Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess

Author(s): Linda Williams

Source:

Film Quarterly,

Vol. 44, No. 4 (Summer, 1991), pp. 2-13

Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212758

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Quarterly.

http://www.jstor.org

Contributors

in

this issue

Richard

Abel,

author of two

distin-

guished

works on French

film

and

theory,

teaches

at Drake

University.

Carolyn

Anderson teaches

at the

University

of

Massachusetts,

Amherst.

Edward

D.

Castillo is a

California Cahuilla

Indian and chair

of Native American

Studies at Sonoma

State

University.

Darius

Cooper

teaches at San

Diego

Mesa

College.

David

Desser,

our Book Review

Editor,

teaches at the

University

of

Illinois,

Urbana.

John

Fell,

of our editorial

board,

is

the

author of

Film and the

Narrative

Tradition

(UC Press).

Dan

Greenberg

teaches

in

Michigan

and

keeps

a

sharp

eye

on

the

film

reference

book field.

Robert

P. Kolker is the

author

of

A

Cinema

of

Loneliness.

Sarah

Kozloff

wrote Invisible

Storytellers:

Voice-Over

Narration

in

American Feature

Film

(UC Press).

George

Lellis teaches

at

Coker

College,

Hartsville,

SC.

James

L.

Neibaur

is

a

film historian.

Leland

Poague

teaches

at

Iowa

State

University,

Ames.

Dana

Polan,

editor

of Cinema

Journal,

teaches

at the

University

of

Pittsburgh.

Leonard

Quart

is the co-author

of

American

Film

and

Society

Since

1945.

Mark A.

Reid teaches

at

the

University

of

Florida

and

is

finishing

a book

on

black

film-making.

Gregg

Rickman

teaches

at

San

Francisco

State

University.

Alan Rosenthal

is

a film-maker

and

teaches

at

the

Hebrew

University

in

Jerusalem.

Edward

Baron

Turk

teaches

at

MIT and

wrote

Child

of

Paradise,

on

Marcel Carn6.

William C.

Wees's

Light

Moving

in

Time:

Studies

in the

Visual

Aesthetics

of

Avant-Garde

Film

will

be

published

early

by

the

UC

Press.

Linda

Williams

wrote

Hard

Core,

and

is

a

member

of

our

editorial

board.

Tony

Williams

teaches

at

Southern

Illinois

University

in Carbondale.

Don

Willis is

the

author

of

several

film

reference

books.

Linda

Williams

Film

Bodies:

Gender,

When

my seven-year-old

son and

I

go

to

the movies

we often

select

from

among

cate-

gories

of

films that

promise

to be

sensational,

to

give

our bodies

an

actual

physical jolt.

He

calls

these movies

"gross." My

son and

I

agree

that

the

fun

of

"gross"

movies is

in

their

display

of sensa-

tions that

are on the

edge

of

respectable.

Where

we

disagree-and

where

we

as a

culture

often

disagree,

along

lines of

gender,

age,

or

sexual

orientation-is

in

which movies

are

over

the

edge,

too

"gross."

To

my

son the

good

"gross"

movies are those with

scary

monsters

like

Freddy

Krueger

(of

the

Night-

mare

on

Elm

Street

series)

who

rip apart

teenagers,

especially

teenage

girls.

These

movies both

fasci-

nate

and scare

him;

he

is

actually

more

interested

in

talking

about

than

seeing

them.

A

second

category,

one that

I

like and

my

son

doesn't,

are sad

movies

that make

you cry.

These

are

gross

in

their

focus

on

unseemly

emotions

that

may

remind

him too

acutely

of his

own

powerless-

ness

as

a child.

A

third

category,

of

both intense

in-

terest

and

disgust

to

my

son

(he

makes

the

puke

sign

when

speaking

of

it),

he can

only

describe

eu-

phemistically

as

"the

'K' word."

K

is for

kissing.

To a

seven-year-old

boy

it

is

kissing

precisely

which

is obscene.

There

is

no

accounting

for

taste,

especially

in

the

realm

of the

"gross."

As

a culture

we

most

often

invoke

the term

to

designate

excesses

we wish

to

exclude;

to

say,

for

example,

which of

the

Rob-

ert

Mapplethorpe

photos

we

draw

the

line

at,

but

not to

say

what

form

and structure

and

function

operate

within

the

representations

deemed

exces-

sive.

Because

so

much

attention

goes

to

determin-

ing

where

to

draw the

line,

discussions

of

the

gross

are often

a

highly

confused

hodgepodge

of

differ-

ent

category

of

melodrama

has

long

been

hampered

by

assumptions

about

the

clas-

sical

nature of

the

dominant

narrative

to

which

melodrama

and

some

individual

genres

have

been

opposed.

Altman

argues

that

Bordwell,

Thomp-

son,

and

Staiger,

who

locate

the

Classical

Holly-

wood

Style

in

the

linear,

progressive

form

of

the

Hollywood

narrative,

cannot

accommodate

"melo-

dramatic"

attributes

like

spectacle,

episodic

presen-

tation,

or

dependence

on

coincidence

except

as

limited

exceptions

or "play"

within

the

dominant

linear

causality

of

the

classical

(Altman,

1988,

346).

Altman

writes:

"Unmotivated

events,

rhythmic

montage,

highlighted

parallelism,

overlong

spec-

tacles-these

are

the

excesses

in

the

classical

nar-

rative

system

that

alert us

to

the

existence

of

a

competing

logic, a

second

voice."

(345-6)

Altman,

whose

own

work

on

the

movie

musical

has

neces-

sarily

relied

upon

analyses

of

seemingly

"exces-

sive"

spectacles

and

parallel

constructions,

thus

makes

a strong

case

for

the

need

to

recognize

the

possibility

that

excess

may

itself

be

organized

as

a

system

(347).

Yet

analyses

of

systems

of excess

have

been

much

slower

to

emerge

in

the

genres

whose

non-linear

spectacles

have centered

more

directly

upon the

gross

display

of the human

body.

Pornog-

raphy

and horror

films

are

two

such

systems

of

ex-

cess.

Pornography

is the lowest

in cultural

esteem,

gross-out

horror is

lowest.

Melodrama,

however,

refers

to

a

much

broader

category

of films

and

a

much

larger system

of

ex-

cess.

It

would

not

be

unreasonable,

in

fact,

to

con-

sider

all three

of

these

genres

under

the

extended

rubric

of

melodrama,

considered

as

a

filmic

mode

of

stylistic

and/or

emotional

excess

that

stands

in

contrast

to more "dominant"

modes

of

realistic,

goal-oriented

narrative. In

this

extended

sense

melodrama

can

encompass

a

broad

range

of

films

marked

by

"lapses"

in

realism,

by

"excesses"

of

spectacle

and

displays

of

primal,

even

infantile

emotions,

and

by

narratives

that

seem

circular

and

repetitive. Much

of the

interest

of

melodrama

to

film

scholars

over

the

last

fifteen

years

originates

in

the

sense

that

the

form

exceeds

the

normative

system

of

much

narrative

cinema.

I shall

limit

my

focus

here,

however,

to a

more

narrow

sense

of

melodrama,

leaving

the

broader

category

of

the

sensational

to

encompass

the

three

genres

I wish

to

consider.

Thus,

partly

for

purposes

of contrast

with

pornography, the

melodrama

I

will

consider

here

3

will

consist

of the form that has most interested

feminist

critics-that of "the

woman's film"

or

"weepie."

These are

films

addressed

to women

in

their

traditional status under

patriarchy-as

wives,

mothers,

abandoned

lovers,

or

in

their

traditional

status as

bodily

hysteria

or

excess,

as

in

the fre-

quent

case of

the woman

"afflicted"

with a

deadly

or

debilitating

disease.'

What

are

the

pertinent

features

of

bodily

excess

shared

by

these three

"gross" genres?

First,

there

is the

spectacle

of a

body caught

in

the

grip

of

in-

tense sensation

or

emotion.

Carol

Clover,

speak-

ing primarily

of

horror

films

and

pornography,

has

called films

which

privilege

the

sensational

"body"

genres (Clover,

189).

I

am

expanding

Clover's no-

tion

of

low

body

genres

to

include

the sensation

of

overwhelming pathos

in

the

"weepie."

The

body

spectacle

is

featured

most

sensationally

in

pornog-

raphy's

portrayal

of

orgasm,

in

horror's

portrayal

of

violence

and

terror,

and

in melodrama's

por-

trayal

of

weeping.

I

propose

that

an

investigation

of the

visual

and

narrative

pleasures

found

in

the

portrayal

of

these

three

types

of excess

could be

im-

portant

to a

new

direction

in

genre

criticism

that

would

take

as its

point

of

departure-rather

than

as an unexamined

assumption-questions

of

gen-

der

construction,

and

gender

address

in relation

to

basic sexual

fantasies.

Another

pertinent

feature

shared

by

these

body

genres

is

the

focus

on

what could

probably

best

be

called

a

form

of

ecstasy.

While

the

classical

mean-

ing

of

the

original

Greek

word

is

insanity

and

be-

wilderment,

more

contemporary

meanings

suggest

components

of

direct

or

indirect

sexual

excitement

and

rapture,

a

rapture

which

informs

even

the

pathos

of

melodrama.

Visually,

each

of these

ecstatic

excesses

could

be said

to

share

a

quality

of

uncontrollable

convul-

sion

or

spasm-of

the

body

"beside

itself"

with

sexual

pleasure,

fear

and

terror,

or

overpowering

sadness.

Aurally,

excess

is marked

by

recourse

not

to

the

coded

articulations

of

language

but

to

inar-

ticulate

cries

of

pleasure

in

porn,

screams

of

fear

in

horror,

sobs

of

anguish

in

melodrama.

Looking

at,

and

listening

to,

these

bodily

ecsta-

sies,

we

can

also

notice

something

else

that

these

genres

seem

to

share:

though

quite

differently gen-

dered

with

respect

to

their

targeted

audiences,

with

pornography

aimed,

presumably,

at active

men

and

melodramatic

weepies

aimed,

presumably,

at

pas-

sive

women,

and

with

contemporary

gross-out

hor-

ror aimed

at

adolescents

careening

wildly

between

the

two

masculine

and feminine

poles,

in

each

of

these

genres

the

bodies

of women

figured

on the

screen have

functioned

traditionally

as the

primary

embodiments of

pleasure,

fear,

and

pain.

In

other

words,

even when

the

pleasure

of view-

ing

has

traditionally

been

constructed

for mascu-

line

spectators,

as is

the case

in

most traditional

heterosexual

pornography,

it

is

the female

body

in

the

grips

of

an

out-of-control

ecstasy

that has

offered the most

sensational

sight.

So

the bodies of

women have

tended to

function,

ever

since the

eighteenth-century

origins

of

these

genres

in

the

Marquis

de

Sade,

Gothic

fiction,

and the novels

of

Richardson,

as both

the moved

and the

moving.

It

is

thus

through

what Foucault

has

called

the

sex-

ual saturation

of

the

female

body

that audiences

of

all sorts

have

received

some

of

their

most

power-

ful sensations

(Foucault,

104).

There

are,

of

course,

other

film

genres

which

both

portray

and

affect

the

sensational

body-e.g.,

thrillers,

musicals,

comedies.

I

suggest,

however,

that the

film

genres

that

have

had

especially

low

cultural

status-which

have

seemed to

exist as

ex-

cesses

to

the

system

of

even

the

popular

genres-

are

not

simply

those

which

sensationally

display

bodies

on

the screen

and

register

effects

in

the bod-

ies of

spectators.

Rather,

what

may

especially

mark

these

body genres

as low

is the

perception

that the

body

of

the

spectator

is

caught

up

in

an

almost

in-

voluntary

mimicry

of

the emotion

or

sensation

of

the

body

on

the screen

along

with the

fact

that

the

body displayed

is

female.

Physical

clown

comedy

is another

"body"

genre

concerned

with

all

man-

ner of

gross

activities

and

body

functions-eating

shoes,

slipping

on

banana

peels.

Nonetheless,

it

has

not

been

deemed

gratuitously

excessive,

probably

because

the

reaction

of

the audience

does not

mimic

the sensations

experienced

by

the

central

clown.

In-

deed,

it

is

almost

a

rule

that the

audience's

physi-

cal reaction

of

laughter

does

not

coincide

with

the

often

dead-pan

reactions

of

the

clown.

In

the

body

genres

I

am

isolating

here,

however,

it seems

to

be

the

case

that

the

success

of

these

genres

is often

measured

by

the

degree

to

which

the

audience

sensation

mimics

what

is seen

on

the screen.

Whether

this

mimicry

is

exact,

e.g.,

whether

the

spectator

at the

porn

film

actually

or-

gasms,

whether

the

spectator

at

the

horror

film

ac-

4

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iii?ili?ii?iii:i:ei:iiii:

Barbara

Stanwyck

in Stella

Dallas-classic

weepie.

tual shudders

in

fear,

whether

the

spectator

of the

melodrama

actually

dissolves

in

tears,

the

success

of

these

genres

seems

a self-evident

matter

of

mea-

suring

bodily

response.

Examples

of

such

measure-

ment can

be

readily

observed:

in

the

"peter

meter"

capsule

reviews

in Hustler

magazine,

which mea-

sure

the

power

of

a

porn

film

in

degrees

of

erection

of little

cartoon

penises;

in horror

films

which

measure

success

in

terms

of

screams,

fainting,

and

heart

attacks

in

the

audience

(horror

producer

Wil-

liam Castle

specialized

in

this

kind

of

thing

with

such films

as The

Tingler,

1959);

and

in

the

long-

standing

tradition

of women's

films

measuring

their

success

in

terms

of

one-,

two-,

or

three-hand-

kerchief

movies.

What

seems to

bracket these

particular

genres

from

others

is an

apparent

lack

of

proper

esthetic

distance,

a sense of

over-involvement

in sensation

and emotion.

We

feel

manipulated

by

these

texts--

an

impression

that

the

very

colloquialisms

of

"tear

jerker"

and

"fear

jerker"

express-and

to

which

we could

add

pornography's

even

cruder

sense as

texts to

which some

people

might

be

inclined to

"jerk

off."

The

rhetoric

of

violence

of the

jerk

sug-

gests

the

extent to

which viewers

feel too

directly,

too

viscerally

manipulated

by

the text

in

specifically

gendered

ways.

Mary

Ann

Doane,

for

example,

writing

about

the

most

genteel

of these

jerkers--

the

maternal

melodrama-equates

the

violence

of

this emotion

to a

kind of "textual

rape"

of

the tar-

geted

female

viewer,

who

is

"feminized

through

pathos" (Doane,

1987,

95).

Feminist

critics of

pornography

often

evoke

similar

figures

of sexual/textual

violence

when

de-

scribing

the

operation

of

this

genre.

Robin Mor-

gan's

slogan

"pornography

is

the

theory,

and

rape

is

the

practice"

is

well known

(Morgan,

139).

Im-

plicit

in this

slogan

is

the notion

that

women

are the

objectified

victims

of

pornographic

representa-

tions,

that

the

image

of

the

sexually

ecstatic

woman

so

important

to

the

genre

is a celebration

of

female

victimization

and a

prelude

to female

victimization

in

real

life.

Less

well

known,

but

related,

is the observation

of the

critic of

horror

films,

James

Twitchell,

who

notices

that

the

Latin

horrere

means

to

bristle.

He

describes

the

way

the

nape

hair

stands

on

end

dur-

ing

moments

of

shivering

excitement.

The

aptly

named

Twitchell

thus

describes

a

kind

of

erection

of

the

hair

founded

in

the

conflict

between

reac-

tions

of

"fight

and

flight"

(Twitchell,

10).

While

male

victims

in

horror

films

may

shudder

and

scream

as

well,

it has

long

been

a

dictum

of

the

genre

that

women

make

the

best

victims.

"Torture

the

women!"

was

the

famous

advice

given

by

Alfred

Hitchcock.2

In the

classic

horror

film the

terror

of

the

fe-

male

victim

shares

the

spectacle

along

with

the

monster.

Fay

Wray

and

the

mechanized

monster

that

made

her scream

in

King

Kong

is a

familiar

ex-

ample

of

the

classic

form.

Janet

Leigh

in

the

shower

in

Psycho

is

a familiar

example

of

a

tran-

sition

to

a

more

sexually explicit

form

of

the

tor-

tured

and

terrorized

woman.

And her

daughter,

Jamie

Lee

Curtis

in

Halloween,

can

serve

as

the

more

contemporary

version

of

the

terrorized

woman

victim.

In

both

of

these

later

films the

spec-

tacle

of

the

monster

seems

to

take

second

billing

to

the

increasingly

numerous

victims

slashed

by

the

sexually

disturbed

but

entirely

human

monsters.

In the

woman's

film a

well-known

classic

is the

long-suffering

mother

of

the

two

early

versions

of

Stella

Dallas

who

sacrifices

herself

for

her

daugh-

ter's

upward

mobility.

Contemporary

film

goers

could

recently

see

Bette

Midler

going

through

the

same

sacrifice

and

loss

in

the

film Stella.

Debra

Winger

in

Terms

of

Endearment

is

another

familiar

example

of

this

maternal

pathos.

With

the

above

genre

stereotypes

in

mind

we

should

now

ask

about

the

status

of

bodily

excess

in

each

of

these

genres.

Is

is

simply

the

unseemly,

"gratuitous"

presence

of

the

sexually

ecstatic

woman,

the

tortured

woman,

the

weeping

woman

-and

the

accompanying

presence

of

the

sexual

fluids,

the

blood

and

the

tears

that

flow

from

her

5

body

and which

are

presumably

mimicked

by

spec-

tators-that mark the excess

of each

type

of

film?

How shall we think

of

these

bodily

displays

in

re-

lation to one

another,

as a

system

of

excess

in

the

popular

film?

And

finally,

how excessive

are

they

really?

The

psychoanalytic system

of

analysis

that

has

been

so

influential

in

film

study

in

general

and

in

feminist

film

theory

and criticism

has

been

remark-

ably

ambivalent

about the status of excess in

its

major

tools of

analysis.

The

category

of

cultural

analysis"--as

a

structure

intrinsic to all

sexuality

rather than

extrin-

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Pleasure:

Babylon

Pink

(porn)

sic to it-is

crucial to

any attempt

to

understand

cultural

forms-such as our three

body

genres-

in

which

fantasy

predominates.3

Structures of Perversion in

the

"Female

Body

Genres"

Each of the

three

body

genres

I have

iso-

lated

hinges

on

the

spectacle

of

a

"sexually

satu-

rated"

female

body,

and

each offers what

many

feminist

critics would

agree

to be

spectacles

of

feminine victimization.

But this

victimization is

very

different

in

each

type

of

film

and

cannot be

accounted for

simply

by

pointing

to the

sadistic

power

and

pleasure

of

masculine

subject positions

punishing

or

dominating

feminine

objects.

Many

feminists

have

pointed

to the

victimiza-

tion of

the woman

performers

of

pornography

who

must

actually

do the acts

depicted

in

the

film,

as

well

as to the victimization of

characters

within

the

films

(Dworkin,

1979;

MacKinnon,

1987).

Pornog-

raphy,

in this

view,

is

fundamentally

sadistic.

In

women's

weepies,

on the other

hand,

feminists

have

pointed

to

the

spectacles

of

intense

suffering

and

loss

as

masochistic.

In

horror

films,

while

feminists

have

often

pointed

to

the women victims

who suffer simulated

torture

and

mutilation as

victims of sadism

(Wil-

liams,

1983),

more recent feminist work has

sug-

gested

that the horror film

may

present

an

interesting,

and

perhaps

instructive,

case of oscil-

lation

between

masochistic and sadistic

poles.

This

more

recent

argument,

advanced

by

Carol J.

Clover,

has

suggested

that

pleasure,

for a

mascu-

line-identified

viewer,

oscillates between

identifying

with

the initial

passive powerlessness

of the

abject

6

and

terrorized

girl-victim

of horror and her

later,

active

empowerment (Clover, 1987).

This

argument

holds that when the

girl-victim

of a

film

like Halloween

finally

grabs

the

phallic

knife,

or

ax,

or chain saw

to

turn

the tables on the

monster-killer,

that viewer identification

shifts

from

an

"abject

terror

gendered

feminine" to an

active

power

with bisexual

components.

A

gender-

confused monster

is

foiled,

often

symbolically

cas-

trated

by

an

"androgynous"

"final

girl" (Clover,

206-209).

In

slasher

films,

identification with vic-

em

.

....

Fear:

Janet

Leigh

in

Psycho

(norror)

timization is

a roller-coaster ride

of

sadomasochis-

tic

thrills.

We

could thus

initially

schematize the

perverse

pleasures

of

these

genres

in

the

following way:

por-

nography's

appeal

to its

presumed

male viewers

would be

characterized as

sadistic,

horror films'

appeal

to the

emerging

sexual identities of its

(fre-

quently adolescent)

spectators

would be sadomas-

ochistic

and women's films

appeal

to

presumed

female viewers would

be masochistic.

The

masochistic

component

of

viewing pleas-

ure

for women

has

been the most

problematic

term

of

perversion

for feminist

critics.

It is

interesting,

for

example,

that most of our

important

studies of

masochism-whether

by

Deleuze

(1971),

Silverman

(1980;

1988)

or

Studlar

(1985)-have

all

focused

on

the

exoticism of

masculine masochism

rather than

the

familiarity

of female

masochism. Masochistic

pleasure

for

women

has

paradoxically

seemed ei-

ther too normal-too

much the normal

yet

intoler-

able condition of women-or

too

perverse

to be

taken

seriously

as

pleasure.

There

is

thus

a real need

to be clearer

than we

have been

about what

is

in

masochism

for women

-how

power

and

pleasure

operate

in

fantasies of

domination

which

appeal

to

women. There

is

an

equal

need

to be clearer than

we have about

what

is in

sadism for men. Here the

initial

opposition

be-

tween these two

most

gendered genres-women's

weepies

and male heterosexual

pornography-

needs to

be

complicated.

I

have

argued

elsewhere,

for

example,

that

pornography

has too

simplisti-

cally

been allied with

a

purely

sadistic

fantasy

struc-

ture.

Indeed,

those

troubling

films

and videos

which

deploy

instruments of torture

on the

bodies

of women have been allied

so

completely

with

mas-

culine

viewing

pleasures

that

we have not

paid

enough

attention

to

their

appeal

to

women

except

to condemn such

appeal

as false

consciousness

(Williams,

1989,

184-228).

One

important

complication

of the initial

schema

I

have outlined would

thus be to take a les-

son from

Clover's more bisexual

model

of

viewer

identification

in horror

film

and stress the

sadomas-

ochistic

component

of each of

these

body genres

ii' i~.-.~-i i

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Pain: Imitation

of

Life

(melodrama)

through

their various

appropriations

of

melodra-

matic fantasies

that

are,

in

fact,

basic to

each.

All

of

these

genres

could,

for

example,

be said to

offer

highly

melodramatic

enactments

of

sexually

charged,

if not

sexually

explicit,

relations.

The

sub-

genre

of

sadomasochistic

pornography,

with its

7

suspension

of

pleasure

over the course

of

prolonged

sessions of dramatic

suffering,

offers

a

particularly

intense,

almost

parodic,

enactment

of the classic

melodramatic

scenario

of the

passive

and innocent

female victim

suffering

at

the

hands

of

a

leering

vil-

lain. We can also

see

in

horror

films of tortured

women

a similar melodramatization

of

the

inno-

cent

victim.

An

important

difference,

of

course,

lies

in the

component

of

the

victim's overt

sexual

pleasure

in

the scenario

of

domination.

But

even

in

the

most extreme

displays

of

femi-

nine

masochistic

suffering,

there is

always

a

com-

ponent

of either

power

or

pleasure

for the woman

victim.

In

slasher

horror

films

we have

seen how

identification

seems

to oscillate

between

powerless-

ness and

power.

In

sadomasochistic

pornography

and

in melodramatic

woman's

weepies,

feminine

subject positions

appear

to

be constructed

which

achieve

a modicum

of

power

and

pleasure

within

the

given

limits of

patriarchal

constraints

on

women.

It is worth

noting

as

well

that

non-sado-

masochistic

pornography

has

historically

been

one of

the few

types

of

popular

film

that

has not

punished

women

for

actively pursuing

their

sexual

pleasure.

In

the

subgenre

of

sadomasochistic

pornogra-

phy,

however,

the

female

masochist

in

the

scenario

must

be

devious

in her

pursuit

of

pleasure.

She

plays

the

part

of

passive

sufferer

in

order

to

obtain

pleasure.

Under

a

patriarchal

double

standard

that

has

rigorously

separated

the

sexually passive

"good"

girl

from

the

sexually

active

"bad"

girl,

masochistic

role-playing

offers

a

way

out

of

this

dichotomy

by

combining

the

good

girl

with

the

bad:

the

passive

"good

girl"

can

prove

to

her

wit-

nesses

(the

super-ego

who is

her

torturer)

that

she

does

not

will

the

pleasure

that

she

receives.

Yet

the

sexually

active

"bad"

girl

enjoys

this

pleasure

and

has

knowingly

arranged

to

endure

the

pain

that

earns

it.

The cultural

law

which

decides

that

some

girls

are

good

and

others

are

bad

is not

defeated

but

within

its

terms

pleasure

has been

negotiated

and

"paid

for"

with

a

pain

that

conditions

it.

The

"bad"

girl

is

punished,

but

in return

she

receives

pleasure.

In

contrast,

the

sadomasochistic

teen

horror

films

kill

off

the

sexually

active

"bad"

girls,

allow-

ing

only

the

non-sexual

"good"

girls

to

survive.

But these

good

girls

become,

as

if in

compensation,

remarkably

active,

to

the

point

of

appropriating

phallic

power

to

themselves.

It is

as if this

phallic

power

is

granted

so

long

as

it is

rigorously

sepa-

rated

from

phallic

or

any

other sort of

pleasure.

For

these

pleasures

spell

sure

death

in

this

genre.

In

the melodramatic woman's

film we

might

think

to encounter

a

purer

form

of masochism on

the

part

of

female

viewers. Yet

even here the female

viewer

does

not seem

to be

invited

to

identify

wholly

with the

sacrificing good

woman,

but

rather

with a

variety

of different

subject

positions,

includ-

ing

those

which

empathically

look on

at her

own

suffering.

While

I

would not

argue

that

there is

a

very strong

sadistic

component

to these

films,

I

do

argue

that

there

is

a

strong

mixture of

passivity

and

activity,

and

a bisexual

oscillation

between

the

poles

of

each,

in even

this

genre.

For

example,

the

woman

viewer of

a

maternal

melodrama

such as

Terms

of

Endearment

or Steel

Magnolias

does

not

simply

identify

with the suffer-

ing

and

dying

heroines

of each.

She

may equally

identify

with

the

powerful

matriarchs,

the surviv-

ing

mothers

who

preside

over

the

deaths

of

their

daughters,

experiencing

the

exhilaration

and tri-

umph

of

survival.

The

point

is

simply

that

identifi-

cation

is

neither

fixed

nor

entirely passive.

While

there are

certainly

masculine

and

femi-

nine,

active

and

passive,

poles

to

the left and

right

of

the chart

on which

we

might position

these

three

genres

(see

below),

the

subject positions

that

appear

to

be constructed

by

each of

the

genres

are

not

as

gender-linked

and as

gender-fixed

as

has

often

been

supposed.

This is

especially

true

today

as

hard-core

pornography

is

gaining

appeal

with women

view-

ers.

Perhaps

the

most

recent

proof

in

this

genre

of

the

breakdown

of

rigid

dichotomies

of

masculine

and

feminine,

active

and

passive

is the

creation

of

an

alternative,

oscillating

category

of

address

to

viewers.

Although

heterosexual

hard core

once

ad-

dressed

itself

exclusively

to

heterosexual

men,

it has

now

begun

to address

itself

to

heterosexual

couples

and

women

as

well;

and

in

addition

to

homosex-

ual

hard

core,

which

has addressed

itself

to

gay

and

(to

a

lesser

extent)

lesbian

viewers,

there

is

now

a

new

category

of

video

called

bisexual.

In these

videos

men do

it

with

women,

women

do

it

with

women,

men

do

it

with

men and

then

all

do

it

with

one

another,

in the

process

breaking

down

a

fun-

damental

taboo

against

male-to-male

sex.5

A

of

once

more

sepa-

rate

categories

of

masculine

and

feminine

is

what

8

An

Anatomy

of

Film

Bodies

Genre:

Pornography

Horror

Melodrama

Bodily

sex

violence

emotion

excess

Ecstasy:

ecstatic

sex

ecstatic

violence

ecstatic

woe

-shown

by orgasm

shudder

sob

ejaculation

blood

tears

Presumed

men

adolescent

boys

girls,

women

audience:

(active)

(active/passive)

(passive)

Perversion:

sadism

sadomasochism

masochism

Originary

seduction

castration

origin

fantasy:

Temporality

on time!

too

early!

too

late!

of

fantasy:

Genre

cycles:

"classic

stag

films

"classic"

horror:

"classic"

women's

films:

(20's-40's)

Dracula

maternal

melodrama:

The

Casting

Couch

Frankenstein

Stella

Dallas

Dr.

Jekyll/Mr.

Hyde

Mildred

Pierce

King

Kong

romance:

Back

Street

Letter from

an

Unknown

Woman

contemporary

feature-length

post-Psycho:

male

and

female

hard

core

porn:

Texas

Chainsaw

"weepies"

Deep

Throat,

etc.

Massacre

Steel

Magnolias

The

Punishment

of

Anne

Halloween

Stella

Femme

Productions

Dressed to Kill

Dad

Bi-sexual

Videodrome

Tri-sexual

has

come

to

be

known

in

some

quarters

as

the

"male

weepie."

These

are

mainstream

melodramas

engaged

in

the

activation

of the

previously

repressed

emotions

of

men

and

in

breaking

the

taboos

against

male-to-male

hugs

and

embraces.

The

father-son

embrace

that

concludes

Ordinary

People

(1980)

is

exemplary.

More

recently,

paternal

weepies

have

begun

to

compete

with

the

maternal-as in

the

con-

ventional

Dad

(1989)

or

the

less

conventional,

wild

paternal

displays

of

Twin

Peaks.

The

point

is

certainly

not to

admire the

"sexual

freedom"

of

this

new

fluidity

and

oscillation-the

new

femininity

of

men

who

hug

and

the new

mas-

culinity

of

women

who

leer-as

if

it

represented

any

ultimate

defeat

of

phallic

power.

Rather,

the

more

useful

lesson

might

be to

see

what

this

new

fluidity

and

oscillation

permits

in

the

construction

of

feminine

viewing

pleasures

once

thought

not

to

exist

at

all.

(It

is

instructive,

for

example,

that

in

the

new bisexual

pornography

women

characters

are

shown

verbally

articulating

their

visual

pleas-

ure

as

they

watch

men

perform

sex with

men.)

The

deployment

of

sex,

violence,

and

emotion

would

thus

seem

to have

very precise

functions

in

these

body

genres.

Like

all

popular

genres,

they

ad-

dress

persistent

problems

in

our

culture,

in our

sex-

ualities,

in

our

very

identities.

The

deployment

of

sex,

violence,

and emotion

is thus

in

no

way

gratui-

tous

and

in

no

way

strictly

limited

to

each

of

these

genres;

it is

instead

a

cultural

form

of

problem solv-

ing.

As I

have

argued

in

Hard

Core,

pornographic

films

now

tend

to

present

sex

as

a

problem,

to

which

the

performance

of

more,

different,

or

bet-

ter

sex

is

posed

as the solution

(Williams,

1989).

In

horror

a

violence

sexual

difference

is

the

problem,

more

violence

sexual

difference

9

is

also the solution.

In

women's

films

the

pathos

of

loss is

the

problem, repetitions

and

variations of

this loss are the

generic

solution.

Structures

of

Fantasy

All

of these

problems

are linked to

gen-

der

identity

and

might

be

usefully

explored

as

genres

of

gender

fantasy.

It

is

appropriate

to

ask,

then,

not

only

about

the

structures

of

perversion,

but also about the

structures of

fantasy

in

each of

these

genres.

In

doing

so,

we need to be clear about

the nature

of

fantasy

itself. For fantasies are

not,

as is sometimes

thought,

wish-fulfilling

linear

nar-

ratives of

mastery

and control

leading

to closure

and

the

attainment

of desire.

They

are

marked,

rather,

by

the

prolongation

of

desire,

and

by

the

lack of

fixed

position

with

respect

to

the

objects

and

events

fantasized.

In

their

classic

essay

"Fantasy

and

the

Origins

of

Sexuality,"

Jean

Laplanche

and J. B. Pontalis

(1968)

argue

that

fantasy

is not

so much

a

narra-

tive

that

enacts

the

quest

for

an

object

of

desire

as

it is a

setting

for

desire,

a

place

where conscious

and

unconscious,

self

and

other,

part

and whole

meet.

Fantasy

is

the

place

where

"desubjectified"

subjectivities

oscillate

between

self

and

other

oc-

cupying

no fixed

place

in

the

scenario

(16).

In the three

body

genres

discussed

here,

this

fantasy

component

has

probably

been better

under-

stood

in horror

film,

a

genre

often

understood

as

belonging

to

the

"fantastic."

However,

it has

been

less

well

understood

in

pornography

and women's

film melodrama.

Because

these

genres

display

fewer

fantastic

special

effects

and

because

they rely

on

certain

conventions

of

realism-the

activation

of social

problems

in

melodrama,

the

representa-

tion

of

real sexual

acts

in

pornography-they

seem

less

obviously

fantastic.

Yet

the

usual

criticisms

that

these

forms

are

improbable,

that

they

lack

psy-

chological

complexity

and

narrative

closure,

and

that

they

are

repetitious,

become

moot

as

evalua-

tion

if such

features

are

intrinsic

to

their

engage-

ment

with

fantasy.

There

is

a

link,

in other

words,

between

the

ap-

peal

of

these

forms

and

their

ability

to

address,

if

never

really

to

"solve,"

basic

problems

sexual

identity.

Here,

I would like

to

forge

a

con-

nection

between

Laplanche

and

Pontalis's

struc-

tural

understanding

of

fantasies

as

myths

of

origins

which

try

to

cover

the

discrepancy

between

two

moments

in

time and

the distinctive

temporal

struc-

ture of

these

particular

genres. Laplanche

and

Pon-

talis

argue

that

fantasies which are

myths

of

origins

address the insoluble

problem

of

the

discrepancy

between an irrecoverable

original

experience

pre-

sumed

to have

actually

taken

place-as

in

the

case,

for

example,

of the historical

primal

scene-and

the

uncertainty

of

its

hallucinatory

revival. The dis-

crepancy

exists,

in

other

words,

between

the

actual

existence of

the lost

object

and the

sign

which

evokes

both

this

existence

and

its

absence.

Laplanche

and

Pontalis

maintain that

the

most

basic fantasies

are located

at

the

juncture

of an

ir-

recoverable real

event that

took

place

somewhere

in

the

past

and

a

totally imaginary

event

that

never

took

place.

The "event"

whose

temporal

and

spa-

tial existence can

never

be

fixed

is

thus

ultimately,

according

to

Laplanche

and

Pontalis,

that

of "the

origin

of

the

subject"-an

origin

which

psycho-

analysts

tell

us cannot

be

separated

from the

dis-

covery

of

sexual

difference

(11).

It

is

this

contradictory temporal

structure

of be-

ing

situated

somewhere

between

the

"too

early"

and the

"too

late" of

the

knowledge

of

difference

that

generates

desire

that

is most

characteristic

of

fantasy.

Freud

introduced

the

concept

of

"original

fantasy"

to

explain

the

mythic

function

of fanta-

sies

which seem

to

offer

repetitions

of

and "solu-

tions"

to

major

enigmas

confronting

the child

(Freud,

1915).

These

enigmas

are located

in

three

areas:

the

enigma

of the

origin

of

sexual

desire,

an

enigma

that

is

"solved,"

so

to

speak,

by

the fan-

tasy

of

seduction;

the

enigma

of

sexual

difference,

"solved"

by

the

fantasy

of

castration;

and

finally

the

enigma

of

the

origin

of

self,

"solved"

by

the

fantasy

of

family

romance

or

return

to

origins

(Laplanche

and

Pontalis,

1968,

11).

Each

of

the

three

body genres

I have

been

de-

scribing

could

be

seen

to

correspond

in

important

ways

to

one

of

these

original

fantasies:

pornogra-

phy,

for

example,

is

the

genre

that

has

seemed

to

endlessly

repeat

the

fantasies

of

primal

seduction,

of

meeting

the

other, seducing

or

being

seduced

by

the

other

in an

ideal

"pornotopia"

where,

as

Steven

Marcus

has

noted,

it

is

always

bedtime

(Marcus,

269).

Horror

is the

genre

that

seems

to

endlessly

repeat

the

trauma

of

castration

as

if to

"explain,"

by

repetitious

mastery,

the

originary

problem

of

sexual

difference.

And

melodramatic

weepie

is

the

genre

that

seems

to

endlessly

repeat

10

our

melancholic

sense of

the loss

of

origins-

impossibly

hoping

to

return

to an

earlier

state

which is

perhaps

most

fundamentally represented

by

the

body

of

the

mother.

Of

course

each of

these

genres

has

a

history

and

does not

simply

"endlessly

repeat."

The

fantasies

activated

by

these

genres

are

repetitious,

but not

fixed

and

eternal.

If traced

back

to

origins

each

could

probably

be

shown

to

have

emerged

with

the

formation

of the

bourgeois

subject

and

the inten-

sifying

importance

to this

subject

of

specified

sex-

ualities.

But

the

importance

of

repetition

in each

genre

should

not

blind

us to the

very

different

tem-

poral

structure

of

repetition

in

each

fantasy.

It

could

be,

in

fact,

that these

different

temporal

structures

constitute

the different

utopian

compo-

nent

of

problem-solving

in

each form.

Thus the

typical

(non-sadomasochistic)

pornographic

fanta-

sies

of

seduction

operate

to

"solve"

the

problem

of the

origin

of desire.

Attempting

to

answer

the

insoluble

question

of

whether

desire

is

imposed

from

without

through

the seduction

of the

parent

or whether

it

originates

within

the

self,

pornogra-

phy

answers

this

question

by

typically

positing

a

fantasy

of

desire

coming

from

within the

subject

and

from

without.

Non-sadomasochistic

pornog-

raphy

attempts

to

posit

the

utopian

fantasy

of

per-

fect

temporal

coincidence:

a

subject

and

object (or

seducer

and

seduced)

who

meet

one

another

"on

time!"

and

"now!"

in

shared

moments

of

mutual

pleasure

that

it

is

the

special

challenge

of

the

genre

to

portray.

In contrast

to

pornography,

the

fantasy

of

re-

cent

teen

horror

corresponds

to

a

temporal

struc-

ture

which raises

the

anxiety

of

not

being

ready,

the

problem,

in

effect,

of "too

early!"

Some

of

the

most

violent

and

terrifying

moments

of

the horror

film

genre

occur

in

moments

when the

female

vic-

tim meets

the

psycho-killer-monster

unexpectedly,

before

she

is

ready.

The

female

victims who

are

not

ready

for

the attack

die.

This

surprise

encounter,

too

early,

often

takes

place

at

a

moment

of

sexual

anticipation

when

the

female

victim

thinks

she

is

about

to

meet

her

boyfriend

or

lover.

The

mon-

ster's

violent

attack

on the

female

victims

vividly

enacts

a

symbolic

castration

which

often

functions

as a

kind

of

punishment

for

an

ill-timed

exhibition

of

sexual

desire.

These

victims

are

taken

by

surprise

in the

violent

attacks

which

are

then

deeply

felt

by

spectators

(especially

the

adolescent

male

spectators

:-::

~ii-i-

---:--:

::

iii

i:ili

:i:

i-i?i ::i

_i-:-::::::-?::::

-::

i :ii ii :.- :...

iii ii-ii _ iii: i i - i iiiii iiiiiiii:iii:

iiii:ii

The

Story of

Joanna

(s-m

porn)

drawn

to

the

slasher

subgenre)

as

linked

to

the

knowledge

of

sexual

difference.

Again

the

key

to

the

fantasy

is

timing-the

way

the

knowledge

of

sexual

difference

too

suddenly

overtakes

both

char-

acters

and

viewers, offering

a

knowledge

for

which

we are

never

prepaired.

Finally,

in contrast

to

pornography's

meeting

"on

time!"

and

horror's

unexpected

meeting

"too

early!,"

we

can

identify

melodrama's

pathos

of

the

"too

late!"

In these

fantasies

the

quest

to

return

to and

discover

the

origin

of

the

self

is manifest

in

the form

of

the

child's

fantasy

of

possessing

ideal

parents

in the

Freudian

family

romance,

in

the

parental

fantasy

of

possessing

the child

in mater-

nal or

paternal

melodrama,

and

even

in the

lovers'

fantasy

of

possessing

one

another

in

romantic

weepies.

In these

fantasies

the

quest

for

connection

is

always

tinged

with

the

melancholy

of

loss.

Ori-

gins

are

already

lost,

the encounters

always

take

place

too

late,

on

death

beds

or

over

coffins.

(Neale,

1988).

Italian

critic

Franco

Moretti

has

argued,

for ex-

ample,

that

literature

that

makes

us

cry

operates

via

a

special

manipulation

of

temporality:

what

triggers

our

crying

is not

just

the

sadness

or

suffering

of

the

character

in the

story

but a

very precise

moment

when

characters

in

the

story

catch

up

with

and

real-

ize

what the

audience

already

knows.

We

cry,

Moretti

argues,

not

just

because

the

characters

do,

but at

the

precise

moment

when

desire

is

finally

recognized

as

futile.

The release

of

tension

pro-

duces

tears-which

become

a

kind

of

homage

to

a

happiness

that

is

kissed

goodbye.

Pathos

is thus

a

surrender

to

reality

but

it

is

a

surrender

that

pays

homage

to

the ideal

that

tried

to

wage

war

on

it

(Moretti,

1983,

179).

Moretti

thus

stresses

a

subver-

11

sive,

utopian component

in

what has

often been

considered a form

of

passive

powerlessness.

The

fantasy

of

the

meeting

with

the other that

is

always

too

late

can thus be

seen

as

based

upon

the

utopian

desire that

it

not be

too

late to

remerge

with the

other who

was once

part

of

the

self.

Obviously

there

is

a

great

deal

of

work to be

done

to

understand

the form and function of these

three

body

genres

in

relation to one

another

and

in

relation

to the fundamental

appeal

as

"original

fantasies."

Obviously

also the

most difficult work

of

understanding

this

relation between

gender,

genre, fantasy,

and

structures

of

perversion

will

come

in the

attempt

to

relate

original

fantasies

to historical context

and

specific

generic

history.

However,

there

is one

thing

that

already

seems

clear:

these

"gross"

body

genres

which

may

seem

so violent

and inimical to

women cannot

be dis-

missed

as

evidence of

a

monolithic

and

unchanging

misogyny,

as either

pure

sadism

for

male

viewers

or

masochism

for

females.

Their

very

existence

and

popularity

hinges

upon rapid

changes

taking

place

in

relations

between

the "sexes"

and

by

rapidly

changing

notions

of

gender-of

what

it

means

to

be a man

or

a woman.

To dismiss

them

as bad ex-

cess

whether

of

explicit

sex,

violence,

or

emotion,

or as bad

perversions,

whether

of masochism

or

sadism,

is

not to address

their

function as

cultural

problem-solving.

Genres

thrive,

after

all,

on the

persistence

of

the

problems

they

address;

but

genres

thrive

also

in

their

ability

to

recast

the

nature

of

these

problems.

Finally,

as

I

hope

this

most

recent

example

of

the

melodrama

of

tears

suggests,

we

may

be

wrong

in

our

assumption

that the

bodies

of

spectators

sim-

ply

reproduce

the

sensations

exhibited

by

bodies

on

the

screen.

Even those

masochistic

pleasures

as-

sociated

with

the

powerlessness

of the "too

late!"

are

not

absolutely

abject.

Even tear

jerkers

do

not

operate

to

force

a

simple

mimicry

of the

sensation

exhibited

on

the

screen.

Powerful

as the

sensations

of

the

jerk

might

be,

we

may

only

be

beginning

to

understand

how

they

are

deployed

in

generic

and

gendered

cultural

forms.

Notes

I

owe

thanks

to

Rhona

Berenstein,

Leo

Braudy,

Ernest

Callen-

bach,

Paul

Fitzgerald,

Jane

Gaines, Mandy

Harris,

Brian

Henderson,

Marsha

Kinder,

Eric

Rentschler,

and Pauline Yu

for

generous

advice on drafts of this

essay.

1.

For an

excellent

summary

of

many

of the issues

involved

with

both film

melodrama and the

"women's

film,"

see

Christine Gledhill's

introduction

to the

anthology

Home

is

Where the Heart Is:

Studies

in

Melodrama

and

the

Woman's Film

(Gledhill, 1987).

For

a more

general

inquiry

into the theatrical

origins

of

melodrama,

see Peter Brooks's

(1976)

The

Melodramatic

Imagination.

And for an ex-

tended theoretical

inquiry

and

analysis

of a

body

of melo-

dramatic

women's

films,

see

Mary

Ann Doane

(1987),

The

Desire

to

Desire.

2.

Carol J. Clover

(1987)

discusses

the

meanings

of this

fa-

mous

quote

in

her

essay,

"Her

Body/Himself:

Gender in

the Slasher

Film."

3. Dollimore

(1990,

13).

Dollimore's

project,

along

with

Teresa de Lauretis's more detailed examination

of the

term

perversion

in

Freudian

psychoanalysis

(in progress)

will be

central to

any

more detailed

attempts

to

understand

the

perverse pleasures

of

these

gross

body

genres.

4.

I

discuss

these issues

at

length

in

a

chapter

on

sadomas-

ochistic

pornography

in

my

book Hard

Core

(1989).

5.

Titles of

these

relatively

new

(post

1986)

hard-core videos

include:

Bisexual

Fantasies;

Bi-Mistake;

Karen's

Bi-Line;

Bi-Dacious;

Bi-Night;

Bi and

Beyond;

The Ultimate

Fan-

tasy;

Bi and

Beyond

II;

Bi

and

Beyond

III:

Hermaphrodites.

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Carol

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Ann. 1987.

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Mary

Ann,

Patricia

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Berkeley:

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Errata

We

inadvertently

omitted

two

contributor

identifications

in

our

last

issue.

Apologies

to

Lloyd

Michaels,

who

teaches

at

Al-

legheny College

and edits the

journal

Film

Criticism;

and to

Maurizio

Viano,

who teaches at

Wellesley College

and

whose

A

Certain Realism:

Towards

a Use

of

Pasolini's Film

Theory

and

Practice

will

be

published

by

the

University

of

California

Press.

About FQ's Index

Heretofore,

we have

prepared

our

own

Index to

each four-issue "volume" of the

journal;

it has

been bound

in

at the end of the

Summer

issues.

However,

our

contents are

indexed

in

the

many

indexing

services listed

on

the contents

page,

and

they

are also accessible

through

the

new

public-

library

data

bank

system,

Infobank.

We are there-

fore

discontinuing

our own

indexes,

confident

that readers

will

be able

to

locate

anything

that

has

appeared

in

our

pages

by

other

easily

accessi-

ble

means.

fi-m

strun

FILM HIEROGLYPHS

Ruptures

of Classical

Cinema

TOM CONLEY

Filmmaking

considered

from

the

points

(ruptures)

at which

story,

im-

age,

and

writing

appear

to

be at

odds.

$15.95

paper

CLOSE

ENCOUNTERS

Film,

Feminism,

and

Science

Fiction

Edited

by

CONSTANCE

PENLEY,

ELISABETH

LYON,

LYNN

SPIGEL,

AND

JANET

BERGSTROM

Addresses

the

ways

conventional

notions

of

sexual

difference

are

reworked

in science fiction

films.

Includes

the

complete

script

of

Peter

Wollen's

1987

film

Friendship's

Death.

$12.95

paper

CINEMA

ONE

The

Movement-Image

CINEMA

TWO

The

Time-Image

GILLES

DELEUZE

"In

Cinema

1 Deleuze

saw

the cin-

ema

prior

to

WW

II

as

essentially

narrative

in

character,

dedicated to

developing images

of

movement.

In

Cinema

2 he

perceives

images

of

time

being

developed

since the war

to

supplant

those of

motion and

sees

fragmentation

and

solitary images

replacing

the

emphasis....

well worth

reading."

Choice

$15.95

paper

(each

volume)

at bookstores

or

from

the

UNIVERSITY

OF

MINNESOTA PRESS

800-38-3863ext.5

13