|
Gender Trouble Film
Series
|
 |
|
On behalf of the Gender
Studies program at the University of Arkansas, I’d like to welcome
you to the first screening in our Gender Troubles film series. This
is the first film series sponsored by the Gender Studies program, and
we sincerely hope, not the last. I’m Ted Swedenburg, I teach in the
Anthropology Department, and I’m involved with this interdisciplinary
program, as are a number of other faculty members across our campus.
Tonight I’d like to first make a couple of announcements,
then introduce the series and our justification for putting it on, and
finally, say a few words about the film we will see very shortly. First, I’d like to thank three people who played critical
roles in making our series possible. First, Susan Marren of the English
Department, who has chaired the Gender Studies program since Fall 1999
and has done so much to make the program grow. Second, Linda Coon, chair
of the Humanities Program at the U of A—queen of the Humanities, really—who
has provided critical financial, logistical and moral support to the
series. Third, thanks to Kelley O’Callaghan, graduate student in Geosciences,
who is responsible for all the publicity. (You can access the website
for the series through the Humanities Program homepage, and we’ll be
updating that page as we go along, providing more information on films
and directors. So please keep visiting.) I want to call your attention to our next film: on Thursday,
February 22, Glen or Glenda, directed by the inimitable Ed
Wood, Jr. We will have Prof.
Tricia Starks from History introducing the film. Prof. Pat Williams
from History will introduce Faster Pussycat!
Kill! Kill! on March 8 and Prof. Dave Fredericks from Classics
will help prepare us for the disturbing experience of viewing I
Spit on Your Grave on April 5. |
|
 Tura
Satana in Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! |
|
|
|
Gender
and B-Film? Now, why is the Gender Studies program sponsoring a film series
featuring ‘B’ movies, which are surely more appropriate for trailer
trash than for humanities students? One reason, of course, is to fill
the huge gap left in our lives since the demise of Joe
Bob Briggs’ fabulous “Monster Vision” series from TNT, the moving
and upscaling of Joe Bob’s film series to Hollywood last year, and finally
his apparent disappearance from TNT altogether. Joe Bob Briggs is, of
course, the foremost critic and proponent of the “B” movie, and his
intelligent presence on television is sorely missed. But more critically,
the much maligned “B” films, whether sci-fi, horror, sexploitation,
or action, are or at least have been the domain of the repressed in
our society. They frequently deal, energetically and head-on, with taboo
topics suppressed in mainstream cinema, with subjects that mainstream
cinema did not dare touch until decades later. And often “B” films have
been much more subversive and provided greater and more accurate insight
into contemporary attitudes about sex, sexuality and gender than “legitimate”
cinema. This is true even when legitimate cinema finally catches up
and begins to deal with formerly taboo subjects. For instance, in the
widely hailed “feminist” film, Thelma and Louise, the two female protagonists
who take revenge on sexist men, ultimately must die in the end. They
break taboos regarding appropriate gender roles, are even celebrated
for it, but they must, finally, be punished for their transgressions.
In the much-maligned slasher films that came out in droves for at least
15 years prior to Thelma and
Louise, the strong, smart women protagonists are not punished. At
the end of the film, they live on, to fight Freddy Kruger (or whomever)
another day. Finally, “B” films were mostly produced with very low budgets.
This allowed the director to express a kind of wacky, kinky creativity
and to impose an individual vision that was usually not possible in
the domain of mainstream filmmaking. Big money, in Hollywood, mostly
stifled creativity and risk-taking. So, despite the fact that “B” films
often display weak acting, cheap special effects, and lousy production
values, there is frequently an adventurous, nervous, disturbing, passionate,
irreverent, and energetic sensibility that is all too often lacking
in mainstream or even “art” cinema. Samuel Fuller, director of the
1964 release The
Naked Kiss, is in my opinion, one of the great American directors
of the twentieth century. Fuller is not given nearly enough critical
credit, I think--but he has been a great influence on directors as diverse
as Wim Wenders, John Woo, Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard and Quentin
Tarrantino. Fuller is known for his courageous and excessive confrontations
with subjects like the ravages of war (The
Big Red One), white racism (White
Dog) and the inhumanities of insane asylums (Shock
Corridor), but his portrayals of woman are also notable for
their strength and realism. I don’t want to give away the plot of The Naked Kiss, which deals with a number of taboo topics. But I do
want to underline the daring of Fuller, who flew in the face of convention,
in 1964, by featuring a hooker as a protagonist. The Naked Kiss is by
turns campy and unsettling; it is sensationalistic, melodramatic, highly
manipulative, and surrealistic. You’ll be pleased to learn that it virtually
ended Fuller’s career in Hollywood. I hope you enjoy it immensely, and
please come back and join us on the 22nd for Glen or Glenda.
|
