Jasmine Ewart- Subjectivity and the Screen

As a young female, one who has consciously avoided the world of horror film until its introduction to me in this class, I have never really considered the implications of female representation within such films. Perhaps all along it was these very representations that have made me avoid the films. In considering the 1970’s Italian horror film ‘Suspiria’ by Dario Argento (1977) set in Berlin, Germany, traditional horror female representation is simultaneously presented and negotiated with. Thus, I feel a theory that can beintegrally applied to ‘Suspiria’ is that of Williams’ (1984) ‘When the Woman Looks’. If we ignore the notion Williams presents in this text of the predisposition that any male spectator is heterosexual, and essentially views women on screen from the place of a sexual desire, it presents a useful lens with which to break down barriers of women being inclined to ‘hide’ from horror, and has pushed myself to view horror not from the perspective of fear or apprehension,...

'The American Nightmare' theory posed by Robin Wood (2003) essentially highlights the surplus of extreme repression within American society. This is in that if repression itself is what makes us identifiably human through developing from the innate animal capabilities of little more than convulsions, surplus repression is what essentially creates a deeper societal structure which we must follow. For example, the surplus of such repression can be seen through the likes of sexual energy within American society, in which any form of 'creative' sexuality, beyond the monogamous, patriarchal norms of women as subordinates, is repressed and denied as a norm or as the 'ideal'. This representation of such repression can be seen basically and rather explicitly through the lens of film, and in particular through horror film. When we note film as reactionary, essentially meaning as a reaction to the happenings of the social, economic, political context in which it was mad...

In returning to the roots of a meme as being something that emerged within a person's thoughts, essentially an idea, that has the power to spread and thus inevitably adapt, fuse, recombine, and segregate its content (Smithsonian Magazine 2010), as opposed to a funny picture on the internet (such as the likes of 'grumpy cat', see below), we can note its presence within film. A Hollywood Meme can thus be noted as a means for ideas and ideologies of hollywood spreading, adapting, and fusing to create new product. Referring mainly to the Filipino remake (arguably parody) of the James Bond film ' For Your Eyes Only' (Glen 1981)  , named ' For Y'ur Height Only'  (Nicart 1981) ,  the representation of part of their 'freak' culture can be interpreted in many ways. For example were its intentions to highlight the obscurities of the 'James Bond' character? Was the film genuinely trying to recreate iconography from James Bond? O...