Point Break & Us - lecture notes from Dr. Lynda Mercer PDF

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lecture notes from Dr. Lynda Mercer...

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Point Break & US The male gaze ● “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the famale figure which is styled accordingly. 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-lookedat-ness.” ● ● Mulvey also points out that because the female being gazed upon as an object of desire is a passive role and often removes the spectator from the flow of the narrative, you typically fail to see men in the role of the object in classic Hollywood films. Men are not gazed upon: “…the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like. Hence the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man’s role as the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen. The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator, transferring it behind the screen to neutralise the extra-diegetic tendencies represented by woman as spectacle” (837)

Hooks: The black (male) gaze ●

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bell hooks discusses the violence involved in oppositional looking (emmett till) but notes that the cinema is the space where looking and visual pleasure could still be performed by black males. What about black women? “In much of his work, Michel Foucault insists on describing domination in terms of ‘relations of power’ as part of an effort to challenge the assumption that ‘power is a system of domination which

controls everything and which leaves no room for freedom.’ Emphatically stating that in all relations of power ‘there is necessarily the possibility of resistance,’ he invites the critical thinker to search those margins, gaps, and locations on and through the body where agency can be found.” (116) ● ●

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“The ‘gaze’ has been and is a site of resistance for colonized black people globally. Subordinates in relations of power learn experientially that there is a critical gaze, one that ‘looks’ to document, one that is oppositional. In resistance struggle, the power of the dominated to assert agency by claiming and cultivating ‘awareness’ politicizes ‘looking’ relations—one learns to look a certain way in order to resist.” (116) “…the private realm of television screens or dark theaters could unleash the repressed gaze. There they could ‘look’ at white womanhood without a structure of domination overseeing the gaze, interpreting, and punishing. That white supremacist structure that had murdered Emmet Till after interpreting his look as violation, as ‘rape’ of white womanhood, could not control black male responses to screen images. In their role as spectators, black men could enter an imaginative space of phallocentric power that mediated racial negation. This genered relation to looking made the experience of the black male spectator radically different from that of the black female spectator. Major early black male independent filmmakers represented black women in their films as objects of the male gaze. Whether looking through the camera or as spectators watching films, whether mainstream cinema or ‘race’ movies such as those made by Oscar Micheaux, the black male gaze had a different scope from that of the black female.” (118)

A Feminist lens ● ● ●

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◼To analyze a film from a feminist interpretation, applying Mulvey’s work is one option: is this film operating from a “male gaze” perspective? ◼Examples: Kill Bill, The Queen’s Gambit, Psycho, Transformers ◼Alternately, we could examine a film that deploys a female viewpoint, or which is directed by a female, and analyze the conscious effort on the part of the filmmaker to depict the on-screen story through the eyes of a female ◼Here’s a great list, by no means exhaustive, of some critically-acclaimed films directed by women ◼Analyzing a film from a feminist perspective could also simply entail an examination of the gender relations in a film: how are women portrayed? How are men portrayed?

A queer interpretation ● A queer interpretation isn’t just about looking for a homoerotic subtext, as we see applied in Point Break quite often. It’s also an opportunity to question norms and look for instances where characters are faced with a status quo and an option to consider a “deviant” alternative, especially since we know that

plenty of people and voices are required to code their true feelings and perspectives in a society that sees them as “queer.” This is where taking back the term “queer,” begins, but the word has moved far beyond matters of gender/sexuality. ● Because it concerns itself with the performance of identity (see powerpoint on gender for in-depth overview of gender), Queer Theory interrogates the ways that gender, sexuality, beauty, identity, and normalcy are performed. The position of a Queer theorist is one that recognizes that there is no such thing as “normal,” and that everyone has to hide some aspects of ourselves to fit in and make it in society. ● Focusing on even small cracks in the otherwise flawless façade of society is a focus of Queer theory (much like other postmodern theories). Looking for moments of subversion, difference, deviance, or hidden selves are some of the key focuses in Queer analysis. ● Likewise, embrace of the “deviant” label is a self-conscious way to relate to a society that cannot or will not allow for non-normative representations.

Queer & Feminist Theories: Postmodern, Marxist, Psychoanalytic and more! ● ●

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◼“Normal” vs “abnormal”: Deviance and normativity ◼Let’s talk about agency, identity, and performance, and where gender and “deviance” intersect: Paris is Burning (watching to about the 26 minute mark will give you a great crash course on some of the underpinnings of queer identity concepts, though of course, not all of queer identity can be simply summed up by watching a film!) ◼What’s normal, anyway???: John Waters reminds us how labels/categories function to create and maintain a very specific status quo. ◼Subversion and transgression: if just being yourself is deviance, how could you make life meaningful without losing your soul in the effort to conform to what’s “normal” (if that’s even possible—which it hasn’t been, historically, for many marginalized people). ◼Community, Pride, “waving your freak flag,” embracing the label of “deviant,” making light in a dark world (laughter, pleasure, and beauty as ways to combat a grim alternative) ◼Acceptance...