Gledhill argues that negotiation leads to a variety of different meanings in any given text. Is this fluidity and multiplicity of meaning accessible and available to any untrained audience, or just to those critics who both professionally seek meanings and resist being locked into the patriarchal structures of meaning seeking she refutes?
Gledhill mentions that Anette Kuhn makes the point that “female spectatorship, elides conceptually distinct notions: the “femenine spectator”, constructed by the text, and the female audience, constructed by the socio-historical categories of gender, class, race and so on”(168). Can the female spectator constructed by the text also be constructed by socio-historical categories in the film? Is it already constructed like this? If character in movies are constructed and influenced by their race, gender and class just like the viewer, why is there such a big gap between them? Doesn’t this gap happen with the male spectator too?
In the section entitled “Conditions and Possibilities of Textual Negotiation” Gledhill states, “When popular culture forms, operating within a melodramatic framework, attempt to engage contemporary discourses about women or draw on women’s cultural forms in order to renew their gender verisimilitude and solicit the recognition of a female audience, the negotiation between “woman” as patriarchal symbol and woman as generator of women’s discourse is intensified.” What about the masquerade? Doesn’t that show women using their patriarchal image to solve problems of social discourse? By women using this image to gain power are they actually implying that power resides in the patriarchy and the only way to get it is to bend to the system? Would women be considered more powerful if they did not negotiate with the patriarchal system? Is it possible to avoid negotiation?
Gledhill writes that “..attempts to take into account of the ‘female spectator’…draws on theoretically divergent analytical approaches.” Why is it so easy to analyze what the experience of the male spectator is? Why is his development something that isn’t divergent, while it is so hard to “conceive the relationship” between all the socio-historical categories that influence the female spectator?
If capitalism is constantly turning alternative lifestyles into commodities and modifying them to be in line with the status quo, then how can these marginalized members of society ever have a say in mainstream media, without being edited or “negotiated” to be more palatable for the public at large?
Gledhill brings forth the example of the CBS show “Cagney and Nancy” and mentions that it was under frequent threat of cancellation from CBS despite being an being award winning and highly rated. She explains that it was because of the problematic definitions of a woman and reoccurring charges of lesbianism. Why did this series show so many conflicts while Buffy cruised through 8 seasons empowering women and boosting ratings? did Buffy go though the same conflicts of reoccurring lesbian themes?
read below for superfluous message and question:
Besides the previous passage and future passages, I would like to admit that I have little to no idea what Gledhill is trying to say in her introduction and “cine-psychoanalysis and feminism” passage. Is this meant to be so confusing? Am I the only one in this boat?
“Moreover, the feminist project seeks to open up defintions and identities, not to diminish them…The critics open up the negotiations of the text in order to animate the contradictions in play.” Who is the audience that the critics hope to aim these contradictions? Isn’t there a risk of the audience only understanding one side of the argument?
Gledhill suggests “meanings are not fixed entities to be deployed at the will of a communicator, but products of textual interactions shaped by a range of economic, aesthetic and ideological factors that often operate unconsciously and are unpredictable and difficult to control”. Isn’t this true of any media text? Interpretations of gender representation vary depending on the viewer, and are determined by that viewer’s own background, be that person gay, straight, white, black, working or middle class. Therefore how is it possible to understand one exact meaning of a product of consumption? Or are shows still predominantly displaying a white middle class male perspective? Or have we seen enough shows which deviate from such ‘norms’ and therefore deem this interpretation redundant?
Gledhill describes how there are always negotiations in media texts. The term “negotiations” signifies that neither group is in full control, and both are always either maintaining or contesting power. However it still seems to me that mass media is a confining aspect of culture as it produces a particular ‘knowledge’ and presents it as absolute truth. We as viewers take in these ideas and they become deeply-ingrained beliefs. Therefore, if oppressed women or bisexuals, lesbians, etc, are able to negotiate and contest their portrayal in media, as Gledhill states, why hasn’t patriarchal domination been resisted? Why am I able to count on one hand the shows that have characters that self-identify as a gay or bisexual person?
Gledhill says, “the female ‘buddy’ relationship can be ‘realistically’ constructed only by drawing on the sub-cultural codes of women’s social intercourse and culture.” If something is constructed, doesn’t that automatically negate it from being realistic? And what happens with the female ‘buddy’ relationship in ‘real life’ when it’s not being portrayed by the media? Can this type of relationship only prosper in reality if the “sub-cultural codes of women’s social intercourse and culture” are recognized by both the female and male in the relationship? What kinds of sub-cultural codes would Gledhill insist need to be drawn upon?
Christine Gledhill presents a view of spectatorship which is interesting to approach feminist media studies. She affirms that the negotiation process suggests ”a range of positions of identification may exist within any text; and that, within the social situation of their viewing, audiences may shift subject positions as they interact with the text”. Would this be relevant to approach queer theory as well and especially spectatorship in such instances?
If feminist scholars analyse continually analyse texts “with the aim of distinguishing progressive from reactionary texts”, does the feminist who aims “to open up definitions and identities” not end up limiting the pathway for advancement? By exploiting textual contradictions do feminists not make light of the evidence they use to support their claims by manufacturing it? Additionally do they not undermine the necessity of a political position for support of a consistent and answerable identity”. Or is women’s negotiation of identity fundamentally different to the working class, blacks or gays?’.
“The complete reading–from narrative disruption, to enigma development, to resolution–that arises from repeated viewings and close analysis is the product of the critical profession and does not replicate the ‘raw’ reading/viewing of audiences.” This presents an interesting dilemma. If we look at movies with a teleological lens (knowing the ending when analyzing the beginning) do we lose some of the “experience” of films? Does the repeated viewing and analyzation of a text hinder critics from understanding the new experience that is the first viewing? For example in our class, when we view the opening scene of a show multiple times, do we pick up on things that everyday viewers normally would fail to?
It doesn’t seem as though the capitalist system is inherently patriarchal and sexist, but has been swayed by what people want to see, and thus preys on the “id” and the “unconscious”. People are going to make products that appeal to a wide variety of people, and what our society wants is based on patriarchal beliefs. Would a “product” such as a television show or other media text be more marketable for using more negotiation than less? Or, if not more negotiation, more emphasis on multiple levels of pleasurable negotiation?
Gledhill argues that negotiation leads to a variety of different meanings in any given text. Is this fluidity and multiplicity of meaning accessible and available to any untrained audience, or just to those critics who both professionally seek meanings and resist being locked into the patriarchal structures of meaning seeking she refutes?
Gledhill mentions that Anette Kuhn makes the point that “female spectatorship, elides conceptually distinct notions: the “femenine spectator”, constructed by the text, and the female audience, constructed by the socio-historical categories of gender, class, race and so on”(168). Can the female spectator constructed by the text also be constructed by socio-historical categories in the film? Is it already constructed like this? If character in movies are constructed and influenced by their race, gender and class just like the viewer, why is there such a big gap between them? Doesn’t this gap happen with the male spectator too?
In the section entitled “Conditions and Possibilities of Textual Negotiation” Gledhill states, “When popular culture forms, operating within a melodramatic framework, attempt to engage contemporary discourses about women or draw on women’s cultural forms in order to renew their gender verisimilitude and solicit the recognition of a female audience, the negotiation between “woman” as patriarchal symbol and woman as generator of women’s discourse is intensified.” What about the masquerade? Doesn’t that show women using their patriarchal image to solve problems of social discourse? By women using this image to gain power are they actually implying that power resides in the patriarchy and the only way to get it is to bend to the system? Would women be considered more powerful if they did not negotiate with the patriarchal system? Is it possible to avoid negotiation?
Gledhill writes that “..attempts to take into account of the ‘female spectator’…draws on theoretically divergent analytical approaches.” Why is it so easy to analyze what the experience of the male spectator is? Why is his development something that isn’t divergent, while it is so hard to “conceive the relationship” between all the socio-historical categories that influence the female spectator?
If capitalism is constantly turning alternative lifestyles into commodities and modifying them to be in line with the status quo, then how can these marginalized members of society ever have a say in mainstream media, without being edited or “negotiated” to be more palatable for the public at large?
Gledhill brings forth the example of the CBS show “Cagney and Nancy” and mentions that it was under frequent threat of cancellation from CBS despite being an being award winning and highly rated. She explains that it was because of the problematic definitions of a woman and reoccurring charges of lesbianism. Why did this series show so many conflicts while Buffy cruised through 8 seasons empowering women and boosting ratings? did Buffy go though the same conflicts of reoccurring lesbian themes?
read below for superfluous message and question:
Besides the previous passage and future passages, I would like to admit that I have little to no idea what Gledhill is trying to say in her introduction and “cine-psychoanalysis and feminism” passage. Is this meant to be so confusing? Am I the only one in this boat?
xoxo gossip girl
“Moreover, the feminist project seeks to open up defintions and identities, not to diminish them…The critics open up the negotiations of the text in order to animate the contradictions in play.” Who is the audience that the critics hope to aim these contradictions? Isn’t there a risk of the audience only understanding one side of the argument?
Gledhill suggests “meanings are not fixed entities to be deployed at the will of a communicator, but products of textual interactions shaped by a range of economic, aesthetic and ideological factors that often operate unconsciously and are unpredictable and difficult to control”. Isn’t this true of any media text? Interpretations of gender representation vary depending on the viewer, and are determined by that viewer’s own background, be that person gay, straight, white, black, working or middle class. Therefore how is it possible to understand one exact meaning of a product of consumption? Or are shows still predominantly displaying a white middle class male perspective? Or have we seen enough shows which deviate from such ‘norms’ and therefore deem this interpretation redundant?
Gledhill describes how there are always negotiations in media texts. The term “negotiations” signifies that neither group is in full control, and both are always either maintaining or contesting power. However it still seems to me that mass media is a confining aspect of culture as it produces a particular ‘knowledge’ and presents it as absolute truth. We as viewers take in these ideas and they become deeply-ingrained beliefs. Therefore, if oppressed women or bisexuals, lesbians, etc, are able to negotiate and contest their portrayal in media, as Gledhill states, why hasn’t patriarchal domination been resisted? Why am I able to count on one hand the shows that have characters that self-identify as a gay or bisexual person?
Gledhill says, “the female ‘buddy’ relationship can be ‘realistically’ constructed only by drawing on the sub-cultural codes of women’s social intercourse and culture.” If something is constructed, doesn’t that automatically negate it from being realistic? And what happens with the female ‘buddy’ relationship in ‘real life’ when it’s not being portrayed by the media? Can this type of relationship only prosper in reality if the “sub-cultural codes of women’s social intercourse and culture” are recognized by both the female and male in the relationship? What kinds of sub-cultural codes would Gledhill insist need to be drawn upon?
Christine Gledhill presents a view of spectatorship which is interesting to approach feminist media studies. She affirms that the negotiation process suggests ”a range of positions of identification may exist within any text; and that, within the social situation of their viewing, audiences may shift subject positions as they interact with the text”. Would this be relevant to approach queer theory as well and especially spectatorship in such instances?
If feminist scholars analyse continually analyse texts “with the aim of distinguishing progressive from reactionary texts”, does the feminist who aims “to open up definitions and identities” not end up limiting the pathway for advancement? By exploiting textual contradictions do feminists not make light of the evidence they use to support their claims by manufacturing it? Additionally do they not undermine the necessity of a political position for support of a consistent and answerable identity”. Or is women’s negotiation of identity fundamentally different to the working class, blacks or gays?’.
“The complete reading–from narrative disruption, to enigma development, to resolution–that arises from repeated viewings and close analysis is the product of the critical profession and does not replicate the ‘raw’ reading/viewing of audiences.” This presents an interesting dilemma. If we look at movies with a teleological lens (knowing the ending when analyzing the beginning) do we lose some of the “experience” of films? Does the repeated viewing and analyzation of a text hinder critics from understanding the new experience that is the first viewing? For example in our class, when we view the opening scene of a show multiple times, do we pick up on things that everyday viewers normally would fail to?
It doesn’t seem as though the capitalist system is inherently patriarchal and sexist, but has been swayed by what people want to see, and thus preys on the “id” and the “unconscious”. People are going to make products that appeal to a wide variety of people, and what our society wants is based on patriarchal beliefs. Would a “product” such as a television show or other media text be more marketable for using more negotiation than less? Or, if not more negotiation, more emphasis on multiple levels of pleasurable negotiation?