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MARY DEVEREAUX
OppressiveTexts, ResistingReaders
andthe GenderedSpectator:The New Aesthetics
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338
"His"attributesdefine all humanity(i.e., "mankind"); "hers"define only women. The higher
priorityassigned to male attributespasses unnoticed because our language, like our thinking,
equates "male" genderwith "genderneutral."
Art, as anotherform of symbolicalexchange,
also participatesin this oppression. In both its
high and low forms, feministtheoristsargue, art
inscribes "a masculinist discourse" which we
learn to reproducein our everydaylives. Feminism here draws on the insight that art both
reflects the conditions of life and helps to establish and maintainthem. The male gaze inscribed
in art triggerswomen's "deep-seatedinclination
to adaptherselfto the male viewpoint."6Indeed,
the very history of art "is to be understoodas a
series of representational
practiceswhichactively
producedefinitionsof sexual differenceand contribute to the present configuration of sexual
politics and power relations."7
For this reason, much of feminist theorizing
aboutart is criticalin tone. Fromits perspective,
the artistic canon is androcentric, and hence,
politically repressive. As one writer puts it,
"For a woman, then, books do not necessarily
spell salvation."8 Briefly summarized,the feminist critiqueof representationrests on the equation: the medium = male = patriarchal
oppressive.
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OppressiveText
II
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as Hepburn'shigh-leveldiplomatdoes in Woman
of the Year,they are revealedto be cold-hearted
and in need of "re-education."Tess learns from
her husbandSam to place work second to companionate time with spouse and the duties of
parenting.Those who refuse this role, find themselves alone and lonely (e.g., Tess'sAunt Ellen).
Those who opt for illicit insteadof marriedlove,
end up dead (e.g., Marion in Psycho, Alex in
FatalAttraction).
Thus, as Mary Ann Doane argues, at a more
complex level, the Hollywood film functions as
"a recuperativestrategy"designed to returnthe
waywardwomanto the fold. 15This returnoperates both within the narrativeand externally, in
the narrative'seffect on its female audience. Internally,the Hollywoodnarrativetypicallycharts
the courseby which a womanin a non-normative
role cedes her control to a man.16 The happy
ending in which Tess returns to Sam serves
externallyto "recuperate"waywardmembersof
the female audienceas well. The message is that
for a woman, unlike for a man, the satisfactions
of solitude, work, or adventurecannot compare
to those of caring for husbandand children.
The classic Hollywood film reinforces this
messagestylisticallyby confiningthe spectatorto
the point of view of the narrativehero. In Tania
Modleski'swords, "thefilm spectatorapparently
has no choice but to identify with the male
protagonist, who exerts an active, controlling
gaze over a passive female object." By "stressing the man's point of view throughout," the
Hollywood film thus negates the female character'sview. 17
Stressingthe male protagonist'spoint of view
need not involve confining us consistentlyto his
visual field. The one well-known experiment
which confined us consistently to the first-person visual field of a character, Robert Montgomery's TheLadyin the Lake, failed miserably
to convey that character's figurative point of
view. We saw what he saw, but we didn't feel
what he felt. More typical narrativefilms, such
as The Big Sleep, alternate between what the
protagonistsees and what other characterssee.
Hawks gives us not only Marlowe looking at
Vivian but Vivian looking at Marlowe.The gaze
is thus not directlythatof the protagonist.
Nevertheless,withinthe Hollywoodfilm there
is a long traditionof women performingfor the
camera. Womensing, dance, dress and undress,
341
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342
Within this framework,to say that the gaze
objectifies means no more than that it takes an
object. So defined, the filmic male gaze is no
moreobjectifyingthanany othernordoes objectificationconstituteoppression. Similarly,dehumanization, in this special sense, is not necessarilyoppressive.Dehumanization,definedhere,
means simply treatingpeople as objects of aesthetic contemplation. Neither of these claims
need imply the third, namely, that I have in
action orjudgementdevaluedthe worth of those
upon whom my gaze is directed. While aestheticization may lead to debasement, it need not.
Thus, it is only debasementwhich by itself constitutesoppression.
Giventhese distinctions,male characters,like
their female counterparts,may be objectified or
even, as in the case of RichardGere, aestheticized
(or eroticized). They may also be portrayedin
demeaning or "less than fully human" ways.
They are not, however, debased in the larger
sense of the word. Men are not debased in this
sense because men, as men, do not lack power
and statusoff-screen. Thus, debasementrequires
more than occupying a particularposition on
screen.
In the case of the female star, her secondary
position occurs not only on screen but also off.
Aestheticization may not in itself be harmful,
nevertheless, the Hollywood film reflects and
encourages the cultural proclivity to treat the
female body and the female self only as objects
of aesthetic contemplation. Thus, insofar as it
treatswomen as less than fully human, the film
industry helps to lower the esteem and value
granted to women in the culture. While, as I
have argued, movie-making and movie-watching cannot be held solely responsible for the
debasementof women, feminist theory rightly
emphasizesthe connectionbetween how we representour lives and lived experience itself.
In turning, finally, to the effect of the film text
on its spectators, I want first to consider the
means by which genderbias remainshidden. To
adaptde Beauvoir'swords, the Hollywood film
presents its telling as "absolute truth." It depends for its effect upon creating a narrative
illusion. The film story must unfold transparently, as thoughhappeningbefore our very eyes.
It is crucial to such film-makingthat it proceed
without calling attentionto itself as a story. In
this, the stylistic conventionsof Hollywood fol-
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Oppressive Text
istic pleasure. On this view, enormously influential among film theorists, spectators derive
erotic pleasure through the opportunities for
looking which the cinema affords. As Christian
Metz argues in The ImaginarySignifier (1975),
the darkenedtheatre, the absence of the object
viewed, and its inability to return the gaze all
contribute to the idea that film viewing constitutes unauthorizedlooking.23 From its early
association with the Nickelodeon, the motion
picture has come to function as a metaphorfor
the illicit activity of the voyeur,as Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Rear Window,illustrates.Lest
one miss the point, Hitchcock makes L.B. Jef24
fries-an inveteratevoyeur-a photographer.
The questionof how film plays to our already
existing desires, fantasies, and fears received
one of its most influential treatmentsin Laura
Mulvey'snow classic, "VisualPleasureand NarrativeCinema." Mulvey begins from the premise that film reflects the psychical obsessions of
the society which produces it. In making this
assumption,Mulvey,like othersecond wavetheorists, draws heavily on psychoanalysis, particularly Freudand Lacan. She sets out to analyze
the characteristicsources of pleasure and unpleasureoffered by the cinema.
Narrativecinema, by which she means narrative in the unself-conscious mode described
above, provides the spectatorwith two sources
of pleasure. First, it provides what Freud calls
"scopophilic"pleasure, the pleasureof viewing
anotheras an erotic object. As we saw above,
this pleasurecharacteristicallytakes the form of
looking at women. In film after film, women
function both as erotic objects for characters
within the movie, as Vivian does for Marlowe,
and as erotic objects for the spectator in the
movie-house,as LaurenBacalldoes for us. Thus,
women'spresenceon screenpresupposesthe appreciativeglance of a male spectator.
Men, in contrast,only rarelyfunctionas eroticized objects for female (or male) spectators.
Men, Mulvey points out, feel uncomfortablein
such a role. Neither the ruling assumptions of
patriarchy"northe psychicalstructuresthatback
it up" encouragethe male "to gaze at his exhibitionist like."25Instead, man'srole is to function
as the locus of narrative action. His role, on
screenas off, involves shootingthe bad guys and
blazing the trails. The male movie star attracts
our admirationand respectby his deeds. We are
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the female-as-object.27More recentfeministtheory rightly inquires how this account explains
the pleasurewhich women derive from going to
the movies. As Ann Kaplan has asked, is the
female spectator'spleasure, like the man's, the
pleasure of looking at women, the masochistic
pleasure of enjoying objectification, or the sadistic pleasure of identifying with the men who
oppressher?28
In "Afterthoughtson Visual PleasureandNarrativeCinema," Mulvey herself proposes, more
positively,thatidentificationwith the male allows
the female spectatorto revert, at least imaginatively, to the active independenceof what Freud
termedthe female child's "earlymasculineperiod." In this "tomboy"phase, she takes pleasure
in a freedom that correct femininity will later
repress.29
In moving beyond the static model of active
male/passive female, current theories of spectatorshipacknowledgewomen'sresistanceto the
position assigned to them in patriarchalculture.
There remains, however,a tendencyto speak of
the female spectator.In so doing, feminist film
theory assumes all women share the same aims
and aspirations,and that they come to the film
text similarlyequipped.To makethis assumption
overlooksimportantdifferencesbetweenwomen
of color and white women, rich andpoor, women
and feministsand differentvarietiesof feminists.
Similarly, feminist theories of spectatorship
speak of the male spectatoras though all men's
gazes are male. Since, in feminist terms, the
male gaze is not only sexist, but heterosexist,
might we not also ask for an accountof how the
male gaze operates when the spectator is not
heterosexual? In either case, can the characterizationof the male gaze as "totallyactive" be
sustained?Moreover,isn't the assumed activity
andcontrolof the male spectatorat odds with the
widespreadnotionthatthe Hollywoodfilm monolithically encourages a form of passive spectatorship?Equatingthe male gaze with the active
gaze ignores the passive element involved in
looking at movies. The male spectator,whatever
his real political and social power, cannot interact with the on-screen woman. She appears,but
is physically absent.
My point here is that part of what makes
feminist theory interesting and powerful is its
attentionto factorswhich affect how we see and
respondto texts. Genderis one of these factors.
Whatgeneralconclusionscan we drawfromthis
analysis of the male gaze? That film works to
reinforce societal norms?That it is male? That
film, like art generally,maybe harmfulto women? Such conclusions are now common in film
studies. As noted earlier, we find similar arguments in older, more entrenched,fields such as
literatureand art history. As a body of theory,
feminism has succeeded in placing the question
of gender squarely on the agenda of contemporary literary and artistic theory. As I suggested earlier, this new agenda has unsettling
consequencesfortraditionalaesthetics.The new
agenda seeks not only to have us surrendercertain long-standingassumptions, but to replace
them with a whole new way of thinkingaboutart
and our relationshipto it. I want to conclude
therefore by sketching briefly some of these
changes and raising several questions for us to
consider.
First, feminismasks us to replacethe conception of the artworkas an autonomousobjecta thing of beauty and a joy forever-with a
messier conceptionof art. On the new view, the
artwork moves from an autonomous realm of
value to the everydayrealmof social and political praxis. It gains a historywhich overflowsthe
formerbounds of "arthistory."Who makes art
and what type of art gets made depend, we
learn, on the interactionof the artworldwith
otherworlds.
In drawing our attention to culture in the
broadest sense, feminism relies on an alternative, Europeanview of art. In this, feminism
constitutespartof a largermovementawayfrom
"autonomous"aesthetics. Even within AngloAmericanaesthetics,the old paradigmno longer
holds the place it once did. Ourunderstandingof
representation,of the pleasures and powers of
art, and of spectatorshiphave been immeasurably enriched by the expandedcontext in which
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claim that all traditionalaesthetics is useless,
thatthe accomplishmentsof the last century are
a chimera. This is not my intent. My intentis insteadto describe the cognitive dissonancewhich
marksthe currentsituationin aesthetics. If feminism constitutes a new paradigm, then we may
wish to ponderhow farthe old modelof aesthetics
and the new are commensurable.Is traditional
aestheticscontingentlyor necessarily associated
with patriarchy?Can the "gender-neutral"aesthetics of the traditionalmodel be reformedor
must it be rejected?
Aside from these theoreticalissues, feminism
raises several practical issues which demand
attention.If art contributesto the disequilibrium
in powerbetweenthe sexes, then whatshouldwe
do? Shouldwe simply quit going to the movies?
In raising such questions feminist theory returns us to the Socratic tradition which urges
caution in the face of art's power. Socrates followed that warning with a call for censorship.
With this suggestion, however, many feminists
would not agree. Feminism confronts the ancient problem of art's potential for harm with
two other, far more promising, strategies. Neitherappearsto haveoccurredto Socrates. I want
thereforeto conclude by looking very briefly at
these solutions.
IV
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Departmentof Philosophy
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
1. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" in Film Theoryand Criticism, 3rd ed., eds., Gerald
Mast and MarshallCohen (OxfordUniversityPress, 1985),
pp. 803-816.
2. E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Studyin the Psychology of Pictorial Representation(Princeton University
Press, 1960), pp. 297-298.
3. Sandra Bartky, "Women, Bodies and Power: A ResearchAgenda for Philosophy," APANewsletteron Philosophy and Feminism89 (1989), p. 79.
4. WebstersNew CollegiateDictionary(Springfield,MA:
G & C Merriam, 1980), p. 833.
5. Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake, Film Theory:
An Introduction(ManchesterUniversityPress, 1988), p. 23.
6. Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart,
eds., Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts,and
Contexts(JohnsHopkins UniversityPress, 1986), p. xix.
7. Griselda Pollock, Visionand Difference, (New York:
Routledge, 1988), p. 11.
8. Patrocinio Schweickart, "Towarda Feminist Theory
of Reading"in Genderand Reading, p. 4 1.
9. Lapsley andWestlake,Film Theory,p. 59.
347
10. Stanley Cavell, In Quest of the Ordinary:Lines of
Skepticismand Romanticism,(Universityof Chicago, 1988),
p. 131.
11. Linda Nochlin, Women,Art, and Power and Other
Essays (New York:Harperand Row, 1988), p. 146.
12. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. and ed.
H.M. Parshley(New York:VintageBooks, 1974), p. 134.
13. Molly Haskell, From Reverenceto Rape: The Treatment of Womenin the Movies (Harmondsworth:Penguin
Books, 1974).
14. E. Deidre Pribram,ed., Female Spectators:Looking
at Film and Television(New York:Verso, 1988), p. 1.
15. See Mary Ann Doane, The Desire to Desire: The
Woman'sFilmof the 1940s (IndianaUniversityPress, 1987),
ch. 2.
16. Mary Beth Haralovich,cited in AnnetteKuhn, Women s Pictures: Feminismand the Cinema (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), p. 34.
17. Tania Modleski, The WomenWhoKnew Too Much:
Hitchcockand FeministTheory(New York:Methuen,1988),
p. 73.
18. E. Ann Kaplan, "Is the Gaze Male?" in Womenand
Values:Readings in Recent FeministPhilosophy, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Belmont, California:WadsworthPublishing,
1986), p. 231.
19. The idea that women's oppressiondepends upon the
fulfillment of both of these conditions I owe to a conversation with Tim Gould.
20. l owe this tripartitedistinctionto LydiaGoehr'shelpful
commentaryon an earlierversionof this paper.Hercomments
were presentedat The AmericanSociety forAesthetics,Eastern Division Meeting,StateCollege, Pa., March16, 1990.
21. Interestingly,what is termed the "new" Hollywood
cinema has adopted some of the techniques and self-conscious strategiesof the internationalart cinema.
22. This division of feminist film theory into first and
second stages can be found, for example, in Lapsley and
Westlake, Film Theory, p. 25. The same division emerges
less explicitly in Claire Johnson, "Women's Cinema as
Counter-Cinema"in Movies and Methods, ed. Bill Nichols
(Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1976), pp. 209-215.
23. ChristianMetz, TheImaginarySignifierin Film Theory and Criticism, 3rd ed., eds. Gerald Mast and Marshall
Cohen (OxfordUniversityPress, 1985), p 799-801.
24. See Modleski'schapteron Rear Windowfor a discussion of the film's critical reception.
25. Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and NarrativeCinema,"
p. 810.
26. Ibid., p. 811.
27. Pribram,FemaleSpectators,pp. 1-2.
28. Kaplan, "Is the Gaze Male?", p. 252.
29. Laura Mulvey, Visualand Other Pleasures (Indiana
UniversityPress, 1989), p. 37.
30. JeanE. Kennard,"OurselfBehindOurself:A Theory
for LesbianReaders"in Genderand Reading,p. 63.
31. Johnson, "Women'sCinemaas Counter-Cinema."
32. Diane Waldman, "Film Theory and the Gendered
Spectator:The Female or the Feminist Reader?" Camera
Obscura 18 (1988), p. 81.
33. Kuhn, Womens Pictures, p. 70.
34. Ibid.
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