I recently read Mary Wolstonecraft’s famous essay “Vindications of the Rights of Women” and Fanny Burney’s gruesome “Mastectomy,” each of which, indirectly, have some interesting things to say about the cinematic art form. Obviously neither author meant to say anything about film since, of course, both works were penned in the 18th century. However, they both have a great deal to say about the idea of voyeurism, a subject that has long been on my mind. For, ultimately, as film viewers we are essentially taking part in an accepted and commonplace form of voyeurism, are we not?
Many of the images and scenes that we see while sitting in darkened movie theaters are images that in any other context would make us extremely uncomfortable, if not angry or offended. It’s safe to say, I would think, that were most of us to see the sexual or violent or abusive behavior show in movies movies acted out on the streets we would not hesitate to quit the scene as quickly as possible. That being said, a question arises: why, then, do we not quit movie theaters at the first sign of an uncomfortable scene?
Should we?
I believe we do not do so because we are safely detached from the world of the film. It is not we who are actually being shot at, nor is it in our actual home that certain lascivious behaviors are taking place. For us, the actions of movie characters have no consequences, except perhaps a squeamish feeling in the gut or a pink eye when the lights come up. That Rambo killed twelve men in one scene means nothing to us except that it reminds us that if Rambo were real we wouldn’t mess with him.
Ms. Wolstonecraft wrote her piece on the rights of women at a time when her sex was considered a lesser species. Her great discouragement was that women were to men only eye candy. They were but objects of pleasure, meant to be for a man what a lolly-pop is for a child. She asserted that the men of her time were not asked to consider the more human elements of the women in their lives. And in turn women were asked to do no more than entertain their men. Women were rarely considered intelligent or creative, thus rarely considered truly human. Essentially, women were objects to look at, objects of voyeur, much like a character in a film. A man’s actions toward a woman bore few consequences or repercussions.
Ms. Burney’s manuscript, on the other hand, was originally a letter to her sister that detailed her (yep, you guessed it) mastectomy. The document is not for the faint of heart as the surgery is described quite… realistically. While it doesn’t seem that Burney was directly attempting to write a manifesto for women’s rights, her story is an example of what it was like for a woman in her time. The letter notes how she was left in the dark regarding when and where her surgery would take place, the details of her illness, and the nature of the surgery itself. She implies that the men around her, including her husband and several doctors, thought little of her intellectual capacities and therefore were unwilling to share said information with her.
She also wrote about how during her surgery she was forced to wear a vale over her face - a dehumanizing thing in and of itself - so that the doctors would not have to look at her as they operated. She wrote that she was forced to take her robe all the way off, something she sincerely hoped to avoid. Furthermore, strictly against her wishes, several young male doctors were invited by the surgeon to watch the operation. These may be standard medical procedures today - I personally do not know; however, one would think that today they would come only with a patient’s signature. Whatever the case may be the image is powerful: Ms. Burney stretched out across a bed, naked, her face covered, her words and facial expressions rendered meaningless, as a room full of a dozen men look down upon her body and remove one of the chief physical parts of her femininity. I understand that medically the surgery was necessary, but from a literary stand point the image is extremely meaningful.
The cinema is much the same, I think. The characters seen on screen are living creatures; they have emotions and fears and hopes just as the audience members do. The film-makers who pour themselves out into these characters pour out their own emotions and fears and hopes into the characters. Let me be clear, I am not talking about actors here. Rather, I am talking strictly about the characters whose actions the actors are depicting. I understand that these characters are not truly living and breathing beings, but they are alive in a transcendent sort of sense.
Those of us who read often refer to characters we have come to know and love in our favorite books. Tom Sawyer. Frodo. Jayber Crow. Hamlet. Holden Caulfield. Harry Potter. Jane Eyre. Elizabeth Bennett. Laura Ingalls. Antonia Shimerda. In the same way that these characters, and so many others, are transcendent, so film characters can be transcendent. That transcendence is what makes them so powerfully affecting. Even arresting. We love them because the great characters transcend page or screen, they transcend word or frame. If we claim that they are not real, that they are not alive, then they lose some of that ability to be powerful.
Of course, I realize that I am simplifying a complicated idea. However, it is an idea that ought to effect the way that we watch films. What would happen to our movie going experiences if we began to think of the characters on screen as living entities, as transcendent embodiments of breathing ideas. I think that we would begin to re-think our responses to their sometimes difficult actions. We might begin to rethink the way we first responded to Travis Bickle’s rampage in Taxi Driver, or how we responded to Barry Egan’s unfortunate telephone call early in Punch Drunk Love. We might rethink our response to Charles Foster Cain’s macabre determination in Citizen Kane, or our response to Bob Harris’s almost infidelity in Tokyo in Lost in Translation.
Yes, in considering the actions of these characters we must use discernment. We must consider how the images affect us - we each have our own threshold for such things. But what I am suggesting is that we not dismiss images, whether easy to see or not, whether commonly considered positive or negative, as simply useless or meaningless.
If we think of these characters as more than eye candy, if we think of their actions as actions of real characters, than they might just help fill us with various virtues. If we think of them as we might people, if we remember that film-makers and storytellers and actors poured themselves into the characters, than we might find that through them we are becoming more compassionate, more loving, more unselfish. Clearly, we shouldn’t simply condone the behaviors of all characters in the name of transcendent compassion or love, but we should be discerning enough to think clearly and carefully about why characters do what they do and why film-makers might have them do what they do - or, for that matter, why a film-maker has a character do what they in the way that they do it.
If, as film goers, we can avoid simply engaging in a stale sort of voyeurism, if we can pull back the vale and clothe the naked body, if we can become more than onlookers, if we can give the images and the characters in the images due respect, than we might find that the cinematic art form is full of a world of artistic possibilities as yet untapped.
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A few films which discuss the idea of voyeurism and the role of the onlooker:
1. ELEPHANT MAN: One of David Lynch’s more accessible films; stars Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, and John Hurt; details the true story of deformed Englishman John Merrick. A powerful film. High on style, but also on story.
2. FREAKS: A classic film from 1932 directed by Tod Browning. Banned in America for a long time for its realistic depictions of deformed circus players. That it was banned is an interesting testament to the values of American film goers.
3. STRANGER THAN FICTION: Starring Will Ferrell - in a more dramatic turn - and Maggie Gyllenhaal, among others. Is an interesting look at the nature of story telling and what would happen if one character really were real - and not just in a transcendent sense.
David Kern enjoys southern gothic literature, folk music, and green tea. Mythical figures intrigue him and he has an unnatural affection for cinema. For more of his film reviews go to www.besidethequeue.wordpress.com
March 14th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
absolutely stunning, provocative and scholarly. You have given a voice to something which was to me a mere intimation.
March 15th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
well done, david. i didn’t expect an essay such as this to show up in the friday film focus, but it was a delightful surprise. a topic that needs to be considered by the thinking world.