Ma Vie en Rose + Irigaray & Schiavi

What is the significance of Pam in Ma Vie en Rose? "From what we see of her life, Pam also lives outside plotting. Of only a few minutes' duration, her show seems to involve no more than a survey of her colorful landscape, Ben's proposal, and her swooney acceptance... Pam presents only the glamour of femininity and the excitement of courtship itself."(Schiavi) Pam represents the female realm of hopes and desires... what little girls want to be when they grow up. In this way, she represents not only what Ludo dreams of becoming (a bride) but also what he is up against (gender roles). His will be a continual struggle of finding his own narrative within such a strong adversarial and widely accepted gender prototype. Girls want to grow up and get married (like Pam) and therefore so does Ludo.... but he is only mentally feminine and thus creates the shield of difference from societal prototypes.

What bigger issues does Pam's show display? "Woman, in this sexual imaginary, is only a more or less obliging prop for the enactment of man's fantasies. Than she may find pleasure in that role, by proxy, is possible, even certain. But such pleasure is above all a masochistic prostitution of her body to a desire that is not her own, and it leaves her in a familiar state of dependency upon man." (Irigaray) Pam's sexuality (large breasts) and desires (to get married) fall into place with what men desire. It is not just a representation of what women want but also an enactment of how feminine desires are really only a continuation of male desire transposed onto feminine ideal. "The beginnings of the sexual life of a girl child are so 'faded with time' that one would have to dig...beneath the traces of this civilization... the vestiges of a more archaic civilization that might give some clue to woman's sexuality." Irigaray even goes so far as to say that "extremely ancient civilization would undoubtedly have a different alphabet, a different language. . . Woman's desire would not be expected to tspeak the same language as man's." Pam's world though it is a supposed ideal for young girls (Ludo included) only representst their sexuality and identity only inasmuch as it fits within a male world.

Far From Heaven + Fanon

I appreciated the fact that this movie took place in the 1950's even though it was made in 2002. What could be the significance of this choice? This really allows the film to separate itself from the current time just enough to talk about it. Far From Heaven brings issues on race, class, and sexuality to the surface and the time separation works to show how much hasn't changed. How much we still judge each other, what people have to sacrifice just to be themselves and the way society considers certain things taboo. Raymond is a college graduate who has his own business, but still isn't able to move up socially in the world because he is black. Kathy's husband views his sexuality as wrong, as a "sickness", and Kathy and Raymond both suffer because they are friends (and want more) because they are not the same skin color. We are fooling ourselves if we don't think these issues still exist today. Fanon writes that "The black man among his own in the twentieth century does not know at what moment his infereiority comes into being through the other.....In the white world the man of color encounters difficulties in the development of his bodily schema. Consciousness of the body is solely a negating activity. It is a third-person consciousness." How could this be the case if race is not an issue? I think Far From Heaven works well to show Kathy and Raymond learning about the issues of race, in ways they didn't know existed. Raymond begins to see in his friends' reactions at the diner how biracial relationships are viewed, and at the art gallery Kathy realizes that her friends are extra critical of whatever conversation she may have with Raymond simply because he is black. Watching characters learn something about the reality of their own surroundings prods us to look at our own surroundings. When we step outside of our media-saturated world for a moment we realize our world and the world of Kathy and Raymond aren't that far apart.

Speaking of media... What is the significance of the cameras in Far From Heaven? Kathy is constantly being questioned for the magazine, gawked at by neighbors for being "Mrs. Magnatech", and there is always an event in her life to either organize or attend. She seems busy fitting into an image. An image that was created by the very cameras that are now documenting her life as a mold. The cameras seem to make statements about mass media and its effect on society. (Not that it is the sole problem but that it contributes.) I wonder if there would be any issues as far as Raymond and Kathy are concerned if it weren't for the fact that the community had bought into the messages and images portrayed through the media.

Dancer in the Dark + Marx + (a little) Freud

What is the significance of the musical sequences in "Dancer in the Dark"?

The musical sequences seem to work to support Marx in multiple different, but not mutually exclusive ways. On page 298 Marx writes, "the fact that labor is exernal to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself." The musical sequence at the factory really works to show this statement. Selma steps out of her work and into the world of her mind where she is able to develop her mental energy. Here she is able to escape the world of alienated labor and recognize her true self so to speak. The sequence allows the mundane and depressed atmosphere of her work situation to be even more obvious when compared to the imaginitive communal scenes that happen in her mind.

Why is Gene so important to Selma?

It would be far too simplistic to answer this question by simply saying that Gene is her son. According to Freud, Gene would be much more than a son to Selma. Freud writes that after a girl realizes that she lacks a penis, "she slips-- along the line of a symbolic equation, one might say-- from penis to baby. Her Oedipus complex culminates in a desire, which is long retained, to receive a baby form her father as a gift-- to bear him a child." Since Selma is female (obviously) Gene is not only her son, but her compensation for not having a penis. He is the thing that makes up for her femininity.

Looking at their relationship from a Marxist view brings about a whole new culmination of ideas. Marx states that workers are both alienated from their self and from other workers. This, to me sounds like a lonely state. When Selma has this baby, he represents the community that Selma is lacking. Gene is a means towards revolution. Gene represents the understanding by the Proletariat that the system is man-made, that it can be changed, and he is the unifying factor in our community of characters. He is what helps the workers move from isolation to community. He ties the group together after Selma's death, is the recipient of all she has worked for, and gives his glasses to her in the end. He is no longer blind to the system. Thanks to Selma's hard work, he can now see the broken system and is able to work against it.