cine705brian

[cine705brian]

THE PROBLEMATIC PATRIARCHY OF BLACK SWAN

There has long been a problem of men reinforcing the very issues in society that they believe themselves to be subverting. The most prevalent and egregious example of this is toxic masculinity and the patriarchy, as presented in storytelling. 

Eleven years ago, Darren Aronofsky directed Black Swan, a story about an “innocent and fragile” ballerina trying to earn a part over her “dark and sensual” rival. While a great deal of this story is stolen directly from Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue, the bigger issue is Aronofsky’s faux-feminism that results in a film about little more than yet another reproduction of male tyranny.

In the midst of Second Wave feminism, “Laura Mulvey called for filmmakers and critics to refuse [this] impulse” -- but now thirty years later, “Black Swan proceeds as if feminist film theory never happened” (Jacobs, Amber). 

Aronofsky seems to derive pleasure from repeatedly beating his female protagonist with the hammer of patriarchy throughout the film, diminishing her character to be defined by little more than her absence of power at the hands of powerful men. This is seen nowhere more clearly than in a scene during which the protagonist’s mother brutally force feeds her cake. While it is “only” cake that is being shoved inside the protagonist’s mouth, the audience is presented with an act that by most any other measure is sexual assault. Amber Jacobs notes that “the cake scene is creepy because behind the surgically enhanced mask of the monstrous mother I could only see the face of Aronofsky—one of so many male directors who perpetuate demeaning mythologies of feminity— feeding me this sickly confection.”

Unfortunately, Aronofsky is far from alone in this impulse to bask in the oppression of female protagonists. This trope has found no cinematic home as accepting as the horror genre at large. It would be impossible to compile any sort of succinct list of horror films directed by men and centered on oppressive male action against women, because that subgenre is as prolific as it is commonplace. Fortunately, it has become increasingly less prevalent every decade since the 1970s/80s -- hopefully, that trends continues to the point that the trope is all but gone in our lifetimes.

CITATION:

Fisher, Mark, and Amber Jacobs. “Debating Black Swan: Gender and Horror.” Film Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, 2011, pp. 58–62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2011.65.1.58. Accessed 8 Mar. 2021.

[cine705brian]

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & THE SHINING

Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror film The Shining is a complex masterpiece that inspired countless analyses and articles. In many ways, the film functions as a sort of choose-your-own-adventure allegory for whatever a viewer projects onto it. But, as noted by Elizabeth Jean Hornbeck in Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Domestic Violence in The Shining, the film "is, at its core, a story about domestic violence”.

Jack Torrance, as played by Jack Nicholson, starts the film relatively even-mannered -- but grows increasingly angry and violent until the film’s conclusion. Like real-life domestic violence, the abuser is not simply good or bad -- rather, he is a complex character who can at once be patient and loving, yet be horrifingly explosive in the next. For Torrance, the “threat of separation prompts Jack’s Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation into a crazed axe-wielding killer” (Hornbeck), reflecting the reality for many abuse victims who try again and again to leave, but are met with increased hostility the further they push away from their partner.

Shelly Duvall’s portrayal of Wendy Torrance is a fascinating microcosm of society’s views on domestic violence and its victims. The Shining received mixed reviews upon its release, and “one of the most common complaints concerned the performance by Duvall” (Hornbeck), with some critics describing her performance as “wooden or fragmented". One critic noted that Duvall looked “vague, as if she’s forgotten something, like her lines, or her character”, and another critic wrote “the effect is deadening whenever Duvall is on screen, with her homely and expressionless face.” The negative feedback was so extreme for Duvall that she was nominated for the 1981 Razzie Award for Worst Actress.

This distaste for Duvall’s performance “mirrors the experiences of many women in abusive relationships” (Hornbeck), as rather than garnering sympathy from the audience, Duvall was met with shaming. This is further exemplified by the fact that “Kubrick bullied Duvall into a near emotional breakdown, which took a toll on her health and contributed to her character’s anxiety and sense of helplessness” (Hornbeck). Kubrick was notoriously tough on his actors, but he took his treatment of Duvall in The Shining to a new elevated level, believing that by abusing her on set, she would give a more accurate portrayal of an abused woman in front of the camera. Well, she did. But at what cost? Since shooting The Shining, Duvall has struggled with severe mental illness -- and while it’s impossible to say how much that can be attributed to Kubrick’s abuse, his bullying certainly did not help.

Kubrick’s treatment of Duvall in the name of cinema raises many disconcerting questions about art. To what length can abuse be justified in the making of a film? There is no excuse for Kubrick’s abuse of Duvall and there is no excuse for the male audience’s victim-blaming disgust with her performance, but despite both those truths, The Shining is arguably the most powerful and terrifying cinematic depiction of domestic violence ever put on screen. If not for anything else than the fact it confronts the audience with a genuine display of what true abuse looks like.

CITATION:

Elizabeth Jean Hornbeck. “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?: Domestic Violence in The Shining.” Feminist Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2016, pp. 689–719. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.15767/feministstudies.42.3.0689. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.

[cine705brian]

THE COUNTER-PHALLIC FEMINISM OF ALIEN

From the perspective of a surface-viewing of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi-horror masterpiece Alien, the film is merely about humans fighting an alien in space. But upon deeper inspection and analysis, Alien is loaded with feminist and anti-capitalist themes and subtexts. 

From the onset of the film, it is unclear who the savior-protagonist will be, and many viewers would likely assume it to be Dallas, the male lead. Dallas fits the classic archetype of “nice, strong, attractive male; must be hero, can't be killed” -- as noted by James H. Kavanaugh in "Son of a Bitch": Feminism, Humanism, and Science in "Alien". But to the surprise of the audience, Dallas is killed off by the alien, and the crew’s (and audience’s) only hope at victory is through Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. While Dallas represented greed and power (as depicted by his demands for the crew to “get back to work”), Ripley represents a graceful and humanistic strength. 

The phallic design of the alien creature adds a further thematic layer, forcing the strong female lead to combat against what is all but literally a giant erect penis. Kavanaugh writes that “through grotesquely emphasized erectile images, the alien insistently registers psychosexually as a threatening phallus... it slithers its tail up the leg of its fear-paralyzed female victim in a shot that visually and emotionally connotes rape as much as death. And the film sets up a final confrontation in which the strong woman alone must confront and obliterate this menace, assuming for herself the counter-phallic power of the ‘gun’”.

Despite the terror and action of Ripley’s survival, Ripley remains reasoned and strong throughout the film. Until his death, her own ally is a black male worker who she has no sexual relations with -- and after his death, she is entirely autonomous and independent in her fight with the phallic alien.

But of all the imagery in Alien, there is nothing more meaningful than Ripley’s successful efforts to save the one non-human/non-alien creature on the ship -- a cat. At that moment, Ripley takes a definitive stand for life and empathy over masculinized greed and power -- in the words of Kavanaugh, “Ripley's concern for the cat functions as a final sign of her recovery for an ideological humanism. It is in actions like these that Alien transcends the male-gaze-catering tropes of concurrent horror cinema (e.g. Halloween), and instead becomes a timeless feminist classic.

CITATION

Kavanaugh, James H. “‘Son of a Bitch’: Feminism, Humanism, and Science in ‘Alien.’” October, vol. 13, 1980, pp. 91–100. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3397704. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.

[cine705brian]

SEX & MURDER IN SLASHER HORROR

Sex and murder have enjoyed a long and notable relationship within the horror genre, most significantly within slasher films. The most well-known example is the causality of sexual activity on violent death, particularly if the character is female. To quote Carol J. Clover, author of Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film: “in the slasher film, sexual transgressors of both sexes are scheduled for early destruction.”

This trope has been so commonly employed by slasher filmmakers that it has now become a point of parody in satirical horror movies such as The Cabin in the Woods or any of the Scary Movie films. Clover notes, “the genre is studded with couples trying to find a place beyond purview of parents and employers where they can have sex, and immediately afterwards (or during) being killed.”

The peak of this thematic plot-point came in the 1980s, with films like Halloween. In Halloween, a couple, Lynda and Bob, have sex in a neighborhood house. After, Bob goes downstairs and is promptly murdered. Since it is Halloween, the murderer drapes himself in a sheet, as to appear like a ghost costume, and walks upstairs to Lynda. Lynda, believing the murderer to be Bob playing a joke on her, shows him her breasts. Moments later, Lynda is murdered. 

According to Clover, this sequence is when the trope officially “enters the tradition”. Beyond the rapid turnaround from sex to murder, I’m most struck by the filmmaker’s blatant submission to the male gaze -- Lynda objectifies herself and behaves promiscuously until just about the final seconds of her life. 

In my opinion, female characters like Lynda are arguably as problematic and harmful as the racially stereotyped characters of the 1930s-50s. While it is  impossible to fully analyze the impact Lynda-esque characters had on young female viewers at the time, there is little doubt those viewers walked away with an added layer of negativity towards their subconscious views of their own sexuality.

CITATION:

Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations, no. 20, 1987, pp. 187–228. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/2928507. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.

[cine705brian]

PSYCHO & THE “SEXUAL PSYCHOPATH”

Turner Classic Movies just announced a series of eighteen “problematic” films that they plan on airing this month, accompanied by discussions related to the “problematic” nature of said films. On that list, they included many films with racially insensitive subtexts or portrayals, such as Mickey Rooney’s now infamous portrayal of a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But amidst the already highly-discussed racially problematic films on the list, there was one film that stood out to me: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic, Psycho.

Psycho is an interesting selection because it represents an instance where the director’s intent is not as important, at least from a sociological perspective, as the audience’s interpretation. The most famous scene in Psycho depicts a man, dressed as a woman, attacking a biological woman in a bathroom. While Hitchcock goes to great lengths in the final scene of the movie to explain that that man, Norman Bates, was schizotypal rather than transgendered, the imagery of a deranged and violent man invading women’s bathrooms while disguised as a woman has undoubtedly left a lasting impact on the public unconscious. As Estelle B. Freedman states in her text “Uncontrolled Desires”, “...in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho, the image of the sexual psychopath revealed a deep discomfort with the potential violence of male sexuality unconstrained by female purity… the response to the sexual psychopath also confirms that… the fear of sexual violence can provide an extremely powerful tool for mobilizing political support against nonconforming individuals.” 

Although Freedman’s words were written in 1987, they have taken on more profound meaning in the past decade, as transgender-rights have become a hot-button issue. One of the most common attacks against trans-rights has been the narrative of a deranged man attacking women in bathrooms while dressed as a woman. The link back to Hitchcock’s famous scene in Psycho requires no zigging or zagging -- it is direct.

CITATION:

Freedman, Estelle B. “‘Uncontrolled Desires’: The Response to the Sexual Psychopath, 1920-1960.” The Journal of American History, vol. 74, no. 1, 1987, pp. 83–106. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1908506. Accessed 5 Mar. 2021.