Gender and Castration

The idea that the image of a castrated female is a representation of the lack of man, which man fears, is a central point in Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," and also resonates as a theme in Joan Riviere's "Womanliness as a Masquerade." Although both women are writing from very opposite standpoints at times, it was interesting that this idea could be tied into both Riviere's ideas of homosexuality (some of which were based on the essays of Ernest Jones) as well as to Mulvey's ultra-feminist view of the woman kneeling and fearing the phallic symbols unconciously placed in society by patriarchs.

Both types of women had the overbearing desire to destroy man, and to destroy man's penis. This leads me to believe that there is maybe a reason men fear women? I can't help but picture sections The Wall..not to bring anything into modern light or music or anything.. ahem. During "The Trial" (begins at 1:45 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCMHmDnfD6I&feature=fvw), a creature adorned with phallic and vaginal imagery appears to attack the man "caught red handed showing feelings... feelings of an almost human nature", who is portrayed as a limp doll leaning against the wall. He is isolated. Growing breasts, wearing heels, flaming hair, and dangling the doll before her/his/its eyes, the creature soon morphs into something more closely related to these essays. In Riviere's "Womanliness," she writes, "The desire to bite off the nipples shifts, and desires to destroy, penetrate and disembowl the mother and devour her and the contents of her body succeed it." This occurs in mere children, and gender roles become specified by their physical attributes; the penis being seen as a mechanism of power and the vagina being seen as devouring. The wall in the clip spits out a speeding masculine metal symbol, which then changes into a mother, then back to the masculine, then to a vaginal symbol, all moving threateningly towards the man on trial; the doll. All of these symbols are mixed up, morph into one another, and are confused and angry and resentful. We see a man represented in a culturally feminine way (a doll), and also he emasculates himself when he sees himself through the eyes of his mother, who dangles him and wears him as a scarf at one point, because the doll is small and limp; lifeless. Slowing down its speed and expressing 'herself' with a more gentle and sympathetic voice, the literal vagina in The Wall hovers over a small man, huddling with his hands around his knees, and sucks his essence away, while slowly enveloping him, then changing into a loving mother holding him (as an infant) in her arms. There are so many levels to this that I think would have been interesting for Riviere especially, but all Mulvey to have written about. The roles played in society coincide with our learned notions of mother and father figures, thus shaping the basis of how we judge gender and sexual attraction for the rest of our lives.

Laura Mulvey's essay seems to me to be too focused on feminism (although I suppose that's what she was going for) in a way which blocks out other possibilities. She sees society as being completely focused on the rights of man and his power over women as spread through popular cultural modes such as cinema, and doesn't consider the severe power both women and men are able to have over one another. In Riviere's essay, a homosexual woman "wish[es] for 'recognition' of thier masculinity from men and claim to be the equals of men, or in other words, to be men themselves" (Routledge p. 27). This brings up the idea that codependency exists alongside fear, just as Riviere earlier wrote that a child will wish to destroy their mother and father and take away their most beloved attributes, while at the same time depending on them and begging for forgiveness, out of fear. These paradoxes and dependencies and shifts are all occuring at the same time.

The movie and these two readings have plently of apolcalyptic imagery, both in the form of radical change, as well as in the forms of revelation and traumatic tragedies. Good stuff.