film: “There may be a ‘metaphorical’ significance to the slashing of a woman’s eye in [the 1929 Luis Buñuel film] Un Chien Andelou—in fact, feminist film theory would argue there’s a profound metaphorical significance to such an act—but that significance is very much so wound up with the immediate physical jolt experienced by the spectator” (23). It’s thus reasonable to say that one can view horror films and even exploitative horror films, understand the pieces as they fit into the matrix of patriarchy and objectification of women, and still experience the base physical shock of watching these films. And, if you agree with Joan Hawkins, you shouldn’t feel bad about experiencing this duality either.

The main goal in Agger’s vision of cinefeminism is to decenter the male gaze of the camera lens, thus decentering the patriarchy the gaze reinforces. Though horror films don’t do much to decenter the male gaze, there is a distinction between regular horror films in which the woman is often latently objectified through her portrayal as a passive being, and exploitative horror films in which a defining characteristic is the outright brutalization of women. However, when deconstructed through the analytic process of cinefeminism, even these exploitative horror films can be appreciated as cultural texts, raw signifiers of a patriarchal society. It’s natural to still feel physical engagement with the more sensational aspects of these films; however, this reaction neither invalidates nor prohibits intellectual engagement as well.

*Okay, I'm not really cool enough to jak it to anime, but some of that 3d stuff's pretty good.

[FreeMyLand]

works cited









Works Cited

Agger, Ben. “Feminist Cultural Studies.” Cultural Studies as Critical Theory. Taylor & Francis. 1992.

Chin, Jeffrey. “Review: Rape Culture and Sneak Previews: Women in Danger.” Teaching Sociology, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Jan., 1988), pp. 117-118.

Hawkins, Joan. “Sleaze Mania, Euro-Trash, and High Art: The Place of European Art Films in American Low Culture.” Film Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Winter, 1999- 2000), pp. 14-29

Mayne, Judith. “Feminist Film Theory and Criticism.” Signs, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Autumn, 1985), pp. 81-100

Morreall, John. “Fear Without Belief.” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 90, No. 7. (Jul., 1993), pp. 359-366.

Plantinga, Carl. “Film Theory and Aesthetics: Notes on a Schism.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 51, No. 3, Philosophy and the Histories of the Arts. (Summer, 1993), pp. 445-454.

[david]

boo

[You'reNotWelcome]

I think brett needs to change the topic of his paper.

Anime porn...ive seen some but dont really have that much knowledege about it. i do like this one called swallowtail inn.


you can find it here.

http://empornium.us/browse.php?searc...t=0&incldead=0

if you are not a member then you should be one!

get on it colin!

[FreeMyLand]

Yo Dave, you might know that House at the Edge of the Park flick by it's alternate title RAPEFEST: THE MOVIE.

I'll get on that anime site when I get back from skkkool. I need to have celebratory jack fest 2k7 like woah. I'm also gonna eat some popsicles 'cause I'm a child.

[david]

oh i remembered the house movie. but im not sure i feel comfortable watching movies with you if you are looking through Cinefemist Lens. like if you just flopped out your dong and were jerking it id probably be more comfortable with that then this

[FreeMyLand]

dude, you of all people should know that after this sentence: "One thing that makes me very uncomfortable in a lot of these movies is the malicious portrayal of women," the whole thing's a sham. It's more like the one thing that makes these movies remotely tolerable is...

[Webmaster]

"Horror Films through the Cinefeminist Lens" Ooohhh man. This makes me laugh more than "videogame heroes". Loved the essay.