SEX/VIOLENCE/HOLLYWOOD
Professor Jane Caputi, Women’s
Studies,
It is critical that Peace Studies incorporate
explorations of what popular culture tells about cultural understandings of the
efficacy of violence, the gendered implications of peace and war, historical
roots of violence, dehumanization and stereotyping. Popular movies can be understood in many ways
-- as representing the dream life of the nation, as political and moral
influences, sometimes negative, sometimes positive, and as a repository of
collective beliefs and values. Through
an interdisciplinary set of readings, and study of key films, we will consider
the ways that violence and war, especially as these are involved with issues of
race, class, sexuality, and gender roles, are variously presented in popular
and genre films. We also will be looking
at films that either explicitly or implicitly offer theories regarding the
roots of violence, the particular forms violence take in American culture due
to histories of genocide of Native Americans, slavery, and modern forms of
sexism and racism, the fusion of sexuality with violence, the affirmative association
of masculinity and war. Your readings
will encompass a range of sources, from film criticism, spiritual writings, psychological
studies, and political essays. I expect
you to be able to synthesize these various perspectives, and generate original
ideas for the study of peace by examining and interpreting the role of violence
in popular film.
Required
Texts:
Sissela Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (Reading, MA: Perseus Books,
1998).
James Gilligan, Violence: Reflections on a National
Epidemic (New York: Random House, 1996).
Linda Hogan, The Woman
Who Watches Over the World, Norton, 2001
Jane Caputi, Goddesses and
Monsters. U Wisconsin/Popular Press, 2004.
Christian de la Huerta, Coming Out
Spiritually: The Next Step.
Martha McCaughey and Neal King,
eds. Reel Knockouts.
There also will be shorter readings, articles and
excerpts from other books, as indicated on the weekly schedule.
Requirements: All films must be viewed
outside of class.
Take-home essay exams (40% each).
(sample questions included
Scrapbook
Assignment (20%): For this assignment,
please gather 4 examples from the news or image media that in some way relate
to the themes of this class (e.g., news items, print advertisements, clips from
films or TV shows, song lyrics, fiction, a comic book). For each item, provide at least one
typewritten page, double-spaced text where you analyze this text or image, using
theoretical and critical perspectives from the readings, class lectures, and
discussions. Look for political, cultural, and symbolic meanings, recognizing
that often these messages are multidimensional, complex and sometimes even
paradoxical. Make sure you choose
entries that are manifestly distinct from one another and allow you to discuss
different aspects of the class materials.
Weekly
Schedule:
Week 1: Introduction: Diverse perspectives on the
role of popular cinema in expressing and influencing values, policies, and
public perception.
Denby, David. "Buried Alive." The New Yorker
Vivian Sobchak, “The Postmorbid Condition,” Signs of
Life, ed. Jack Solomon and S. Maasik, 377-381
Brenda Patterson, “Healing Visual Violence,” New Age
Journal, November/December 1996.
Robert Bork, “The Collapse of Popular Culture,” in Slouching
toward
Thich Nhat Hanh, “Ecology of Mind,” from Peace is
Every Step,
Harold Schechter, The Bosom Serpent: Folklore and
Popular Art, 2nd ed., Peter Lang, 2001, pp. ix-40.
Week 2: Popular violence as support for militarism
View: Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 1999)
Read: The Production Code of the Motion Picture
Producers and Directors of America, Inc. --1930-1934.
Bok, Mayhem
A.
O. Scott, “Vengeance Is Ours, Says
Week 4: Dehumanization and the creation of an enemy
Independence
Day (Ronald
Emmerich, 1997)
Grossman, Dave, On Killing:
The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Back Bay Books, 1996
(excerpts)
Lerner,
Gerda. Why History Matters: Life and Thought.
Maiese, Michelle, “What It Means
to Dehumanize,” http://www.intractableconflict.org/m/dehumanization.jsp
Marshall,
Lucinda. "The Connection between Militarism and Violence
against Women." Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of
Discussion and Activism Spring 2004: 5-7.
Week
5: Violence in American origins and
national myth
The
Searchers (John
Ford, 1956)
Andrea Smith, Not an Indian Tradition: The Sexual
Colonization of Native Peoples, Hypatia 18:2 (2003) 70-85.
Linda Hogan, The Woman Who Watches Over the World, 2001
Arthur M. Eckstein, “Darkening Ethan: John Ford’s The
Searchers (1956) from Novel to Screenplay to Screen,” Cinema Journal
38, no. 1, Fall 1998, pp. 3-24.
Kenneth Davis, “Ethnic Cleansing Didn’t Start in
Baker, Nancy, V., et. al.,
“Family Killing Fields: Honor Rationales in the Murder of Women,” Violence Against Women, vol. 5, no. 2, Feb, 1999, 164-184.
Week 6: The shared values supporting violence in a
“family values” film and a serial-killer violence extravaganza.
View: Natural
Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994) and Forrest Gump (Robert
Zemeckis, 1996)
Read:
Jane Caputi, “Small Ceremonies” in Goddesses and Monsters, pp. 162-181
Week 7: On violence, respect, and manhood
Scarface (Brian de Palma, 1983) and American
Me (Edward James Olmos, 1992)
View in Class: Def Jam Presents: Origin of a Hip-Hop
Classic
Gilligan, On Violence
Robert Warshow, “The Gangster as Tragic Hero” The
Immediate Experience, 1962, pp. 127-134.
Angela Davis, “Masked
Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex,” http://home.ican.net/~edtoth/lawprisonrace.html
Don Sabo, et. al,
“Gender and the Politics of Punishment,” in Prison Masculinities, ed. Sabo et. al.,
Week 8: The connections between environmental and
military violence and personal sexual violence. Violence growing out of unjust
hierarchical power relations and abuse of power
Caputi,
“Unthinkable Fathering,” Goddesses and Monsters, pp. 269-299.
Caputi, “Sex, Radiation and the Sacred,” Goddesses and
Monsters, pp. 243-268.
Week 9: The continuing legacy of violence wrought by
slavery
Antwone
Fisher (Denzel
Washington, 2003)
Read: Hooks, We Real Cool
Week 10: Violence and the stereotypic feminine “other”
View: A Fool There Was, Basic Instinct (Paul
Verhoeven, 1992)
Read:
Halberstam, Judith, “Imagined Violence,” Reel Knockouts, 244-265.
Bram Dijkstra, Evil Sisters: The threat of female
sexuality and the cult of manhood.
Week 11: Two films on resistance and female violence.
View: Set It Off (F. Gary Gray, 1996) Thelma
and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
Read: Patricia Williams. “Teleology on the Rocks,” The
Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor.
Leslie Marmon Silko, “In the Combat
Zone,” Hungry Mind, Fall 1995, pp. 44-45.
Kimberly Springer, “Waiting to Set it Off,”
Reel Knockouts, 172-199
Week 12:
A Pornography of Violence?
Kill Bill 1 and 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003, 2004)
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, Random House, 1991.
Reel Knockouts, Intro, pp. 1-24
Week 13: The serial killer as emblem of American consumerism
and empire
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1992)
Morrow, Lance. A Moment for the Dead. Time,
Caputi, “American Psychos, Goddesses and Monsters,
141-161.
Week 14: Gender and the War Film
Full
Metal Jacket
(Stanley Kubrick, 1986) and G.I.
Jane (Ridley Scott, 1997)
Read:
Paul Krugman, “The Rambo Coalition,” NY
Times,
William Broyles Jr., “Why Men Love War”, Esquire, November 1984, pp. 55-65.
Carol
Tavris, “Beautiful Souls and Different Voices: Why Women are Not Superior to
Men,” The Mismeasure of Women.
Burke, Carol. "From New Recruit to Soldier:
Military Discipline Is Enforced with Marching Chants--and Their Sexist, Racist,
Brutal Messages." Women's Review of Books 21.12 (2004): 6-7.
Swofford, Anthony. Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle
of the Gulf War and Other Battles.
Week 15: Sexuality, gender and violence in the
military. Homophobia and the roots of violence
View: Soldier
Girl (Frank Pierson, 2004)
Read: de
la Huerta, Coming Out Spiritually
Sample
Take-Home Exam Questions:
1.
Writing
in the Village Voice Manhola Dargis observes, “The hostile fixation on Thelma
and Louise betrays a deep unease with the idea of female violence. As a rule, violence is a male prerogative, an
entitlement that brings with it control, domination, and finally power.” Many of your readings speak to the ways that
violence is “gendered.” In other words,
women and men are socially positioned differently in relation to violence. Talk about their ideas on this and examine
the gendering of violence as it plays out in two or three films we have viewed
this semester.
2.
In
“Teleology on the Rocks,” Patricia Williams writes that a form of “psychic
violence” is an “obliteration of the self through domination by an all-powerful
other. . . .What links child abuse, the mistreatment of women, and racism is
the massive external intrusion into psyche that dominating powers impose to
keep the self from ever fully seeing itself.”
First of all discuss and elaborate on Williams’ ideas. Next, consider these in relation to the characters
of Clarice in Silence of the Lambs, Thelma in T&L, and
Frankie in Set It Off. Do dominant others commit psychic violence
against these women? How does each of
these characters respond? Do they
reclaim self-definition and if so how?
Or do they succumb to these negative images and, if so, how? Do these characters end up fully seeing the
self?
3.
One
of the recurrent questions in your readings is the effect of violence and
violent representations on attributes traditionally related to the soul. Drawing
upon the writings of
4.
James
Gilligan summarizes the argument of his book Violence: “The fundamental
challenge for our time. . . is to break the link
between civilization and patriarchy . . . . If humanity is to evolve beyond the
propensity toward violence that now threatens our very survival as a species,
then it can only do so by recognizing the extent to which the patriarchal code
of honor and shame generates and obligates male violence. If we wish to bring
this violence under control, we need to begin by reconstituting what we mean by
both masculinity and femininity.” First
of all, elaborate on and explain what he means by this. How does the code of
honor and shame work to produce male violence?
How do traditional gender roles contribute to violence in his view? Consider Gilligan’s ideas to the themes in
Antwone Fisher, Scarface, American Me, and Set if Off.
5.
A
new video game, “Unreal Tournament,” has the science-fictional premise that in
the future Earth’s leaders begin sanctioning bloody public exhibitions among
brutal deep-space miners to vent their violent tendencies. Soon, these contests
evolve into a multi-billion-dollar professional league. Game players are exhorted to “crush your
enemies.” Pretend that you are an historian and social critic from the year
3000. Although many historians now
condemn them as horrifically cruel, the Roman gladiatorial games were
considered normal entertainment in their time.
In the year 2000, sex and violence are key ingredients of popular movies
as well as other pop-culture products.
Write an essay reflecting on the relation of late 20th century American
movies with the Roman gladiatorial games, referring specifically and in some
detail to at least two of the films we have viewed in class, as well as with
the culture of the year 3000 (it is up to you to decide how to envision that
future and tell us what forces formed it).
Additional
Bibliography:
Alloway, L. (1971). Violent
Atkins, T. ed.
(1976). Graphic Violence on the
Screen.
Bataille, G. (1962). Death and
Sensuality: A Study of Eroticism and the Taboo. New York, Walker and Company.
Broday, S.
(1977).
Screen Violence and Film Censorship: A Review of Research.
Clover, C. J.
(1992). Men,
Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.
Doane, M. A. (1981). Femmes
Fatales: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis.
Duclos, D. (1998). The
Werewolf Complex:
Gilligan, J. (1996). Violence:
Reflections on a National Epidemic.
Hart, L. (1994). Fatal Women:
Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression.
Hill, A. (1997). Shocking Entertainment: Viewer Response to Violent Movies.
Hooks, B.
(1992). Black
Looks: Race and Representation.
Hooks, B.
(1996). Reel
to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies.
Horsley, J. (1999). The Blood
Poets: A Cinema of Savagery, 1958-1999.
Jeffords, S. (1994). Hard
Bodies:
Kagan, N. (1995). The Cinema of Oliver Stone.
Kittelson, M. L., Ed. (1998). The Soul of Popular Culture.
Lovell, J. P., Ed. (1998). Insights
from Film into Violence and Oppression: Shattered Dreams of the Good Life.
Paul, W.
(1994). Laughing,
Screaming: Modern
Prince, S., Ed.
(2000). Screening Violence.
Slotkin, R. (1973). Regeneration through Violence.
Solanas, V.
(1995). The Scum Manifesto. I Shot Andy Warhol. M.
Harron and D. Minahan.
Wood, R. (1986).