Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
The feminist knock on Karl Marx is that his theory of labor and production is a masculinist notion, due to the fact that in his writings, the home - until recently, the domain of women - is referred to as a place of leisure.
The post-structuralist take on film theory is that psychoanalysis and cinema are inextricably linked, due to the fact that both were born in the same era (the early 1900’s), and that, especially in the hands of a prototypically deliberate auteur like Alfred Hitchcock, cinema becomes a privileged conveyor of psychoanalytic theory.
Laura Mulvey’s seminal essay “Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema” (1973) posits that the gaze of cinema is inherently oriented to a male point of view. Women are the objects of the look; men are the observer. Female film spectators are presented with two choices: one masochistic, in which they identify with the male gaze, indulging in a kind of self-violence; the other narcissistic, in which they identify themselves with the “looked-at,” willing self-objectification. Both choices (implies Mulvey) sort of suck balls.
She called for the need to create a new language of desire.
Althusser tried to marry Freud and Marx. His writings on Ideology attempted to delineate the convergence of economy, sexuality and the superego. People listened to him less when he strangled his wife, in 1980.
Pornography is the logical complex synthesis of labor, sexuality, unconscious workings, psychology, and film theory. It is so richly laden with possibility, for the man who loves to explore. Why, then, is it so often a miserable breeding ground of discontent? Why, for so many, is it an unhappy log of shit?
It has been once said somewhere that film is the ultimate voyeur - no guilt, no fear of retribution, just pure pleasure (maybe I saidit, I know) and after reading this highly detailed and referenced article (available here for download: http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:hzSdViiALasJ:imlportfolio.usc.edu/ctcs505/mulveyVisualPleasureNarrativeCinema.pdf+Laura+Mulvey+Visual+Pleasure+in+Narrative+Cinema&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESh04hmOTWGsnt5QEyg1By2ZakbONLZfnf80MmbJvyBWkifqO_wuJ918rBJENM1g9MBZ8MoeM4yMFqhh6UX8ZNb2UyvUYl_H7MoNXe8jC4-KaJZy5G1aDgIanQm2616V37Hy79QW&sig=AFQjCNGaZBpUBr0XeBPhvWca62ni2axf4w) I just realized this woman is dead on but also very very subjective.
She found a very widely accepted form of media - film - and decided to give it a bit of a spanking for being a bad boy.
Of course, this was also the seventies, and she does make valid points - for it’s time. At the time, I’ll admit, most forms of communication and media were male-orientated and dominated - but as of 2009, women are having a pretty good time being free beings. So, fuck her thinking now, as with most of that feminist crap, it means very little anymore as precious snowflakes like Little Miss California Carrie Prejean are sued for cash for the implants the Miss America gave her while she ghost-writes books and hates gay marriage.
As far as Louis Althusser is concerned, I once read a book by a one-named fellow named Rius called “Marx For Beginners” (I found it on a chair on the 31st floor of an unfinished building at 11am one Friday morning here in Chicago - don’t ask) and to be honest, even with the simplistic writing, the drawings written for humor breaks and easy descriptions of Karl’s life, I gave up halfway through it because it’s very simple - Karl Marx was a miserable, sometimes happy but most times unhappy insane person bent on changing the world through his unbelievable rants and theories. Kinda like me, only almost 200 years ago.
Our friend Louis, after tackling Freud AND Marx within one lifetime (as both of these men ripped apart the social and mental mores of their time), had clearly had a bout with some sort of insanity himself (thank you, Wikipedia!) and after a lifetime of tackling the synergy of two master giants of thought took it upon himself to destroy the one person in his miserable existence who stood near him for over 20 years, having eaten the sacred bread and drank the holy wine of rational thought at that very altar one too many times.
He said he didn’t remember.
Porn moved on.
The business of porn is alive, but dying.
However, the act of visual (and literal) pornography has not only been in practice for over 10,000 years but is now somewhat condoned, as sexuality on television and in ads to sell some product is accepted and awarded.
Sam, if you write a book about that theory, I’ve got the perfect title for it - “From Totems to Coca-Cola Bottles”.
They are both not only worshiped worldwide, but both have been used anally somewhere.
As far as porn being part of something bigger in society?
Feh.
So is Google.
log of shit = formulaic bore, dead distribution models, etc.
mr. chicago is right about google. the tube porns are finally becoming interesting, mostly because amateur cam/porn sites already figured out how to lure niche audiences into subscriptions about five years ago. once the tube sites figure out how to bypass the legalities and lead users to super-specific niche clips, i think some of the smarter porn studios will figure out how to stay in business.
as for the feminist theory shit, fuck it. literally. it’s dead, and it was dead wrong from the start.
I don’t want to disagree with libby, but feminism had it’s moments…
Linda Lovelace had an idea or two about her “striking back” at men by making porn, and so did Marilyn Chambers, the most famous famewhore of them all.
So them swallowing choad and taking cock in the ass for women everywhere to show women they can own their sexuality is a good thing everywhere, right?
Kinda a win-win if you will…