Film Theory: The Ethical Dilemma of Embodied Spectatorship in “Feminist” Horror
March 18, 2021 | Participation for Week 8
This post discusses rape and sexual assault.
If this idea of “embodied spectatorship” is in fact an immutable in the film-watching experience, how do we then begin to apply this theory in order to understand and/or quantify “feminist” films which may portray graphic depictions of rape (“feminist” films being an ambiguous definition that would require much more parsing than I can do here)? Two examples that come to mind are Revenge (2017) and I Spit on Your Grave (1978), which are often characterized as feminist films but portray graphic scenes of female rape.
If we examine the implications of William’s take on body genre (that “the success of these genres is measured to the degree by which the audience sensation mimics that on screen”), we are inclined to believe that the distance between the film material and the (female) body is quite diminished; therefore, what are the ethical implications of the filmmaker's choice to depict an act that will be experienced not just visually, but in the female body as well? Can a truly “feminist” film fully embody feminist qualities if it puts its female viewer in the position of “experiencing” an expression of assault herself? And on the other hand, would a male viewer not also experience the onscreen expression of assault as a sensory embodiment, thus undermining the very notion of female disempowerment a feminist film would attempt to overcome? (Please do not misunderstand me here: I am by no means comparing watching a fictional expression of sexual assault as on par with participating in or being a victim of the act itself, nor do I believe viewing fictional cinema material of this nature implicates a male viewer as a predator. I am merely posing questions about the nature of embodied spectatorship as it pertains to how male and female viewers would experience this particular situation on screen. In order to ask these questions, I am also here reducing the female and male viewers to their most basic defining quality as it pertains to this topic, that is, biological sex. These questions do not account for, say, a female-identifying viewer who may have male genitalia.) I believe this particular situation would fall under what Elsaesser and Hagener would characterize as a form of embodied spectatorship which is not empowering.
February 25, 2021 | Participation for Week 5
In reading about Eisenstein’s theory about the inherent dialectical nature of art, I was reminded of an amazing example of montage in one sequence from The Parallax View (1974). Here, I believe, is an example of what Eisenstein means when he refers to the collision of unrelated items producing meaning. Though these images are still photographs, when seen in combination with each other (or, superimposed over each other to create a meaning that is built-upon) they produce varied ideological and emotional effects (not unlike the montage of the different deities in Ten Days). As we, the viewer, take on the role of the spectator within the film itself, are put in the position of having to (uncomfortably) make a judgement about our own reaction to the images in their superimposed nature. The ideology we are “supposed” to ascertain (as Eisenstein in his proclivity for controlling the intellectual outcome of a montage would hope) is, in this situation, purposely ambiguous.
February 11, 2021 | Participation for Week 3
Not only did I find Balazs’s essay on the “creative camera” one of the most digestible readings of this week (I really struggled to understand Metz), but I was struck by what I view as the dichotomy between Balazs’s and Bazin’s perspective of film as a reproduction of reality. Whereas Bazin is preoccupied with film (as art) capturing reality as closely as possible, I tend to agree far more with Balazs in that, by the capture of details one can only see and assimilate in the final film product, film is not a reproduction but the creation of something genuinely new. If this is the case (which I tend to agree it is), film can never be a full reproduction of reality in that it’s production mechanisms will always reveal something previously unseen/unknown, and thus have a corresponding psychological effect (Bazin, of course, would also agree that film will never achieve “total reality”).
All that to say, as Balazs was describing his fascination with what can be revealed and achieved by the close-up, I kept thinking of these scenes: