WARNING: Too much turkey inhibits analytical abilities.
So...Psychoanalytic or Feminist Criticism, eh? While both address very interesting ideas, I think that for this week, I will focus on the feminist lens.
I think that the concept that I found to be the most intriguing in the reading is the idea that prose writing "is essentially a male instrument fashioned for male purposes" (121). With Virginia Woolf's statement "That is a man's sentence," it necessarily follows that there is a "woman's sentence." The ecriture feminine is obviously a realm of much conflict, but the idea that "men's writing" and "women's writing" differ seems kind of like a "duh" concept to me. It's in Kristeva's examination of the symbolic and the semiotic that some of those differences are made explicit.
So, how does all of this relate to Chosen? Well, after watching it again, all I have to say is this: apparently women don't need to buy cars. Or at least, they are not the target audience for this particular advertisement; there's not a single depiction of a woman in the film. In fact, one could argue that this particular brand of filmmaking is very NON-ecriture feminine; it screams "MANLY" in every way, from the male characters to the car chase to the cowboy boots that we have discussed extensively. There are guns, a (brief) fistfight, and most importantly, a rockin' vehicle, all things that appear extensively in films created by men, for men. Is this particular "language" accessible to females? Sure; all it takes is one glance into the theatre on opening night of the new Bond film to see that women can "get it" (though there could be some argument that the item that is the most accessible to women is Daniel Craig himself).
So, how about an ecriture feminine for film? Much like the elements discussed in the text, I would assume that they would include much more "poetic" filmmaking-longer shots with softer lighting, more romance, and less fighting. What would Chosen look like from this angle? I'm guessing it be more reminiscent of a Jane Austen adaptation rather than a Bond film.
2 comments:
I thought exactly the same thing about Chosen. My first inclination when looking at it from a feminist point of view was, "Where have all the women gone?" I think your analysis of the elements of "poetic" filmmaking to be interesting and something I had not thought about previous to your post.
Is Clive Owen not as sexy as Daniel Craig? I don't think he is, but he is in the same realm right?
I think that adding a woman would make it more appealing to men instead of the other way around. That is assuming that the female added is as attractive and underdeveloped and Brother Owen.
It is odd that when I say that men are like this and women are like this, I am not really pulling from a personal experience.
Chosen would not appeal to me any more if an attractive female character were added, but I assume that other men would like it more.
It is difficult for me to discuss gender and race issues in films that captivate me. Because then I just see it as the story. For example, I didn't find Transformers interesting, so the misogynistic views of women really stood out to me. But in the Men Who Stare at Goats I didn't even really notice there weren't any women in the film. I think that's because I was engaged with the story and just assumed that there weren't any women there. I felt dumb is Darl's class when he was talking about all the controversy surrounding Precious and I didn't know what he was talking about. In good filmmaking, each character is the race or sex they are because that is the race or sex they are.
The cartoon at the beginning of your post made me think that this was Erika's and I thought Erika's was yours because it was first.
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