Concepts and Framework-building for Analyzing Movies

Foucault’s

• The History of Sexuality

• Power : Biopower : Disciplinary power

• Subjectivity

• Truth and Power• Power-knowledge• Discourse

Use Foucault’s Intellectual Tradition in building the framework:

Subject & Body are created by discourses, i.e., in the symbolic systems in which they are embedded.

He focuses on the institutional representation of power: how power operates while developing different discourses, e.g. madness, medicine, punishment, sexuality.

Key is power impacts the Body: How does power work to regulate bodies and control populations?

Ref for some slides: Whetstone on Fouc Ap 2012

• Discourse: The scope of the knowable and knowledge form what we call consciousness – knowledges are categorized through which we see the world – this is how power is organized according to F

• Discourses can be negative or enablingDiscourse can be an instrument of power and an effect of power, but It can hinder us or act as a hindranceIt may create resistance and a beginning of an opposing strategy

• Discourses on:1. Mental illness and the birth of “the clinic”2. Punishment and the birth of “the prison”3. Sexuality

Power/knowledge• Power through institutions as mechanisms of power disciplines

individuals• Power is not seen as a way of subjugating a person• Power is the structure of force relations in a society, tied to

cultural modes of understanding – “discourse”Rules of power/knowledge• Power is decentralized: from “below” as much as “above”• Power designates areas of life as objects of inquiry• Power implies a limit on the freedom of ways of being• Power is tied to change or transformation – implies contention

and sites of resistance

Biopower:

F’s theory of power: Power is not restricted to political or economic elites, nor is it narrowly defined by repression.

Power is productive, focused on the power to administer and regulate life, rather than bring death

Not a fixed property held by certain groupsDecentralized, diffuse

Fluid and present in all interactions

Where power is exercised, resistance develops

The History of Sexuality• 18th & 19th C: Sexuality became a target of research & an

object of scientific knowledge- social concerns were expressed by the society

• Emergence of Freudian Repressive Hypothesis – Victorian-era – controls to repress human sexuality and desire

• Foucault’s anti-repression argument was:Repression led to “incitement” to sexMore focus on sex, more talk and desireRestrict by laws led to sexual perversionSex is desired as it became hidden and secretiveIt then became an obsessionPowerful categories of normal/abnormal emerged

Western society is a singularly confessing society:

Confessions – a double subjection1. A subject or a person in society is unerr social

rules2. A confessor’s narrative on own desires,

thoughts, actions and experiences to lighton: JusticeMedicine, psychiatryEducationFamily relationshipsLove relations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KL92oBWcQ

Sexuality in control under power 1.23 min 2008

ConfessionsThe Roman Catholic tradition of Confession:Typically the penitent begins the confession by saying, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been [time period] since my last confession." The penitent then must confess mortal sins in order to restore his/her connection to God's grace and not to merit Hell.

Therapy and confessionPsychiatrist (Power) to Patient (subject) relations

Power is embedded in the Discourse when subjectivity is established on normal-abnormal status

Confessions: The Oprah Show

Rihanna 2012http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoitLatLAXk

Whitney Houston 2009http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14O-cHb9DGY

Hollywood History: Tips for Teachers 2012 5.06 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht_K2MdQnDg

Women stories, movies an the Oscars feb 2011 5.11 minhttp://www.feministfrequency.com/2011/02/womens-stories-movies-and-the-oscars/

Statistics on the State of Women and Hollywood Ref: http://womenandhollywood.com/factoids/

2009

FILM

Box Office

In 2009 there were 217 million moviegoers. The total admissions was 1.4 billion dollars.

Women were 113 million of the moviegoers and bought 55% of the tickets. Men are 104 million of the moviegoers and 45% of the tickets. Women made up 9 million more filmgoers than men.

Women Centric Films 2009

2 of the top 10 grossing films are women centric;

9 of the top 50 grossing films (two of them are animated – The Princess and the Frog, Coraline);

18 of the top 100 grossing films;

26 of the top 150 grossing films

Women centric Films, Their Rank and Total Gross 2009

4 The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($293,897,327)

8 The Blind Side ($238,430,210)16 The Proposal ($163,958,031)

31 It’s Complicated ($104,782,080)

32 The Princess and the Frog* ($100,352,358)

34 Julie & Julia ($94,125,426)

37 The Ugly Truth ($88,915,214)

39 Hannah Montana The Movie ($79,576,189)

42 Coraline* ($75,286,229)

Women & HollywoodSexism Watch: ABC New Pilot Titleby Melissa Silverstein on January 12, 2011

ABC picked up a new series entitled Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23.When Cougar Town acquired its title, it expressed the premise of the show.The story is about a naive young woman who comes to New York City and ends up with a trouble-making party-girl roommate.

A woman — Nahnatchka Khan — is one of the creator/writers.http://womenandhollywood.com/2011/01/12/sexism-watch-abc-new-pilot-title/

Equal pay:

Made in Dagenham Reflects A Current Realityby Melissa Silverstein on November 17, 2010in Advocacy Feminism. 4.21 min

http://womenandhollywood.com/2010/11/17/made-in-dagenham-reflects-a-current-reality/

Michel Foucault Madness and Civilization: The Birth of the Asylum; Foucault vs. Freud

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCW6Ztkp7YTop 10 Movies That Take Place in a Mental Institution (Audience Choice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzktK6GcegThe Truth about Mental Hospitals http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ERXsCo5ME

Inside Mental Hospitalhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9wEvsg-nhA&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Madness

CHANGELING http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvHquOz-lDU 2008 Trailer 1 5.39http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edX09NFZ3oc trailer cont’d 2 min

- FILM REVIEW 10.03 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y41garIaTIY Aug. 2012

1928 woman (woman vote 1920)

Women Behind the Scenes

Women directed 7% of the top 250 grossing films.

Women wrote 8% of the top 250 grossing films.

Women comprised 17% of all executive producers

Women made up 23% of all producers

18% of all editors were women

2% of all cinematographers were women.