Debates in Feminist Research - week 7 (Monday 18th Febuary)

This series of posts relate to a course I am currently taking as part of my Women's Studies degree. The aim of the course is to explore the key issues and debates in women's studies research.

For my assessment as part of this course, I am producing a critical journal, detailing my assumptions and realisations about women's studies research and about myself as a researcher. It will include some preparation work for classes and reflections on this preparation, as I discover new ways of researching.

NOTE: Please feel free to read this blog and comment freely. I am not presenting facts, this is a record of my thoughts and processes. However I will ask, given that this will form part of my assessed degree course, that you please seek my permission before citing any of this material yourself.

Exploring 'Women's Voices': Feminist Film Studies and Cultural Studies

This week, we explored feminist film theory and cultural studies to analyse representations of women in film and TV and consider the 'tricky question' of portraying 'women's voices'.

I will begin with a summary of each of the three articles we read, then I will offer a consideration of the film Baise-Moi in relation to one of the article's arguments. I will follow this by outlining potential methodologies for researching film and which methodology I would use. Finally I will reflect on the exercises and class discussion and offer some of my thoughts and ideas for further exploration.

Summary of reading material

Citron, Michelle et al. "Women and Film: A Discussion of Feminist Aesthetics". New German Critique 13 (1978): 82-107.

The contributors to this article discuss ways in which films and film theory are placed and place themselves within feminist discourse. They consider female visual pleasure and varying ways of watching and decoding films for pleasure, highlighting the limits of Mulvey and Johnston’s influential theories. They consider the advantages and disadvantages of varying methodologies of interpretation, mainly Marxist analysis v. liberalism. Finally they discuss the extent to which film-making can be explicitly ‘feminist’ through collective film-making or participatory cinema film (99).

Stacey, Jackie. "Feminine Fascinations: A question of identification?". Stargazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. London: Routledge, 1994. 126-175.

Stacey identifies the multiple ways women identify with film stars in order to show that existing theories, based on psychoanalysis, are limited. She distinguishes between cinematic identification (devotion, adoration, worship, transcendence, aspiration and inspiration) and extra-cinematic identification (pretending, resembling, imitating, copying). She highlights the distinctions between fantasies and practices of identification and redefines theories of similarity and difference in identification.

Thornham, Sue. "Feminist Media and Film Theory". Contemporary Feminist Theories. Ed. Stevi Jackson and Jackie Jones. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. 213-231.

Thornham provides an overview of feminist cultural and film studies since the 1960s, tracing a pathway through Friedan, Tuchman, Pollock, Mulvey and Johnston. She follows media and film studies through structuralism and psychoanalysis and finally into more audience/spectator based cultural studies. She identifies four central issues:

1. the power of the media
2. our own capacity for agency
3. the means we choose to answer these (above) questions
4. the kinds of knowledge we wish to produce and the ways we wish to use it.

A reading of Baise-Moi with reference to Citron’s theory of a distinct women’s filmmaking.

I would like to consider the film Baise-Moi (2001) co-directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi in the context of Citron et al.’s idea of a distinct ‘women’s film-making’. (Poster image from
[accessed 18 February 2008]).

‘Exploring themes of gender, sexuality, race, rape, class, violence against women, poverty and punk rock, Baise-Moi turns the tables and puts women in the role of sexual aggressor. Based on Despentes’ novel of the same title, Manu and Nadine lose their last tenuous relationship with mainstream society when Manu gets raped and Nadine sees her only friend being shot. After a chance encounter, they embark on an explosive journey of sex and murder. Perhaps as revenge against men, perhaps as a revolt against bourgeois society, but certainly in a negation - almost joyful in its senseless violence - of all the codes of a society which has excluded, raped and humiliated them. Controversial for its violence and real sex scenes: a vividly nihilist road movie set in France’. ("Film Synopsis", [accessed 17 February 2008])

Citron says that ‘women’s content is different, but a lot of women’s films are formalistically just like films that have always been made’ (97). This film was certainly described as ‘original’, however it does remind me of Tarantino’s films’ audacious violence and sex (see poster for Death Proof, Tarantino's latest film, image from <http://www.horrorphile.net/death-proof> [accessed 18 February 2008]). I also feel a large part of my reaction to this film was do with the fact that I knew this film was directed by women. If I hadn’t, I might have had a more negative view of the sexual explicitness and representation of the women on screen. I still find certain parts of this film problematic in this sense. Therefore I am not sure if the content of this film is especially unique to women: not all the violence is against men – women are also killed in this film.

Citron cites Iskin and Raven’s conception of female film-making as a process, whereas male art is more attacking ("Through the Peephole: Toward a Lesbian Sensibility in Art". Chrysalis 4, (1978): 19-31). Certainly this film shows some degree of process through Despente’s novel, the adaptation of the novel into a film script and into the direction of the film. Despentes says that ‘I proposed to Coralie that she co-direct the film as she and I shared the vision of a feminist battle, an avant garde battle, as well as certain fondness for provocation... To reclaim women's rights over their true sexuality, to seize it back from the male gaze. It's always men who have a problem with a woman's sex: that's their problem, not ours’ (Despentes, Virginie. "The history of Baise-Moi, [accessed 17 February 2008].) Thus it could be argued that this film is fulfilling a feminist purpose as part of this process.

Citron also highlights participatory cinema film, where film-makers interact with their ‘subjects’. This film was co-directed by Trinh-Ti, an actress and the lead roles were played by former porn actresses therefore there is perhaps a reflexivity between director and cast. But although the film was shot on digital film without artificial lighting, giving it a low-budget feel, the film is clearly fictional. However as the film is based on a book, which was written by the director, perhaps the interaction here is between the director and the novel as ‘subject’; Despentes does state that ‘it was vital that the film should remain faithful to the spirit of the book.’

What methodology would you choose for a project on 'researching women's voices'?

I found Citron’s claim interesting: ‘a definite methodology has an underlying assumption – one of objectivity, with rules which tell you how to interpret every situation. I don’t see how any kind of feminist perspective can give a methodology; at best it can give a perspective’ (93-94).

For a project on exploring women’s voices, I feel that it is important to acknowledge that there may be a range of varying possible ways of ‘reading’ and ‘analysing’ a film. Thus I personally think that a methodology which privileges the interpretations of a wide audience would be most appropriate, such as the audience research which Stacey proposes. I would hope to achieve a wide range of varying and sometimes conflicting ‘readings’ of media, which I could then use to inform a study.

Studies of film and TV gain weight and social import by asking questions which reach further than the ‘cinematic experience’ and explore the reach of the media into ‘extra-cinematic’ space. Therefore I would hope that this methodology would reveal answers about respondent’s identification with the media, their appropriation of certain aspects of it and the relevance of it to their everyday life (for example how does watching Eastenders four times a week structure the rest of the day’s activities?) (Image from [accessed 18 February 2008]).

Thinking practically, if I wanted to undertake audience research, I would devise questionnaires and perhaps follow-up interviews. This would hopefully minimise my impact as a researcher. I would hope to show that the text’s meaning is not immutable, but is determined by those consuming it and will be interpreted differently every time (see Hobson in Thornham, 223).

I would ask the following kinds of questions:

1. Do you talk about what you watch with friends/family? How often?
2. Which films/TV programmes do you watch regularly?
3. Are there any films/TV programmes that you never watch?
4. How often do you re-watch film/TV programmes? Why do you think you do this?
5. How do you decide whether to watch a certain film/TV show or not?

These more general questions might perhaps allow me to identify patterns of watching and begin to identify the choices people make when watching TV and films.

I will explore the complex decision-making process involved in choosing a methodology in more detail in my 'reflection' section below.

Reflections

There were some really interesting ideas expressed during this class, particularly with regards to the complexities of research methodology.

We tried to list as many different ways of researching film as we could and then discussed the benefits and drawbacks to each. All of us seemed more in favour of audience research, though it was pointed out that textual analysis, whilst often ignored, is the most common research method in film studies. We discussed questionnaires, surveys, interviewing, focus groups, observation and online research and the ways researchers can attract respondents, i.e. through magazines, fan groups, web sites etc. The difficulty in finding a representative sample was also discussed, with a general agreement that although this is not always possible, researchers should ensure they are aware of the potential effect this might have on their research. We also discussed the varying ethical considerations of each methodology.

The main points I drew from this discussion were:

• The most important things to decide before beginning audience research is what kind of information do you want? This will allow you to structure surveys and interview questions accordingly.
• If you are interested in observing how people interact then focus groups can be very useful. However group participation can affect the dynamic of the group, so a researcher must be aware of this potential shift.
  
• I was quite intrigued by the idea of social watching/social reading presented by Stacey. However it was pointed out in class that the research she undertook is now almost fifteen years out of date! I would find it very interesting to explore the ways in which our viewing habits have changed since then (DVDs, online viewing) and compare this with the social viewing habits of Stacey's sample.
  

Finally I would like to end with a reflection of 'resistant reading': our discussion of this in class really got me thinking.

Should a resistant reading of a text be more valuable than a 'face-value' reading?

Is there always a resistant reading or do we take some films at face value?

Can we valorise a pleasurable, 'simple' watching experience, without assuming or forcing a feminist reading?

I feel these questions are particularly pertinent to Baise-Moi, the film I chose for consideration, as this film is graphically violent and sexual thus is perhaps not the most evidently feminst film. However because we know that the film was directed by two women, we assume that the film is not to be taken at face-value, but that it has a hidden 'resistant' reading, which our cultural capital will help us to understand. Our cultural capital can make things which might seem inappropriate otherwise more acceptable: for example, the sexual violence against women in Baise-Moi seems more acceptable as we know this film is directed by two women, thus we assume they include this for a reason and not just misogyny.

[We watched an extract of Charming Augustine, a film by Zoe Beloff and were asked if we thought it was a 'feminist' film (see above image from <http://www.zoebeloff.com/pages/Augustine.html> [accessed 18 February 2008]). We discovered that it was precisely the cultural capital which we had about the film's background and context which allowed us to consider it as a feminist film. This film is asking for a higher degree of cultural capital in order to understand it (interestingly the filmmaker did not consider this to be a feminist film).]

There is always a balance to strike in film, TV and cultural studies between types of watching/reading - 'high' reading and 'low' reading. I think that the gap between them is not as wide as some 'resistant' readers would like to think:I would be interested to explore further the ways in which we all draw both resistant and face-value pleasure from our watching/reading and this is what makes our watching/reading experiences unique and validates audience research.