Post your questions for the Williams essay “When the Woman Looks” here.
14 thoughts on “Reading Questions 6”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Post your questions for the Williams essay “When the Woman Looks” here.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Williams states “the monster’s power is one of sexual difference from the normal man.” Then what is true from characters like Edward Cullen and Jacob Black in The Twilight Series. They obviously are very sexually different from normal men. Why does such a large sexual following exist for these characters? Are audiences in any way attracted to this disparity from the norm?
The article states that female characters are physically mutilated in a way that comforts the villain and calms his castration anxiety. Is the patriarchal cinema trying to elicit similar feelings in the audience? True, the male viewers may not identify with the killer; but, is his killing of the women supposed to cause a sick form of release from castration anxiety for the male audience?
The author states that by creating situations in which women are being looked at symbolizes how the women is in fact the monster. Using Mulvey’s theories on how men use this medium to keep power over women works to some extent. However, it is interesting to think that the pleasure a male viewer gains from this movie is the creation of a female monster. He states, “she is the monster. Her mutilated body is the only source of visible horror.” If the male viewer sees these women in a voyeuristic view, how then can they be the source of horror for the viewer?
In “When The Woman Looks,” Linda Williams explains the significance of Helen and her response to deny Mark’s voyeuristic attempt to possess her into thinking she is a monster. Williams claims, “the woman’s power to resist the monster is directly proportional to her absence of sexual desire. Clarity of vision, it would seem, can only exist in its absence.” Is Williams implying, that in cinema, a woman’s sexual desire makes her believe she is a monster? It is only in sexual purity that women can have clarity of vision? Does this concept also apply to men? Why or why not?
Williams’ article suggests that it is not only the female in the horror film that is being punished, but the female spectator as well. She does not talk at all about possible enjoyment women can have from watching horror films. Just because the female in the film may get killed, does that mean women cannot or are not expected to enjoy the film? What does it mean if the female viewer finds pleasure in watching horror films such as “Psycho”?
Williams explains that a women refuses to look at a monster because it bears witness to her own vulnerabilty towards rape, murder etc. She also states how when women look, they are paralized and unable to keep a distance between them and the monster. While a man can stay at a distance from a woman’s body (which poses a threat to him like the monster to the woman). However, Williams goes on to argue that, for males, the monster represents a lack and has the same effect of “power in difference” that a boy feels when he sees that his mother’s body is different from his. A woman on the other hand is able to identify with the monster since she recognizes that they are both different. So who is more scared of the monster? The women who find themselves in a more vulnerable position, or men for whom the monster represents more of an anxiety?
Do males watching horror films experience the a form of the “transsexual” viewing experience that Mulvey talks about in regards to the feminized monster? What about in regards to the female protagonist? Does it matter if she is the “good girl” or a “vamp,”—can male viewers find a way to identify with either form of female star, particularly when her male counterpart is usually revealed to be “inadequate?”
“The destruction of the monster that concludes so many horror films could therefore be interpreted as yet another way of disavowing and mastering the castration her body represents”. Therefore does the film maker aim to promote the thesis that women are asserting their own power, or that by mastering the castration of the monster she invigorates her own desire for a penis. I.e. replacing the need for a penis with the death of the monster?
Williams comments “the monster is not so much lacking as he is powerful in a different way”. So what makes it clear that other representations of women in the media are lacking? Can they too be powerful in other ways, whilst still ‘suffering’ from the “lack of a penis?, and from the castration complex?”
« The horror film may be a rare example of a genre that permits the expression of women’s sexual potency and desire… ».
Why is exposing the « perverse patriarchal structures of seeing » made possible specifically in horror movies? What effect does this have on the male audience? Will women appreciate horror movies more than men do? Can we eventually find other genres that would also allow an empowerment of women through the playing with gazes?
I understand the argument of female identification with the monster in horror films, and I think it is true. However, what about the male identification with the monster? Could this not also occur? Since it is the monster that usually destroys the woman in horror films, do not they identify with this aggressive punishment of the woman for having a “lack”? And if we accept the idea of a male gaze, is not the monster gazing at the woman an example of the male gaze? Is it not possible to argue that the monster is identifiable with both males and females?
If a woman character is identified with the monster in a horror film because they both have the female “lack,” what is given to a monster to make up for this lack? Can a man get sexual pleasure by directing his male gaze at the monster as he would at a woman?
This article presents another problematization of the act of female looking. There seems to be a trend that women can never look in an empowering way. Helen in Peeping Tom, superficially an exception to this trend, is only given “the power of vision” because she is a “good girl,” void of sexual desire. I feel like no matter what, theorists can turn a female gaze against itself. Is this set of theories threatened by lack of falsifiability? What would a completely empowering female gaze look like in a film?
Williams suggests that “monster” characters are more similar to females than they are to males. Williams offers that “it’s a point of honor” for boys and men to look at images of terror. What pleasure does she think a male viewer gets out of looking at monsters? Williams uses Mulvey to strengthen her theory, yet, neither of Mulvey’s two proposed male scopophilias seem to be accurate. It would be very strange for a male to get sexual pleasure from looking at a monster and just as equally strange to identify with the monster.