Paige Edwards
Professor Heffernan
FILM 2301
14 December 2021
Final Exam Notes
Queer Theory and Female Trouble:
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Queer Theory:
o Seeks to move beyond or deconstruct simplistic binaries
▪
Ex: Straight vs. Gay, Male vs. Female, Feminine vs Masculine, Black vs
White
o Interested in looking how at how culture and history delimit the ways gender and
sexuality and be expressed.
o Challenging heteronormativity:
▪
The assumption that white, married, and monogamous is the “normal”
o Complicate the false binaries of gender and sexuality.
-
How Queer Theory is intertwined with Female Trouble:
o Dawn is obsessed with committing crimes for frame.
•
Contrasts with heteronormativity because transsexuals/drag queens
are constantly at risk due to their identity.
o Dawn uses her identity to commit crimes.
▪
Aunt Ida wants her nephew Gater to be gay
•
Literally challenging heteronormativity because Aunt Ida’s
“normal” is for her nephew to be gay. While societies
normal is to be straight.
▪
Dawn also plays two roles (Earl who is Taffy’s father)
•
This deconstructs the simplistic binaries of:
o Straight vs. Gay, Male vs. Female, and Feminine vs
Masculine
-
Feminist Theory:
o Gender Essentialism:
▪
Gender is based on biological sex
▪
Social roles naturally flow from these biological differences
▪
Aggression is mapped on a binary (men are more aggressive)
▪
Reactionary ideologies and some women that believe men are intrinsically
violent
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Laura Mauvley’s Ideologies:
o Narcissistic Gaze:
▪
Encourages the spectator to identify with the central male on screen.
o Voyeuristic Gaze:
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Looks at human bodies on screen in an erotic way
▪
Female body is objectified for the male
o 3 Looks of the Camera:
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The look of the camera at the actors
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The look of the actors at each other
▪
The look of the spectator on the screen
o Male Gaze:
▪
-
Male is the bearer of the look, and woman is the object to be looked at.
How Love Witch is intertwined with Feminist Theory, Laura Mauvley, &
Postmodernism:
o Gender Essentialism plays a major role within film:
▪
Aggression of men:
•
Elaine does not like when men are emotional.
o Example: Wayne cries for Elaine’s name ---> Elain calls
him a “pussy”
▪
Relates to castration anxiety because it describes a
way that a man has failed his gender role
▪
Literally way to tell a man that he has been
castrated.
o
Laura Mauvley:
▪
3 Looks of the Camera:
•
Women act, men appear
o Example: Camera shows Elaine sitting on the bench, Elaine
and Wayne see each other, audience watches how the spell
Elaine puts on men affects them.
▪
Voyeuristic Gaze:
•
Female body is objectified by men
o Example: when women dance in the burlesque club for the
pleasure of men
▪
Male gaze:
•
Male looks at women and objectifies her body
o Example: Griff and his coworker Steve gaze at Connie as
she walks away
o Postmodernism:
▪
Combines elements of various sources together, characteristic of society,
and time
•
Example: Love Witch takes place in the 1960s and combines
elements of society and time.
o Art direction, colors, and dramatizes feminism (purpose is
to be married to a good man)