W2: Feminst Cinema, Pornography, and Cult Cinema

Sexual Revolution

• A period of changing cultural norms about sexual practices and politics

• Fundamentally changed American culture in post WWII era

• Recognition that religious, legal, and familial attitudes about sex and sexuality are ideological

• Questioning of dominant ideologies

• Cinema reflects these changing norms

Contributing factors of Sexual Revolution

• Biomedical

• Legal

• Generational

• Family structures

• Social movements (feminism, gay, and lesbian liberation)

• Representational (more representation of sec and more explicit representation)

Inciting Incident of the Sexual Revolution

BIRTH PILLS IN 1960

• sec without risk, used for pleasure

• Women could control their reproductive decisions

• Embrace sex for pleasure not reproduction

• Period of experimentation and exploration

• Period of public discourse about sex

• Increasing representation in cinema reflects broader cultural shift

What was the backlash of Sexual Revolution

• perception of sex shift from healthy to harmful

• Questioned if it affect family values

• Anti-porn

• HIV/AIDS epidemic

Even though many complained and said sex was the problem (not true)

• Divorce rates skyrockets

• Sex outside marriage normalized

Why is porn important in cinema history?

Development of porn is the most significant cultural and market development in American cinema (at least for the class timeframe)

• cinema’s contribution to sexual revolution

History of Porn

• Stag Films (hardcore, illicit), 1920s-60s

• Foreign “art film” (not subject to Hollywood censors), 1850s-60s

• Sexplotijation (thousand of soft core films between 1959-72)

What were the 4 original rating systems (in 1968)

• G

• PG

• R (21+)

• X (the hardcore)

Why was the X rating replaced with NC-17

Because of its association with XXX films, and to further distance that rating from porn

What is the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography

• commissioned under Johnson and released under Nixon

• Findings overturned many assumptions

• Nixon disowned the findings

What were the findings of the Commission of Porn and Obscenity

1. No evidence of harm to consumers of porn

2. People tend to project harm onto others but believe themselves above influence

3. People tend to believe that their own views are universal values

4. Exposure of porn may take audiences more tolerant (in other words, porn might be good for society)

5. Porn consumers tend to be more educated, more affluent

Hardcore Revolution (1970s)

• less censorship, more representation

• Hardcore prob becomes mainstream and publicly visible

• Turns from short loops into narratives

• New aesthetic convention emerge

• Prography becomes industrialized and legitimate

Hardcore / Porn Chic

• feature length films with narratives that rationalized sec scenes within their plot

• Focused on sexual gratification, on achieving orgasm

Most common genres for home video (in its first decade)

• pornography

• Workout tapes

• Kid videos

Two breakthrough gay porn features

Boy in the Sand

• First major gay male hardcore feature

• Three silent fantasy sex sequences

• First major hardcore feature hit

Los Angeles Plays Itself

• experimental gay male hardcore feature

• Scenes of nature, of car cursing, of S/M sec

Both

• no template for narrative or form

• No single location

• Acclaimed

Deep Throat (1972) and it’s importance

• most famous hardcore film

• Premise: Linda’s clit is on her throat and she needs to go deepthroating

First-wave feminism (late 1800s - 1920s)

Suffrage, securing right to vote, legal recognition of personhood/citizenship

Second- wave Feminism (1960s-70s)

Women’s liberation, economic and political equality, women’s community and health institutions, attention to rape, and domestic abuse, attention to sexual pleasure and to demeaning representations

sexism in gender roles and structures were the norm

This wave pushed for two major things

• professional and economic equality

  • Glass ceiling

  • Less pay

  • Focus on equal rights

• Women’s health, sexuality, and community resources

Third wave feminism (1990s)

Focus on identity, intersectional attention to different experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation; reclaims certain forms of pleasure and erotica, attention to sexual harassment.

Objectification

Reducing a person (woman) to an (sexual) object

Feminist Film Theory

• respond to conventional Hollywood cinema

• Cinematic pleasure objectifies and punishes women

• Aligns with straight male gaze

• Men presented as all-powerful

• Women are presented as to-be- looked-at

Feminist Cinema

Non-objectifying

• refuses male gaze

• Women speak for themselves

• Represents women’s experience

Experimental Cinema

Alternative film practice

• artistic mode of production

• Structural film: explores properties of cinema technology (film stock, reel length, flicker)

• Experimental narrative: non-traditional story forms

• Experimental documentary: alternative ways of representations histories and non-fiction stories

• Questions dominant paradigms of what cinema looks and sounds like, what cinema can be

ERA (Equal Rights Admendment)

• Passed by congress but never passed by states

• Some believed the amendment would be bad for women

• The campaigns for and against the ERA dramatized in Mrs America

What are some critique of Sexond-Wave feminism

• exclusive to white woman, excludes other races or ethnics

• Biased towards white woman

• Women of color felt more supported by black civil rights

• Homophobic

• Fear that feminist would be dismissed as lesbians

• Trans-exclusionary

Name some backlash of feminism

• blamed for family straightening shifts

• Posed a threat to male privilege in society

• Split between antiporn and pro porn feminist

How is Botn in Falmed (1983) a feminist cinema

• socialist revolution doesn’t solve structural sexism

• Need for both economic and social/gender revolution

• Refuses objectification

• Direct address / returns the gaze

Cult Films

• not defined by its content but by its audiences

• Deprecated viewing leading to a huge fan base

• Usually transgressive - sexually or politically

• Typically subcultural/ counter-culture phenomena

• Typically associated with youth audiences

Why did Pink Flamingo become a cult classic?

• outrageous, disgusting, comedy

• Transgression

• Characters compete for title of “Filthest People Alive”

• Queer sensibility: Director and most of cast was gay but presented all sec as perverted gender as fluid

• Something to offend everyone

• Failed at gay booth theatre (I wonder why)

• Become a word-of-mouth hit as a midnight movie by 1973

How did The Rocky Horror Picture Show become a cult classic?

• glam rock musical parody of cold-war horror-sci fi films

• Nostalgia perverted

• Politics of sexual pleasure, gender transgression

• A lot of fans, a lot.