Binary gender roles, and their perceived differences, are very prevalent in most cinema, but perhaps none are so stark and telling as those in torture porn. In his article, “The Problem of Saw: ‘Torture Porn’ and the Conservatism of Contemporary Horror Films”, Christopher Sharrett describes the role of the predatory captor as it relates to gender.1 Males almost always occupy the role, playing the part of vigilante as a “cruel but necessary father” who believes it is his duty to teach his moralities to his victims (34). Lockwood also points out voyeurism as a key characteristic of male captors, drawing attention to the focus the films give to the captor spying on the intended victim before their capture in some torture porn films (43).2 When…
In both independent and mainstream cinema, viewers and critics are usually most aware of how females are represented and portrayed. However, it is also important to consider how men are represented. There are many different types of masculinities within our modern society, but one hegemonic idea still reigns supreme. The films of Todd Haynes challenge the idea that there is only one accepted masculinity and prove that there is in fact a hierarchy of masculinities. Haynes’ films, such as Poison and Dottie Gets Spanked, show how, while not as widely accepted, there are more kinds of masculinity than straight, white, middle-class man.…
What does it mean to embody theories in the flesh? Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua describe the melding of one’s identity and the complications that arise from conflicting experiences as being “Theories in the Flesh.” These conflicting experiences often arise from contradictions and tensions in one’s personal experience, especially in regards to embodied experiences, experiences of community, and experience of performance. In conjunction, the authors Patrick Johnson, Cathy J. Cohen, and Eli Clare all write regarding the necessity of a queer of color analysis in order to understand these issues of embodiment, community, and performance/performativity and the effects they have upon the lived experiences of queer people and queer politics.…
In the paper, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, J. L Mackie responds to the conception of objective moral values. In his paper, he argues that the ordinary conception of morality on objective moral values are based on three principles; language, practice, and crises. (ELABORATE ON THESE THREE PRINCIPLES) He introduces the Error- Theory which explains that we are all generally mistaken about the fundamentals of objective moral values.…
“With Beijing Opera in the foreground, the film raises issues concerning homosexuality, thus engaging in an unusual public negotiation of the taboo question of sexuality in Chinese society.” This taboo love story between Xiaolou and Dieyi links the historical events together because the actions of the two main characters reflect the outcome impact on society of each turn of event at the time. Although Xiaolou and Dieyi grew up in the Peking opera troupe and both had Mr.Guan as a teacher, these two characters have very different ideology and represent two types of people when under tremendous social current pressure. Xiaolou, the actor who played king in Peking opera, has an ideology of a common man, he is very adaptable to the change of current…
the lens of a white male. My own view is that the one token person of color, Belize, does not begin to address the issue of ethnic representation in Angels in America as it relates to a diverse and inclusive cast of characters. Furthermore, in Bill Stanford Pincheon's article BLACK AND QUEER VISUAL CULTURE: An Annotated Filmography and Reference Guide argues that: Many in the professional field are unaware that Black lesbians and gay men have created a substantial body of work in film and video.…
Then came the rise of queer theory. Queer theory, “wishes to challenge the regime of sexuality itself – that is, the knowledges that construct the self as sexual and that assume heterosexuality and homosexuality as categories marking the truth of sexual slaves” (Seidman, 1994, p. 616). Essentially, it questions homosexuality and heterosexuality as a binary…
While several films were created over the time of film making up until this point dealing with LGBT themes, they were frequently presented in a less than flattering manner and depicted the 'life style' as taboo or alternative. Films up until around the 1990's were in a back handed or mocking nature of gay mannerisms, behavior or just outright portrayal of disgust or abomination…
Borrowing the genre of melodrama, Almodóvar’s award-winning film, All About My Mother (1999), features transgender and post-queer study of sexuality. Apart from presenting two pre-op transgenders, the film renders a variety of “abnormal” intimate relationships, including the protagonist, Manuela’s family without a father, Huma’s ultimately failed lesbian relationship with Nina, and the family formed at the end of the film, constituted by Manuela, Rosa’s baby, and queer girlfriends. These unusual forms of intimacy disturb the hereto-sexist institutions, e.g. marriage and family. Portraying gender, sexuality, and identity as unfixed, the film mocks the conventional perception by interweaving the theatrical performance with the real life: On the one hand, the fixity and stereotype of femininity and masculinity are fostered by cinematic representations, exemplified by Hollywood productions; On the other hand, the reference to…
As mentioned, Stuart Hall was a Jamaican born cultural theorist and sociologist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom that our decoding of media images are very much influenced by the guidance of “dominant” social ideologies. Throughout the research and studies i really came to realize how correct Mr Hall was on his idea on how he believes that videos are all encoded, keying on race, but also, gender and sexuality. Doing much research on the "Mammy" stereotype of black women and the "Greaser" stereotype of latino men i came to a conclusion on believing his views of masculinity and femininity. Throughout this paper i will talk more about the differences and describe the way the film subjects the main two topics and how it keys in on race, gender, and sexuality. Greasers, who were also known as, “Hood”,…
The inclusion of queer identities into mainstream cultural productions involve the cultural subordination of homosexuality to heterosexuality through the reconstitution of queerness in a hetero image. The Kids Are All Right and The Fosters contribute to this subordination by projecting heterosexual gender roles onto an otherwise queer relationship. Their relationships replicate heterosexual patterns in normative structural terms and masculine and feminine roles (Hammock 2009). The gender differential is grafted into the character’s same-sex relationships in both productions, imposing not only a binary pattern of masculine/feminine, but also top/bottom (Dyer ####; Hammock 2009). Indeed, popular conceptions of masculinity cast subjects in a dominant,…
In this sense, the director seems to question the standardized way of referring to homosexuals and show that there may be possibility of fluidity describing same-sex identity which is supposed to be fixed and…
A Creative Fan Reflection: Gaming in a Straight Man’s World For my creative fan reflection, I have decided to make a Twine text-based dating simulator that critiques both the inferior treatment of consumers who falls outside the accepted straight-white male demographic as well as the structures of heteronormativity that have become so pervasive and normalized within the framework of the current videogames industry. To address this message, I have attempted to design a medium that possesses the ability to highlight the concerning existence of this system of a compulsory heteronormative patriarchy, and emphasize the need for diversity and the representation of more realistic narratives. The first issue that I wanted to address through my creation…
Hollywood films, even and especially the films claiming to be progressive or groundbreaking when it comes to matters of sex, sexuality and gender, remain in the final analysis profoundly hetero-normative and even homophobic in nature. The film Boys Don’t Cry” does not conform to hetero-normative ideals and in fact challenges homophobic views: “Boys Don’t Cry” is perhaps the only film addressing the issue of female Masculinity by a self-described queer filmmaker” (Cooper, B. 49) Kohnen argues that Boys don’t cry and Brokeback Mountain, although hailed as progressive for the LGBTQ community actually aren’t a breakthrough as neither movie challenges ideas of sexuality or race and both movies “render the representations of queer desires and identities non-threatening to the norms of Hollywood cinema and American society” (Kohnen 141). However, I disagree, although not without problems, the film “Boys Don’t Cry” opens a dialogue regarding gender identity, especially for the non-queer audience and challenges hetero-normative ideas of gender and sexuality. Furthermore, it also serves as a counter balance to some of the transphobia presented in the media…
The Lesbian Undertones of Les Diaboliques In 1955, Henri Clouzot directed the famous noir thriller Les Diaboliques based off the book by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The original story from the book, the characters, who would be equivalent to Nicole and Christina in the film, were a lesbian couple. In the movie, Clouzot tries to heteronormalize the plot by doing away with the lesbian couple. However, Clouzot does not do a good enough job to completely get rid of the homosexual undertones of the relationship between the two women.…