"I can't move, but boy, can I ever pose!"

I just have to share these videos with the class. They've long been favorites of mine because they work as both a chilling picture of how one media figure polices her own body/image in the name of beauty and an unintentionally hilarious comic masterpiece (as made explicit by the vulgar, brilliant parodies I'll throw in at the end). This is called "Welcome to my home" - it's a lifestyle video released in 1987 by Young and the Restless star Brenda Dickson.

The first part is mostly cosmetic/beauty tips and fashion related musings. "Isn't it dramatic?"



And then we move on to exercise and diet tips. I think the conflation of "health" and "beauty" with slimness is particularly interesting, and some of the "tips" are as wildly incorrect as they are situated in a particular time and space, though Dickson implies a universal standard for all women. Note also the repeated emphasis on how effortless it is for her to maintain the "look" she has achieved - the enjoyment she derives from the process (which may or may not be truly felt, but is certainly linked with many of the articles we read in the first few weeks) and the neverending conversion of fascistic body practices (with regard to eating, perhaps less so with physical exercise) into something that she does to "feel good."



I think the humor in the videos is at least partially derived from Dickson's deeply earnest belief that her way is the way for women to achieve a "beautiful" appearance, but I wonder how much of the humor is dependent on the clearly dated looks put forth as "fashion." I want to say that this has always been hilarious, but I don't know that it's true. Certainly, the 20+ year gulf in time since the release date is significant in some way, but I'm not sure it's something I can articulate right now. And, of course, there is always this dilemma in the discussions we've had: at whose expense do we find this funny? Is it simply another case of "in the know" feminists opposing ourselves to "unsophisticated" fandoms? Does that argument even apply here, given that this is not itself a soap opera but rather aimed toward fans of Dickson herself? And if we turn the critique to Dickson, is the only way out to label her as a "victim" of beauty culture?

Anyway... here are some parody videos done by Deven Green (it's mostly the videos you've already watched with different voice over narration - and I have to say that if you found the first two videos enjoyable at all, you simply MUST watch these - they're endlessly quotable)





A meta acknowledgement: I guess the academic part of my brain always knew that there were some fruitful moments to think about in these videos, but I've always watched them for pleasure, so if there are any moments that you find particularly interesting, I'd love for you to share them.

questions from presentation, 9/26

1.  Riviere's definition of masquerade as the excessive production of femininity to conceal the possession of masculinity troubles Doane because it subordinates, at the level of theory, (causally and ontologically), femininity to masculinity.  (Cf. Freud's idea that there is only one, primary, libido, and it is masculine.)  Might a move to unyoke femininity/masculinity from female/male provide conceptual relief here?  Masculinity need then not be viewed as an exclusively male property: rather, one might speak of female masculinity, female femininity, male masculinity, male femininity....  The transferability or 'floatingness' of masculinity would point up its status as just as much of a masquerade as femininity.

2.  We could debate the usefulness and specificity of the concept of identification in film theory.  My own identificatory position while watching "Hard Candy" (2005) kept shifting: when Jeff is suffering, I feel for him; and whenever Jeff gets loose and picks up the knife in pursuit of Hayley, I fear/feel for her: I identify with whomever is down, like a spectator at a sports event who roots for whichever team is losing at the moment.

"Feminism in 21st-century American Academe"

Hello mates,

Here is the info for an upcoming USC event that might be pertinent to all of us, especially given this week's discussion of the institutionalization of feminism in the university...

"Feminism in 21st-century American Academe"

Presented by Lisa Bitel

Professor of History and Religion

and Chair of Gender Studies

Academic feminism began as part of a broader political movement whose goal was equality of the sexes both on campuses and off. Now that universities are enforcing gender and racial diversity and scholars across the discipline "do gender," many citizens of academe have been wondering: Is feminism over? Do we need Women's and Gender Studies programs?

Meanwhile, despite the growing number of female PhDs crowding graduate programs over the last two decades, women faculty continue to earn less money, get fewer long-term jobs, and achieve fewer promotions than men, especially in mathematics, the sciences, and engineering.

Are there any feminists left on campus? Are we all feminists? Do feminists still have political responsibility for shaping the 21st-century university?

UNIVERSITY PARK CAMPUS

Office of Research Advancement

New Credit Union Building

3720 S. Flower Street, 3rd Floor

CUB 329, Conference Room

Parking available in Exposition Parking Structure (formerly PS2)

for those coming from HSC, CHLA, LAS

Display USC Permit

Enter the parking structure from Figueroa Street at the driveway between the hotel and UGB/Sizzler

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

(Lunch provided)

REGISTER at usccer@usc.edu

or call (213) 740-6709

University of Southern California

Center for Excellence in Research Salon

'Nights in Rodanthe' reviewed by Manohla Dargis

The first paragraph seemed particularly interesting in relation to today's conversation.
Also, Ms. Dargis quotes Clueless in the italicized portion below the body of the review. Heh.

Notes on a shopping trip

About three weeks ago, I visited my first Los Angeles vintage clothing store on the excellent suggestion of another student from this class. (I promised, at the time, not to disclose the name, and I’ll be true to my word.)
The items were more expensive than one might have found in, say, Goodwill, but less than I had seen in my hometown of San Antonio, where vintage clothing seems scarce and thus more valuable, apparently. It was a compromise I was willing to make, since the store had, to be crass, already cut through the bullshit for me. When taking 17 hours of graduate-level courses, one must be satisfied with the thrill of the abridged hunt.
I was able to find several things I liked, but narrowed it down to one: a housedress with bright blue flowers (and tiny black dots between them), and a subtle black frill that lined the collar and the edge of the button placket.
In choosing it, I was thinking of my grandmother, and so I was immediately connected to our past reading. The cut reminded me of something I had seen on her in an old picture. Somewhere between 19 and 20, I went from looking like my mother (who strongly resembles her father), to looking like my grandmother. I think it has something to do with length of hair, but beyond facial features, we have the exact same physical shape. Something about that seems to draw me to clothes that she always admires, saying: I think you and I have the same style. This makes me feel connected to my grandmother’s personal mythology, which is an element in the pastiche that is my wardrobe. A little grandma here, a stolen shirt from my sister (who is my best friend) there, a necklace that belonged to my other grandma (who hated me, may she rest in peace), a poofy dress an old director bought for 50 cents at a garage sale thinking specifically of me, and some shoes I found on sale on Amazon. (Yeah, I’m thrifty.)
There are other reasons I purchased the dress, ones I don’t recall our reading really addressing in much depth. There was a lot of focus on what a piece of clothing does to the body, what desirable silhouette it can create, but not much attention paid to how it highlights one’s other features. In this case, my housedress highlights my eyes, which, blue-green and patterned as they are, happen to be my favorite thing about myself.
I also imagined how I will now be a part of this dress’s history. What have people done in it before? What will I do in it? Who will have it after me? My thought process reminded me of the opening of Miranda July’s New Yorker story “Atlanta,” as she effuses wonderment over her dirty old mattress (in a way one can only expect from July):
“From the stains on the mattress it was clear that people had died on this bed, slowly, over the course of a lifetime. How great, I thought. How wonderful to be a part of such a long history. What would I do in this bed? In this room? What fluids would I secrete?”

Consuming Maternities?

I was just contemplating the films we have screened so far, and it seems that all -- save for Gone With the Wind, though this could certainly be thrown into the mix, and Blonde Venus -- present some really fascinating links between femininity, consumption and the figure of the mother. In Now, Voyager, a “mother’s love is tyranny:” it is oppressive and an impediment to Charlotte’s independence to “buy, wear and sleep” (a.k.a. ‘sleep with’) whatever and wherever she chooses. Indeed, in an opening scene, Charlotte rants, "My mother disapproves of dieting... My mother approves of sensible shoes. My mother, MY MOTHER!" Shortly after, the famous shot of Bette Davis standing atop the boat ramp begins at a low-angle, slowly tracking across her new pumps:
In Stella Dallas, Stella is a much more generous figure than mother Vale, but her excessive love of ruffles and “stacks of style” must be sloughed off before Holly can fully enter a stable class upbringing. In Clueless, the absence of the mother proves to be not just a convention of the teen film, but a part of the context for Cher’s freedom to “buy, wear and sleep,” as she pleases, so to speak.

These films seemingly suggest that a certain slaying of the mother must happen before the daughter can become a proper consumer and enter a normative symbolic order of femininity. This seems a particularly interesting connection given the centrality of the Oedipal complex in Doane and Riviere’s configuration. For Riviere, the mother must be symbolically tortured for the feminine rivalry she poses. Doane, on the other hand, doesn’t explicitly talk about the function of the mother in psychoanalysis, but does obliquely reference her at any mention of the castration complex and the female lack of temporal distance from her own body (she sees and knows simultaneously; or she sees the penis and immediately registers it as lack and therefore can never fetishize it away). I think it is Linda Williams who reminds that, for Freud, the little girl never has an identificatory break with her mother like boys do; she becomes her mother. Granted, the figure of the mother is, of course, going to loom large in both Now,Voyager and Stella Dallas, because they both could be read as maternal melodramas. But it seems peculiar and worth perhaps a longer discussion that, in these films, the mother is inextricably tied to the young girl’s development, not just as a sexual subject, but as a consuming feminine subject. Oh, the maternicide; ‘tis cruel.

And, of course, all of this can be explained outside of psychoanalytic language (particularly in terms of the ageism built into feminine style cultures; generational breaks must be made apparent so that ‘new’ consumers can be groomed -- perhaps a bit too Frankfurtian of a reading). But, I don’t want to veer too far away from the methods we encountered this week.

Hope this made some modicum of sense; or maybe I just have mom issues?

Masquerading as Marlene

At the center of this week’s readings is Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as Masquerade,” whose basic argument focuses on the idea that women who wish for or display masculine qualities put on a masquerade of femininity in order to “avert anxiety and the retribution feared from men” (35). But when it comes to defining genuine womanliness and the line between it and the masquerade, her answer is concrete: there is no difference, they are the same thing.

Stephen Heath and Mary Ann Doane’s responses point out the major flaw in Riviere’s argument, namely her negation of the existence of femininity while at the same time affirming the existence of masculinity. They also bring her into the realm of the cinema, highlighting the contradiction between masquerade at once offering the possibility of feminine identity and simultaneously taking it away (because this identity is constructed).

What interested me the most about the articles were the continuous references to Marlene Dietrich. Heath heralds her excess and the way she “hold[s] and flaunt[s] the male gaze” (57) and Gaylyn Studlar, connecting with Doane’s ideas about transvestitism, argues that Marlene exemplifies the way costuming can be used to subvert the gaze and traditional gender roles. Referencing Blonde Venus, Studlar places Dietrich in the position of “obtaining power through her knowledge of how others see her”(243). Few images have been more seared in my mind than Marlene shedding the gorilla suit in Blonde Venus. She doesn’t just co-opt a masculine identity, she co-opts the identity of a masculine jungle animal, and then becomes a sexualized object. So in certain ways Marlene seems to defy all expectations. But is she the answer? If I don a tuxedo will I take control of my identity and the masculine gaze? At the same time, there is no doubt that she is constructed as the object of masculine desire. Did she really control her image (think of all the weight she was forced to lose between Germany and Hollywood)? Confusions abound, to say the least. But I do think Studlar has something, because Marlene certainly controls my gaze when she is on the screen.

Reading the arguments of these theorists all at once makes it clear how they so easily tangle and confuse, complement and contradict; the circles continuously intersecting but never coming to any definite conclusions (or solutions). One problem may be their continual reliance on the theories of Freud. While I can appreciate Freud’s contributions to feminist film theory, I think that boiling everything down to Freud’s oversimplifications and generalizations may be a reason why these theorists keep hitting walls. And I’m sorry, perhaps I am incredibly unlearned and naïve, but I don’t want a phallus and I am sick of being told that I do.