Currently, feminism is a social movement that has brought a tremendous effect on film criticism and theory. The cinema has been widely taken by feminists to be an ethnical practice depicting myths concerning women and femininity. As a result, the issues of spectatorship and representation are key to feminist film criticism and theory. In the past decades, feminist criticism was aimed at women particularly those in Hollywood movies. Such fixed, the endless repetition of images of women were conceived to be obnoxious distortions that would set back the female observer (Hilderbrand and Lucas 345). Nevertheless, the understanding dawned that positive impressions was not enough in transforming the underlying structure in the film industry. As a result, feminist critics tried to comprehend the permanent power of patriarchal imagery with the aid of structuralism theoretic frameworks like psychoanalysis and semiotics.
According to Bell Hooks, the film Paris Is Burning has created a sensation of spectacle around a matter she considered as dangerous and worrisome. Firstly, hooks seem to fixate on this idea of drag as mocking women and propagating a fetishistic perspective of white women as the primary object of what beauty is. Hooks also has a feeling that men in drag cross over from the sphere of power to powerless as they presume the roles of women. Her problem doesn’t lie with men in drag per se, but the sense of black men in reaffirming colonialist or patriarchal perspectives of black men as disempowered and feminine trying to depict themselves as white women (Dean and Tim 214). Therefore, the main thing that bothers hooks is the fact that the ball is the central point of the film and not the social struggles of the subjects presented in it and the fact that the movie maker is Jennie Livingston is a lesbian white woman.
In the film, Jennie Livingston condition is shaped into some mockery of the lives of particular drag queens, transgender individuals, and homosexuals in New York. Hooks argued that for Jennie to maintain her “innocent observer” status, she purposely avoided deepening herself into the conditions of marginalization and oppression. Therefore, it is clearly evidenced that more personal approach to the individuals in the film could have enormously enriched the final product. Moreover, I believe that hooks stance is also of a foreigner in the sense that though she feels more in touch with the condition because she is a black person, she is also substantially privileged in from of those impersonated in the film (Hilderbrand and Lucas 345). As a result, Paris Is Burning is indeed a subjective view of a particular group of people in New York. On the other hand, according to Butler, most girls’ expectations in the movie and various of the categories of the balls were more linked to class than to race hence finds it fit to present gender as the “phantasmatic” transformation of the nexus between sex and class (Hilderbrand et al. 345).
However, film has also been accused of exploitation as many people criticize the use of ethnographical filmmaking convention. The Intertitles are typically utilized in the introduction of terms like “realness”, “shade”, and “voyaging”. Voyaguing in drags is another perfect example that strengthens the idea of gender performativity in the film. Willi Ninja, the mother of the house Ninja, teaches other women modeling. Nevertheless, biologically he is a male, but that doesn’t prevent him from showing the females how to model. Being an ethnographic film, Paris Is Burning has also been criticized for bringing up unquestionable white, middle-class standard of the individuals it attempts to represent. This movie speculates the “other”, in the case of transgender women and Latino and African American gay men. Additionally, Livingstone is also criticized by many scholars and interviews. However, in the film Paris Is Burning, male characters’ wear like women and carry out femininity by talking and walking like women. For instance, Dorian Corey wears makeups as a drag queen yet he is gay. This will help in bring a new understanding of gender in the society.
On the contrary, in the film Born in Flames, the current feminism of Lizzie Border’s is more lively than might be anticipated with its military even backed up with a small indefinite amount of topical feeling. Ten years ago, the film tells about a society in which armed group of female bicyclists move down on would be the rapist and male construction employees who complain that their female co-workers are taking the most beneficial jobs. In the movie, Lizzie Borden shows a mixture of radical feminist thoughts without much care to the message that contains them. For instance, when the black militant lesbians run into white feminist young musicians, there exist so much theorization to be dealt with that average expositions is out of question (Lane and Christina 245). This film takes up how race, class, and gender affects the working environment and how women are treated on streets and home. Since women are not treated well, women on bicycles come to rescue those women assaulted in the streets and guarded the metro assisting female commuters in distress.
The women in the movie, most whom are black request more than what their government is willing to offer them. For women in the movie, the utopia their association asserts to be a lie. Assault or harassment against women is still rearing, and there is criticism that the government is unfairly hiring individuals based on race and gender criteria. The film consists of various talks between caucus of liberal feminist associations. The anti-hierarchical Women’s Army think women should be in a position to take proper action upon those who intimidate them. Adelaide Norris starts out the Women’s Army who goes to the streets to demonstrate and fight for their rights. Eighty minutes half way through the film, the black activist is arrested. He is suspected to be smuggling arms from Africa. Immediately, the associates of the Women’s Army go to the street riding bicycles while blowing whistles at men trying to attack women in the streets. The story then steps up to an armed taking over of a television studio whereby Women’s Army cuts off a presidential to disseminate their message (Hampton and Howard 281).
The film Born in Flames often juxtaposes concepts and images to put its message across. Rape and prostitution are repeatedly mentioned in the same sentence to make some comparison by the filmmaker. A shot of condom is also put on a male penis is placed between an image a woman washing dishes and a baby feeding from a bottle. Nevertheless, the most disconnecting image comes at the end of the film when one of the rebel groups of women succeeds in blowing up the communication tower on top of the world trade Centre. The billowing smoke from the towers evokes too many bitter memories experienced by women. Therefore, the film technique of otherness has helped in containing the films feminisms as we see women converse and debate on one another. The women’s Army share this authority through the collective anti-rape squad and street harassment activism (Lassinaro and Kaisa 220). However, in a harrowing scene, a woman is being assaulted by two men on her way to the subway. The women army then comes in and aid the attacked victim.
In conclusion, in these two films, the techniques of “otherness” has led them to contain the films feminism. For instance, in the film Born in Flames by Lizzie Borden, feminism has been achieved by giving the women the right to fight for their rights. In this case, the Women's Army is fortunate enough in defending women against assault and rape to gain the unwanted attention of the FBI. However, the FBI succeeds in putting Norris behind bars, where she's killed in a shadowy incident. Lastly, the feministic women group unite and create Phoenix Radio to stand in solidarity as the last act of terrorism. Nonetheless, in the films, the most disconnecting image comes at the end of the film when one of the rebel groups of women succeeds in blowing up the communication tower on top of the world trade Centre. The billowing smoke from the towers evokes too many bitter memories experienced by women. Therefore, the film technique of otherness has helped in containing the films feminisms as we see women converse and debate on one another. On the hand, in the movie Paris Is Burning by Jennie Livingstone, the technique of otherness also leads to feminism. The film uses various allegory to pass some messages across. For instance, the drags are a new form of community that creates a sense of belonging to many people who are marginalized and rejected. However, the drag may seem a sign of opposition to white heterosexist culture; it can still be seen that the gays are transsexuals. Therefore, the characters in this film should be celebrated since they are fought for gay rights as shown by their enthusiastic nature of not backing down for instance, male characters’ wear like women and carry out femininity by talking and walking like women. For instance, Dorian Corey wears makeups as a drag queen yet he is gay. This will help in bring a new understanding of gender in the society. In a nutshell, these two films utilize the techniques of “otherness” which has led them to containing the film feminism as illustrated above.
Works Cited
Hilderbrand, Lucas. Paris Is Burning: A Queer Film Classic. , 2013. Print.
Dean, Tim. Beyond Sexuality. Chicago [u.a.: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000. Print.
Lane, Christina. Feminist Hollywood: From "born in Flames" to "point Break". Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 2000. Print.
Hampton, Howard. Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Print.
Lassinaro, Kaisa. Born in Flames: A Film by Lizzie Borden. London: Occasional Papers, 2011. Print.
