Feminist film theory

Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analyzed and their theoretical underpinnings. Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism derived from feminist politics and feminist theory. Feminists have many approaches to cinema analysis, regarding the film elements analyzed and their theoretical underpinnings. The development of feminist film theory was influenced by second wave feminism and women's studies in the 1960s and 1970s. Initially in the United States in the early 1970s feminist film theory was generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of female characters in film narratives or genres. Feminist film theory, such as Marjorie Rosen’s Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream (1973) and Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies (1974) analyze the ways in which women are portrayed in film, and how this relates to a broader historical context. Additionally, feminist critiques also examine common stereotypes depicted in film, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the amount of screen time given to women. In contrast, film theoreticians in England concerned themselves with critical theory, psychoanalysis, semiotics, and Marxism. Eventually, these ideas gained hold within the American scholarly community in the 1980's. Analysis generally focused on the meaning within a film's text and the way in which the text constructs a viewing subject. It also examined how the process of cinematic production affects how women are represented and reinforces sexism. British feminist film theorist, Laura Mulvey, best known for her essay, 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', written in 1973 and published in 1975 in the influential British film theory journal, Screen was influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. 'Visual Pleasure' is one of the first major essays that helped shift the orientation of film theory towards a psychoanalytic framework. Prior to Mulvey, film theorists such as Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz used psychoanalytic ideas in their theoretical accounts of cinema. Mulvey's contribution, however, initiated the intersection of film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism. Other key influences come from Metz's essay The Imaginary Signifier, 'Identification, Mirror,' where he argues that viewing film is only possible through scopophilia (pleasure from looking, related to voyeurism), which is best exemplified in silent film. Also, according to Cynthia A. Freeland in 'Feminist Frameworks for Horror Films,' feminist studies of horror films have focused on psychodynamics where the chief interest is 'on viewers' motives and interests in watching horror films'. Beginning in the early 1980s feminist film theory began to look at film through a more intersectional lens. The film journal Jump Cut published a special issue about titled 'Lesbians and Film' in 1981 which examined the lack of lesbian identities in film. Jane Gaines's essay 'White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory' examined the erasure of black women in cinema by white male filmmakers. While Lola Young argues that filmmakers of all races fail to break away from the use to tired stereotypes when depicting black women. Other theorists who wrote about feminist film theory and race include bell hooks and Michele Wallace. From the 1990 onward the Matrixial theory of artist and psychoanalyst Bracha L. Ettinger revolutionized feminist film theory., Her concept The Matrixial Gaze, that has established a feminine gaze and has articulated its differences from the phallic gaze and its relation to feminine as well as maternal specificities and potentialities of 'coemergence', offering a critique of Sigmund Freud's and Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis, is extensively used in analysis of films. by female directors, like Chantal Akerman, as well as by male directors, like Pedro Almodovar. The matrixial gaze offers the female the position of a subject, not of an object, of the gaze, while deconstructing the structure of the subject itself, and offers border-time, border-space and a possibility for compassion and witnessing. Ettinger's notions articulate the links between aesthetics, ethics and trauma. Recently, scholars have expanded their work to include analysis of television and digital media. Additionally, they have begun to explore notions of difference, engaging in dialogue about the differences among women (part of movement away from essentialism in feminist work more generally), the various methodologies and perspectives contained under the umbrella of feminist film theory, and the multiplicity of methods and intended effects that influence the development of films. Scholars are also taking increasingly global perspectives, responding to postcolonialist criticisms of perceived Anglo- and Eurocentrism in the academy more generally. Increased focus has been given to, 'disparate feminisms, nationalisms, and media in various locations and across class, racial, and ethnic groups throughout the world'. Considering the way that films are put together, many feminist film critics have pointed to what they argue is the 'male gaze' that predominates classical Hollywood filmmaking. Budd Boetticher summarizes the view: