The Three Modes of Female Spectatorship

In Film and the Masquerade (1982), Mary Ann Doane takes up the issue with “the eviction of the female spectator from a discourse purportedly about her (the cinema, psychoanalysis)—one which, in fact, narrativizes her again and again.” (21) In the world of cinema the female assumes the position of the one who is viewed. She is the object; the one looked upon. According to Doane “theories of females spectatorship are thus rare…” (21).  Yet, she takes on the challenge of conceptualizing the female spectator by providing the different modes of female spectatorship.

Doan acknowledges that “it is admitted that women is frequently the object of the voyeuristic or fetishistic gaze in cinema” but challenges “what is there to prevent her from reversing the relation and appropriating the gaze for her own pleasure?” (20). The reality for the female spectator is that “she is the image” (22). As the object, she is within close proximity to what she is viewing “given the closeness of this relationship, the female spectator’s desire can be described only in terms of a kind of narcissism—the female look demands a becoming.” (22). The female spectator runs the risk of exposing herself to narcissistic and masochistic behavior. It is here Doane puts forth the argument that there are three different approaches (means adopted in tackling a problem) for female spectatorship: over-identification/ narcissism, transvestitism, and masquerade.

In each mode there is a certain degree of proximity or distance. Within the theory of female spectatorship there is “an opposition between proximity and distance in the relation to the image.” (21). Proximity or closeness is negative in female spectatorship because it “is conducive to what might be termed an over-identification with the image” (22). Doane sees that the “pervasiveness, in theories of the feminine, of descriptions of such a claustrophobic closeness, a deficiency in relation to the structures of seeing and the visible” keeps the female spectator from achieving a critical distance from the woman onscreen. Distance from the image is positive; it prevents the jeopardy of over-identification and or narcissism.

There is much distance between the female spectator and narcissism when she adopts the masculine position, or that of the transvestite. This position allows the female spectator to “at least pretend that she is the other” (25). This gives the female an advantage while “the male is locked into” his “sexual identity” (25). Moreover, the mode of masquerade creates a distance between the female spectator and the image of the woman onscreen. Masquerade is a form of gendered performance; it is a way to “manufacture a lack in the form of a certain distance between oneself and one’s image.”

 

 

 

 

Wearing the Mask

Joan Riviere’s Womanliness as a Masquerade discusses the mask of femininity that many women wear in their professional and home lives. Riviere says ” Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it-much like a thief will turn out his pockets and asked to be searched to prove that he has not stolen goods” (133).

Riviere’s piece is very relevant to today’s society, in which the definition of “the perfect woman,” has seemed to change. Like the woman who was the stay at home mother and wife of the 20th century, the 21st century woman must be all of that, but also much more. The idea of a woman in the workplace has not replaced the idea of the homemaker. Today, women must be both in order to be seen as the ultimate woman, and at the same time mask the masculinity of taking  on what was once considered a man’s job.

Riviere gives different examples of these women who walk around with the womanly mask. These women go to work and take on the professional world, but make sure to not dominate their male counterparts. Riviere says that these woman look for reassurance from the male “father-figures.” She says these women seek, “First, direct reassurance of the nature of compliments about her performances; secondly, and more important, indirect reassurance of the nature of sexual attentions from these men” (133).

Today, women are still fighting to be equal to their male counterparts. At the same time, maybe subconsciously, women also try to preserve their femininity, and try to be seen as not too “hard” or dominating. Are women wearing this mask for the purpose of pleasing male society, or are they doing it to please themselves?

All the world’s a stage–or at least for women

Riviere begins the essay by stating that the essay will “attempt to show that women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and retribution feared from men,” (132) this quote immedietly brought to mind Sarah Jane. Although Sarah Jane does not wear a mask of womanliness to avert anxiety and retribution feared from men she does wear a mask. Her mask shieldes her (in her mind) from the stereotypes and scrutiny she will recieve if people discovered that she was African American. It also allows her to conform to the white male idea of a perfect woman. Later she mentions the relationship between the woman and her mother , “by it she surpassed her mother, won her approval and proved her superiority among rival ‘feminine’ women (134), but in the case of Sarah Jane she surpasses her mother by shunning her. This allows her to step into a new world of conformity and compete with these ‘feminine’ women that Riviere mentions.

Riviere goes on to say that, “womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to posses it–much as a thief will turn out his pockets and ask to be searched to prove that he has not the stolen goods” (133). Her description of her aquantaince who hides her ability to do certain “masculine” tasks and passes them off as ‘lucky guess’ made me think of single mothers who have to learn “masculine” task to get through everyday life but are ridiculed because of their knowledge. This has alot to do with our society which at a young age reinforce the idea that you need a man in your life. For example, in my family I am often questioned about not having a boyfriend, speaking my mind, being careless, or knowing to much. I’m often told that I have to put on this “damsel in distress” persona in order to attract a man which I don’t agree with at all. Women have to maintain the idea of a perfect woman that was put on her from childhood, e.g. Barbie (she can do anything). As Riviere states, “She conformed in almost every particulaer to the description…excellent wives and mothers, capable housewives; they maintain social life and assist culture; they have no lack of feminine interests. (132)

Theorizing like Doane

Womanliness as a Masquerade

I was very pleased at the synthesis of so many theories within Riviére’s essay “Womanliness as a Masquerade”.  She brought in the feminist Freudianism of Horney in a way that was fresh and accessible. The concept of contemplating the female performance echoed our conversations about Butler. But what was interesting, was that it seemed to dialogue with Chodorow’s theory piece “The Reproduction of Motherhood”. More specifically I felt this piece related back to an argument I started to construct in reaction to Chodorow’s theory, saying that if masculinity required being nurtured in the ways of femininity, and women more completely embody their gender role then men, that women should be more successful at being men. I asked the question if women should become masculine to be successful in public world.

With Riviére being our first theorist to consider “a particular type of intellectual woman” (Riviére 132) who seeks to make her own way through an educated and public life, I was curious to hear her chime in on the issue, and I was a little surprised that she not only disagreed with my premise that women needed to adopt the act of masculinity to be successful in this public world, she completely disagreed with it. She sees that these woman took pride in conforming to “womanliness” in a way that was masterful, that allowed them to surpass their mother’s but also to please their fathers simultaneously with their ability to wear “womanliness” well and the intellectual abilities they were keeping safe and concealed with their act.

I thought it was fascinated that Riviére referred to this act as propagandist and that she said this masquerade of “womanliness” ways like a thief turning out his pocket to prove he has not stolen masculinity. The contrast of the severity of these terms and the seeming sneaky indirectness of women overcompensating for their masculine traits was surprising. This habit of overcompensation, does complicate her response to my question of whether women should become masculine in the world though. Women already have within them the masculine traits that they need for the public world.

This complication to the conversation of women’s masculinity in the public world made me think about why women need to be so conscious of their act and the role that masculinity plays in their internal behavior versus their external act. Riviére describes  reactions to the masculine presence mentally and feminine presence through physicality through one case.

It is significant that this woman’s mask, though transparent to other women, was successful with men and served its purpose very well. Many men were attracted to this way and gave her reassurance by showing her favour. (Riviére 134).

This revealed a concern with women’s masculinity that I had not anticipated: women see through the act of gender more than men. Though I have not read it, I wonder if the solution for women in the public sphere is really as simple as Steve Harvey’s book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.” There is a lot to ponder in this essay and it really takes a global stance on femininity as an act if it makes me think of a comedian’s best-seller.

Too Close to Hold: The Dilemma of theFemale Spectator

“Throughout history people have knocked their heads against the riddle of the natyure of femininity… to those of you who are women this will not apply– you are yourselves the problem”

In her chapter “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator”, Mary Ann Doane explains how the proximity of the woman to the image of the female body impedes her ability to analyze the “nature of femininity”. Doane cites Freud’s statement in his lecture on “Femininity”, and his exclusion of the female spectator to introduce the following ideas: the ability to decifer the enigma of woman is not  afforded, “to the unitiated, to those who do not hold the key”; since the image of the female body is presented for the scopophilic pleasure of a male spectator, the female spectator can only engage with the image in a narcissistic relationship, one of becoming rather than viewing; femininity is a masquerade that woman can put on or remove, which juxtaposes woman’s transvestive ability to put on masculinity. Despite her winding argument, Doane comes full-circle by the end of our excerpt, and reintroduces the significance of woman’s iconic role, but the significance of woman’s transvestivism seems to undermine much of her argument.

According to Doane, the female spectator is met with the dilemma of being “too close to herself, entangled in her own enigma, she could not step back.” The reference to hieroglyphics in illustrating the setback in having too close a proximity is somewhat problematic, at least initially,  because closeness is indeed what makes a hieroglyphic understandable. The one who creates the sign is by far the closest to it, and is the best source for understanding its meaning. By incorporating the idea of  cinematic imagery, Doane clarifies this point by implying that since the woman does not create the image, but in a sense actually is the image, then she does not have “the key” to understand the image. Engaging Luce igrigaray, Doane expresses the idea that possession requires a dissociation from the object, and therefore posession, “is antithetical to woman.”  This signifies that woman is so close to the object that she cannot possess it, and being the object, she essentially cannot posses herself. From my underatanding, this means that woman has no control of the image of the female body that is constructed in cinematic representation; therefore, as a spectator and appropriator of the image presented, she does not own the image that she inhabits– “the female must become the object of desire.”

Doane further uses Freud’s explanation of the way male and female children understand the image of the genitals of the opposite sex to imply male privilege in the ability to take a  “second look” at an object. According to Freud, when girls see the male genitals, she realizes her own lack and immediatly concludes that she wants what she lacks. Conversely,boys look at the female genitals and see nothing, and can dissociate himself from this nothingness, but he will ultimately come to view this lack as a “threat of castration.” In a sense, Doane is saying that a feeling of “lack” overrides a woman’s ability to engage the depth of the object, but instead identifies the object with herself– seeing what she lacks she seeks to appropriate this image. This position is problematic for woman because, “the woman who identifies witha female charactermust adopt a passive or massochistic position, while identification with the active hero necessarily entailsan acceptance of… a certain masculinization of spectatorship.” I find Doane’s assertion that woman can identify with the male character and furthermore can appropriate this masculinity simply by “slip[ing] into male clothing” to be problematic, and undermining because it displaces the idea that the woman must become the image,and it also diminishes the dilemma of the female spectator, who in this particular view actually has a choice in which characteristics to appropriate. This would imply that woman has more control in cinematic representation that Doane has previously stated.

Gender Passing.

While reading Joan Riviére’s Womanliness as a Masquerade, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Sarah Jane from the film Imitation of Life. Constantly seeking approval from white society, the African-American Sarah Jane takes advantage of her fair complexion and throughout the film, passes as white to varying degrees of success. According to Riviére, this phenomenon is not only racial, but also occurs across the gender line with “men and women [who]…plainly display strong features of the other sex.” Both Sarah Jane and “women who wish for masculinity” attempt to project what society wants them to be, but women, Riviére argues, have become so skilled at this “masquerade” that they may seamlessly shift personalities depending on the situation. (132)

Riviére frames her essay by reminding her readers of a time when gender essentially determined the job one could do, and to engage in work not designated to one’s gender was nearly impossible. For example, a woman entering the world in intellectual pursuits had to be “an overtly masculine type of woman, who in pronounced cases made no secret of her wish or claim to be a man.” (132) This image harkens back to illustrious director Dorothy Arzner. A pioneer in the film industry for women, Arzner eschewed the mask of femininity Riviére claims women now adopt, choosing instead to wear her hair and clothes in the same style as her male colleagues. For Arzner, there was no balancing act, and her story begs all sorts of questions concerning gender play and how gender is perceived in society, like how did simply looking and acting like a man make a woman’s presence in the directing world suddenly acceptable? Was gender and job truly mutually exclusive?

Evidently, society has, to some degree, seen the folly of its former viewpoint, and as Riviére writes, a healthy dose of feminine energy has been injected into the previously masculine-dominated intellectual world, so much so that “it would be hard to say whether the greater number [of women] are more feminine than masculine in their mode of life and character.” (132) Riviére goes on to write of what sounds like an ultimate marriage between conservative and progressive ideas regarding woman’s role in society; she talks of women she meets “in University life, in scientific professions and in business…who seem to fulfill every criterion of complete feminine development.” All this sounds very encouraging; it would appear that, despite what one may have heard, women can “have it all,” so goes the old adage.

However, Riviére warns, things are not as pristine as they may appear. She recounts a story of a woman who balances the dual roles of “masculine academic” and “feminine homemaker,” yet underneath the facade of gender-balanced perfection, Riviére cannot help but notice the woman’s “need for reassurance [that] led her compulsively…to seek some attention or complimentary notice from a man or men” after having given a speech. Immediately, one is made aware of this woman’s rush of “feminine” energy on the heels of performing a “masculine” activity, like giving an academic speech. Instead of feeling empowered as a man would undoubtedly be in the aftermath of his success, this woman downplayed her obvious talents and reverts back to a more comfortable, more familiar role those of her sex are expected to play.

This leads Riviére to her thesis:

Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it –much as a thief will turn out his pockets and ask to be searched to prove that he has not the stolen goods.
Womanliness as a Masquerade, pg 133

Are then, women any better off than they were in the days of Dorothy Arzner? She who had to embrace a wholly masculine identity in order to function in masculine society? While it may now be possible for women to more fully explore their identities, one must tragically admit that women must maintain, at the very least, the facade of the subservient feminine in order to function in the still very much masculine-driven society.

Film and the Masquerade: Theorzing the Female Specatator

Jackie Torres

 

              The article by Mary Ann Doane presents theories by Freud which deal with the female and Freud’s lecture on Femininity. Doane elucidates the way Freud interprets the poem by Heine.  Doane explains that Freud’s theory is really regarding the idea of the man and what signifies a man. She continues to discuss Freud’s theories and incorporates his “eviction of the female spectator”. Freud compares women to hieroglyphics as a complicated distant way of writing which in conclusion does not really relay a message. However, according to Doane, “the hieroglyphics is the most readable languages”. Doane contradicts the theory made by Freud when he uses the hieroglyphics as a comparison to women. Doane enters into the understanding of what a woman should be like in the cinematic world. “The cinematic apparatus inherits a theory of the image which is not conceived outside of sexual specifications”. The woman is seen as merely a sexual figure that is the only category she will fall under.

          The article also mentions the idea of the woman’s femininity as a mask. The female has a mask to conceal her lack of secureness in being a woman. There is no reason why she will want to be a woman, in order to protect this feature she must overly project her feminine ways.  Doane says, “The masquerade, in flaunting femininity, holds it at a distance”. According to theorist Joan Riverie, womanliness is a mask, “to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals”. Doane concludes that this mask can in some ways be fatal to men if women decide to reveal what is underneath, because the power that can be held within the mask is what threatens and intimidates men. However, my question is how can a person’s gender and natural ways be a mask which can come off and on?

Art Thou a Woman or is it Just an Act?

“Womanliness therefore could be assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals expected if she was found to posses it. . .” (Rivière, 133)

Joan Rivière in her essay, “Womanliness as a Masquerade” coined the term “masquerade” used in relation to a woman’s gender identity;when in the simplest terms she meant that femininity is a performance. It does not answer questions like: “what do women do in order to be feminine?” Where the answer would be:”they put on make up, nice clothes, flirt, etc.” For her the ideas of masquerade and femininity are presumed as a metaphor for being socially successful. Women wear a mask in order to be accepted in a social world codified by men.

Rivière gives examples of some of her patients where in order for them to be feminine they require to have plenty of male features as well. But she implies that in order to be feminine the women should play the game of a fragile, flirtatious, coquette girl, but that there is no actual femininity behind this game. Although her examples are great and portray common everyday
scenarios,the concepts of the “woman masquerade” or “feminine performance” are enacted by celebrities like Kim Kardashian that have built their fame on exaggerated performances of femininity.

Kim is a non talented reality tv star: it is in enacting the poses of femininity that she excels. Her appearance, overtly sexed self, hopeless romantic act, and somewhat dimwitted persona, portrays
not the specifics of the feminine role but the artificial parts of femininity itself. Kim exemplifies Rivière’s theory of the “masquerade”. Rivière contests: “Women who wish for masculinity may put on a mask of Womanliness to avert anxiety and the retribution of men.” (Rivière, 132) Rivière states that one of the patients felt drawn to “ogling and coquetting” after publicly demonstrating her intelligence. Kim’s career is made out of “ogling and coquetting” but it conceals the masculine characteristics of ambition, drive, and business acuity, behind the excessive femininity.

Her successful brand sells everything from perfume to dietary supplements. The feminine mask that defines her public persona creates a separation between her body and business oneness. However, Riviere’s theory goes beyond the simple idea that Womanliness may be put-on as a mask to hide masculine characteristics. She claims that there is no distinction to be drawn between “genuine Womanliness” and the “masquerade”, but that “they are the same thing”; in her reasoning femininity is a dissimulation. The relationship between the public and private persona that Kim demonstrates seems to support the conception of femininity as a performance.

The Female Specator: Reappropriation, Transvestism, or Masquerade?

In Laura Mulvey’s article, we were given insight in to the male gaze in cinema. In Doane’s article, Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator, the theorist gives insight into the concept of the female gaze. Can women be spectators? If so, how? In examining these questions, Doane recognizes Freud’s theories on women participation in their own femininity. Woman remains “entangled in her own enigma”(19). She cannot separate herself from the image that represents her. Without this distance, it is impossible for a woman to become a spectator of a feminine image in film. She is too close to achieve voyeuristic pleasure from gazing at a female object on screen. In other words, to gaze at the object is to gaze at herself. However, unlike Freud, Doane isn’t lost in the enigma that is woman, and she certainly does not think that woman are the problem.  How can woman participate in the role of the spectator and find pleasure in cinema?

Doane briefly touches upon the the reversal of the voyeuristic gaze by rendering a male image as an object. The male strip tease or gigolo are not unknown to modern cinema or culture. However, by reversing the gaze “the dominant system of aligning sexual difference with a subject/object dichotomy.”(21) This division of sex perpetuates the lack of distance between a woman and the feminine image in film. She can never assume the role of the female spectator without this distance.

As Irigaray discusses, a problem is language. A man can partially examine himself and successfully define himself in the realm of his language. Woman, on the other hand, are taught the same masculine form of language as man, and therefor cannot possibly identify femininity as a separate entity. Doane argues that this is a source of Freud’s woman enigma. In accordance with this masculization of woman, the female spectator is often one that assumes more traditional masculine spectatorship. (24) Doane parallels this with the idea of transvestism and the ease in which woman assume male characteristics as a mechanism to achieve desire. As opposed to male transvestism (which is an occasion for ridicule) female transvestism is a path towards desire. Doane notes that the construct of sexual mobility in femininity is an accepted cultural characteristic because (in an humorously ironic idea) “it is understandable that a woman would want to be man, for everyone wants to be elsewhere then the feminine position.” (25) This struck me particularly as a sad truth, as feminine characteristics are considered similar to the “minor arts” Doane mentions earlier in the article.

If transvestism is a path toward achieving the female spectator within modern social constructs, why then does woman assume the overly feminine “mask?” Doane notes that forced excessive femininity is not the solution to transvestism as it dissolves feminine identity. By using femininity, the collection of characteristics that culturally “defines” what is woman, as a masquerade, woman acknowledges that femininity is merely a “decorative layer.”(25) The effects of this masquerade are essential in examining the female spectator. One one level, underneath the mask can be hidden masculinity that is kept secret by over compensation of femininity. This relates to transvestism that Doane discusses earlier in the article. On another level, by using feminist as a mask, woman can separate herself from the “womanliness mask.” Doane notes that “the masquerade’s resistance to patriarchal positioning would therefore lie in its denial of the production of femininity as closeness.”(25) The masquerade, for better or for worse, allows woman to achieve the distance from the feminine image that she could not achieve before separating herself from “womanliness.”  She can become the spectator, but only by “using her own body as a disguise.”(26)

Hieroglyphics and Women: Distance & Proximity. L.R. Corcoran

in her chapter, “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator,” Mary Ann Doane connects particular aspects of Freud’s theory of masculinity creation in negative relation to femininity with a mode of linguistics centered on the nature of hieroglyphics. Doane predicates much of this connection on the enigmatic nature of hieroglyphics; I believe this to be a fair assumption with the one contention: hieroglyphics were indeed understood by the people who wrote them. Doane writes, “On the one hand, the hieroglyphic is summoned, particularly when it merges with a discourse on women, to connote an indecipherable language, a signifying system which denies its own function by failing to signify anything to the uninitiated, to those who do not  hold the key.” I agree wholeheartedly with her that women have functioned as quite the undefinable Other in the patriarchal discourse, but it seems odd to mark indecipherability as chiefly a hieroglyphic attribute. Any language will remain opaque, unless one has a master of its grammar and vocabulary, unless one holds the “key.”

This quibble aside, Doane shows, although hieroglyphics are enigmatic in regards to their complete signification, a certain plasticity of meaning is available immediately by virtue of hieroglyphics being a form of pictorial language. She writes, “Thus, while the hieroglyphic is an indecipherable or at least a enigmatic language, it is also at the same time potentially the most universally understandable, comprehensible, appropriable of signs.” From here, her argumentation begins to move into deeper waters. Doane leans on some structural linguistic theory courtesy of Todorov and Ducrot: a pictorial language would at some point need to generalize. A language, which utilized icons standing in absolute relation to things they represent, would break under its own weight. That is, every thing in the world would need its own pictogram to depict it. Therefore proper nouns, in order to express more general phenomena, need to be made phonetic. In Todorov and Ducrot’s words, “Proper nouns and abstract notions (including inflections) are then the ones will be noted phonetically.”

From this point, Doane rather ingeniously recasts Chodorow’s distinction of femininity being defined by proximity and masculinity defined by abstraction into linguistic terms. That is, if we are to think as women as hieroglyphics, they are enigmatic because they stand in absolute iconic relationship to what they signify, and therefore can not be generalized, i.e., a women’s complete symbolic relation with herself prevents her from entering into the abstracted mode of conventional language. Think Irigaray.

Doane shifts this concept into the form of proximity versus distance. Doane accurately makes the statement that most creative endeavors that are considered high art involve some sort of distance, while those considered low art require a certain amount of proximity. Doane quotes Christian Metz to illustrate this point, “It is no accident that the main socially acceptable arts are based on the senses at a distance, and that those which depend on the senses of contact are regarded as the minor arts.” From this she extracts the need for distance in the act of voyeurism, and that fetish requires this gap between subject and the desired object. This is Pascalian in a sense, it is not the object itself that man desires, it is the pursuit to achieve it.

This paradoxical dichotomy of desire is a main operating structure of the cinema. The subject may possess his object without giving up his cherished distance. Doane writes, “the cinema is characterized by an illusory sensory plenitude..and yet haunted by the absence of those very objects which are there to be seen.” Taking a cue from this suggestion, it seems in our modern era, the internet has replaced the cinema in this regard. It is replete to fill divers desires where the image of the thing can be sought. These online representations will always be haunted by the absence of the real objects used to create them. Thinking of the internet in these terms originally set for the cinema by Doane brings to light the graveness of her remarks. The internet is insidious compared to the cinema, and a study of how we enact this particular mode of fetish online would be an endeavor well worth the effort.