Bell Hooks - Black Gaze

• Bell Hooks - oppositional gaze -All of these attempts to stop black people from gazing produced an overwhelming longing to look, a rebellious desire, an oppositional gaze.  That is what Bell Hooks’ paper is all about.  The “gaze” has been and is a site of resistance for colonized black people globally.  
• As spectators, black men could look at white womanhood without being murdered or lynched.  In the cinema they could enter an imaginative space of phallocentric power (which Mulvey introduced us to) that mediated racial negation.
• Most of the black women never went to movies expecting to see ‘compelling representations of black femaleness’. Aware of the absence of black womanhood in mass media.
• No positive representations of black women - as white women or female slaves / laughable objects

• Black people always realised that mass-media helped maintain white supremacy by presenting white people as dominance, and black people as a mere negation

• The only way to enjoy cinema is to igore racism and sexism - Kaplan, identify with the white women

How would different audiences respond to Brokeback Mountain?

Introduction:

• Different groups and spectators will adapt to a variety of readings of the film Brokeback Mountain. Extra-textual influences will force the spectator to align with and feel allegiance to particular characters or absence of characters within the film. 
• This may result in preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings of the film. 
• Stuart Hall - "the way the text is received, rather than the text itself"

Paragraph one: preferred reading: 

• Taking an intended reading of the film; agreeing with ALL of the messages encoded into the text
• Queer Gaze: Empathy = central imagining - extra textual - based on similar experiences - Sex scene with Ennis and wife - insinuates anal sex with wife - empathy to the coming out process and oppression / having to hide true self - heterosexual spectators may not align with Ennis lack of emotional connection to family due to lack of extra textual background. 
• Rucus - Ennis is the male dominant - Jack is the female, adapting to the stereotypical housewife role = heterosexual relationship structure
• Butler - performance of gender - in film, a homosexual couple must match the heterosexual relationship roles or their will be gender trouble - Jack's wife is the dominant/breadwinner = gender trouble - "This ain't our fault" enforcing the theory that homosexuality is not a choice - they are oppressed by society - homosexual audience may align and feel alliegance more so here than a heterosexual audience. Although a hetereosexual audience may align with Ennis and Jack, they will not feel allegiance and central imagining due to the lack of experience in this sexuality. 

Paragraph two: Negotiated reading:

• The viewer identifies with most of the meanings encoded within the text but does not agree with all of the messages 
• Female oppression 
• Kaplan - having to make a conscious decision to look through the eyes of the female in film - Sex scene with Ennis and wife - insinuates anal sex = woman has no say = male dominance and power - woman may sympathise with wives as they know that the husbands are homosexual = dramatic irony = women have no say even in a homosexual relationship 
• Jack's wife is the worker/breadwinner = against stereotypical values of Mulvey 
• Freud - family abandonment, absence of father figure when younger = search for male companion? - Ennis' children are a constant reminder that he cannot be with the one he loves. 
• A woman may sympathise with Ennis and Jack more due to having an oppressed past. Especially as the film was set in the 1950s, where women were also oppressed. However, a woman may also sympathise with the wives in the film, and lack of other female characters. - Story of Earl and Rich - castration due to sexuality and female absence - father made Ennis see as a warning = Freud / damaged past. Abused childhood = fight with jack = installed from a young age 
• Mulvey - Ennis = masculine, strong build to reinforce heterosexual relationships into the film = men may align with Ennis due to this. "No ones eating unless you're serving it" said by Ennis to wife = heterosexual relationship stereotypes, still oppressed woman = link to Butler's gender trouble / hetereosexual relationship in order for it to work - Jack cooks for Ennis. 

Homosexuality - oppressed/abnormal/treated as an illness until 1990s = modern theorists
Homosexual cinema = alternative/independent
Brokeback Mountain = first mainstream film - gay spectator can directly relate or symphasise  with the coming out process = allegiance with the characters

Judith Butler 

• Gender in all a societal performance
• Masculinity vs femininity 
• Homosexuality is mimicking heterosexual relationships - butch lesbian etc = gender trouble
• Gender trouble is created when these roles are subverted - 500 days of summer Sid and Nancy 
• Gender trouble = doomed to fail
• Gender trouble = hyper masculine or femininity. If this occurs the relationship is doomed to fail 

Derek Rucus 

• Homosexual spectator is forced to become a woman subculture - lust for sexual gaze from Bond
• Gaze upon Bond himself 
• They become the women so that the sexual gaze from the man to the woman is then put upon to them 
• 
  

http://www.wattpad.com/3491084-sins-of-the-flesh-~a-rocky-horror-picture-show-fan

fandom

Fandom: A collection of fans of a particular film
Cine literate: genre literate
Cinephile:

Queer Gaze Theory: 500 Days of Summer: Butler and Rucas

Judith Butler suggests that gender is not biological, but socially constructed. This can link to aspects and themes in 500 Days of Summer. Most significantly in the scene with Tom and Summer in the pancake house. Here, Summer describes her relationship with Tom as Sid and Nancy, then correcting Tom for thinking that he would automatically be labelled as Sid due to his gender. However, this is subverted when Summer describes that she is the masculine, she is Sid. This therefore can relate to Butler's theory, that gender is merely a performance rather than something biological. As a result of this, men may not align with Tom due to his femininity, and therefore through Butler's theory, through his gender performance. This would result in the spectator adapting to a negotiated reading of the film: Although we see the film through Tom's perspective, one may not feel allegiance and therefore align with him, even if the spectator has the same biological gender, as he may not have the same gender performance. 

One may also look at the casting of 500 Days of Summer and expect to align with Tom due to being played by a big Hollywood actor. However, the film incorporates notions of gender trouble; challenging the preconceived notions of gender in the film. The spectator may assume that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character will be stereotypically masculine, resulting in gender trouble. 

Tuesday 3rd March 2015

Queer Theory 
-Emerged in the 1990s - when homosexuality became socially accepted
- Explores the way that heterosexuality is explored as normal
-Representation of gay men and women in the media
-Challenges the oppositional divide between gay and heterosexuality

Judith Butler 1999 
-Suggests gender is not the result of nature but it is socially constructed
-Male and female behaviour roles are not the result of biology but are constructed by society (This could link to 500 Days of Summer Sid and Nancy)
-Sees gender as a performance
-Men in the audience may not align with Tom due to his femininity, whilst vice versa with Summer = negotiated oppositional reading. Aligned with Tom through the director and narrative, but maybe not due to his femininity.
-Any behaviour that disrupts notions of gender - preconceived notions of gender = gender trouble (feminine, damsel in distress etc)

History
-1950s police actively enforced laws that prohibited sexual activities between men
-Sexually abnormal and deviant = marginalised
-1967 homosexuality is decriminalised in UK - India 2009
-In parts of Africa and Asia today is still punishable to death
-1977 refers to homosexuality of as a mental illness - not taken down till 1990

Queer theory suggests there are different ways of interpreting contemporary media texts
Queer theory can be applied to texts when heterosexuality is the dominant.
Queer theory suggests a movement towards an increasing tolerance although heterosexuality is still a norm.

Brokeback Mountain, 2006
-Success of this Hollywood film is an indication of more progressive attitudes to homosexuality
-For some, the film challenges two quintessential traditional images of American masculinity - the cowboy and the fishing trip
-The queer gaze here becomes the dominant active gaze rather than the oppositional gaze.

Homosexual films = desire + empathy of coming out
Heterosexual films = desire

"...being’ a lesbian is always a kind of miming, a vain effort to participate in the phantasmatic plenitude of naturalized heterosexuality which will always and only fail (Butler, 312.)”  Butler is arguing that homosexuality imitates heterosexuality’s defining gender roles.  That a butch lesbian is imitating a man because of her masculine qualities that only belong to a man, so she must be a fake in order be in the gender realm.  The same goes for feminine gay men and even butch gay men whose hyper masculinity is a play on heterosexual masculinity pushed to the edges.  So gender must be a societal construct that constantly emulates the heterosexual definitions of masculinity and femininity in order to differentiate between the sexes.  When homosexual people enter the gender binary, they must imitate these norms in their relationship, but will always fail." [https://yourboyfriendsucks.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/of-mulvery-butler-and-the-homosexual-gaze/] 
Homosexuality imitates the heterosexual qualities, the gay woman imitating the man/homosexual relationships are based on heterosexual relationships
Butler: drag is the only way to show the performativity of gender

Homosexual Male Gaze:
Homosexuals must align with women in cinema, to do so they must be transexual, disregarding their gender and sexuality -> heterosexual male
Derek Rucas
"Rucas is claiming that the homosexual male gaze can only come through the female perspective in cinema that our gaze, because it is a male one, overpowers her and her desire becomes our desire. The homosexual gaze is not transsvestivism, but rather a channeling through an outlet of the female desire for the male character, thus objectifying him while he is objectifying her.  Because the homosexual gaze overpowers the female gaze, we are essentially turning her into a commodity to look at heterosexual men with.  A kaleidoscope, if you will, that alters the perception of the film in our favour to turn a sexual being whose gaze is stronger than the female counterpart and meeting that gaze with an equally strong gaze through the woman."
When the homosexual man puts himself as the woman, when the male gazes at her, he sees it as him being gazed at.
However, Rucas is criticised to being restricted to heterosexual films.

Homosexual films = not just sexual desire, but also emotional, when they explore the process of being gay 
When a gay person watches a gay film, it brings about a much more emotional response, bringing about empathy of the coming out process. 

500 Days of Summer Feminist theories

Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer, 2009, explores a relationship between two characters; Tom and Summer. The film is portrayed only through Tom's perspective and therefore the male gaze is throughly incorporated into the film. It also means that the spectator must make a conscious decision if he/she wishes to view the film through Summer's alternative perspective. The film explores Tom constantly wanting to develop his relationship with Summer further; from speaking to sex to becoming his girlfriend. However, when it comes to this final outcome, we see that this is only wanted from Tom.

Based upon the theories of Freud, Bellor and Metz, Laura Mulvey focuses on the male gaze and how women are the subject of the film, only there for visual pleasure. She argued that because film is dominated by the male perspective, this results in the spectator viewing the woman through the sexualised male perspective. As 500 Days of Summer is portrayed only through Tom's perspective, Summer is sexualised and is introduced through close ups of her body. The narrator describes Summer as having the average height but with a slightly larger shoe size. Summer is sexualised from the beginning of the film as she is described as completely normal and average, but that there is something about Summer that men are attracted to. We see Summer walk through the bus to her seat, and every single man double taking at Summer's appearance. This therefore makes Summer an object solely for sexual visual pleasure. The narrator describes this as "The Summer Effect" incorporating high levels of voyeurism from the male. This scene also has a strong theme of the 1950s, the scene is filmed in black and white and incorporates Summer in a typical 1950s mid length skirt, her hair tied with a bow whilst riding a bike. This reinstalls an aspect of male control and the sexualised, submissive woman. This is similar in the ikea scene, when Tom and Summer pretend to be husband and wife, typical of the 1950s; the wife who cooks and waits on the husband.
Mulvey's theory of the male gaze can also be seen prominently in the dance scene. Previously, Tom has just slept with Summer, which cuts to the scene where Tom is celebrating whilst walking to work, with other passers by joining in, all celebrating Tom's success in sleeping with Summer. We do not see Summer's perspective on the couple's sex. The mise en scene in this particular scene also incorporates a masculine theme, reinforcing the male gaze further into the film. Tom and the rest of the passers by all wear blue clothing, which is typically deemed as masculine colour through colour psychology.

Kaplan argues that the spectator aligns with the male in the film as the narrative is portrayed through the dominant male perspective. She argues that the spectator must make a conscious decision to align with the female in the film. This theory therefore can link to my previous point as if the spectator wants to align with Summer, he/she must make a conscious decision to do so. For example, in the scene when Summer finally opens up to Tom about her inner thoughts, the spectator will not be able to subconsciously align with Summer as the male narrator speaks over the top of Summer, making it so we cannot hear what she is saying, but instead what Tom feels about Summer telling him her secrets.  The spectator can only align with Summer, if he/she makes a conscious effort to do so. For example, one may consciously align with Summer  as she does not gain a voice, however if we only view the film through the subconscious male gaze, the spectator may not align with Summer, as the audience cannot hear her perspective.
One may adapt to a negotiated reading of the film; if the spectator is not white, male or straight. Although the film is portrayed through Tom's perspective, if the spectator is not a white, straight male he/she may not feel allegiance towards Tom, disregarding the fact the film is told through his perspective. This may mean that the spectator is more inclined to view the film through alternate perspectives, such as Summer's. Therefore resulting in a negotiated reading as this would not have been the director's necessary intention.

When the female character in film becomes the dominant, she is usually punished as a result of this, usually resulting in her life. In other words, when the male gaze is subverted and film is viewed through the eyes of the woman, she is usually punished in some way. It is therefore usually more difficult to align with this character as she has broken out of her conventional role. One may argue that this is not applicable to 500 Days of Summer as for one, it is not portrayed through Summer's perspective, and two, she is not punished. However, others may argue that Summer is punished through audience response and therefore as a result of this, Williams' theory of the dominant gaze does apply. Another alternative view could be that 500 Days of Summer subverts this theory and reverses it; because the film is told through Tom's perspective, he is punished. This could apply as we see throughout the film that Tom takes on the submissive more feminine role, whilst Summer adapts to the more masculine role. We see this through the scene in the pancake house, when Summer describes the two as Sid and Nancy, then corrects Tom for thinking that he is Sid, when actually she describes herself as Sid. Therefore if we see Tom as the female, the dominant gaze can apply to the film as he is punished towards the end of the film by not getting Summer and going through his torture of her engagement party. Moreover, another interpretation of Williams' theory on this film could be that Summer is actually punished at the end of the film as she ends up caught in a marriage, which she states at the beginning of the film that she does not want.

In conclusion, the film 500 Days of Summer seems to be a male dominated film, if the spectator takes on a preferred reading of the film, not making a conscious decision to view the film through the eyes of the female.  We see aspects of voyeurism and the male gaze throughout the film, whilst it being portrayed by a male protagonist throughout. However, a spectator could also take on a negotiated reading of the film if he/she was to take a conscious decision to align with the female character(s) such as Summer. Overall, it depends on the spectator's allegiance and alignment with the characters and whether they adapt to a negotiated or preferred reading of the film.