JUMP CUT
A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA
Gender, genre and "postfeminism"
by Aspasia Kotsopoulos and Josephine Mills
from Jump Cut, no. 39, June 1994, pp.
copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1994, 2006
At first, (Neil Jordan, 1992) seemed like a startling breakthrough in mainstream cinema. According to all early reports that we heard from our friends, here at last was a film that proved that compulsory hetero could be challenged and yet film could appeal to a wide audience. Everyone to whom we initially talked lauded progressive quality of this film. So we faced a shock, not in Dil's unveiling, but in discovering a plethora of plot devices and characters at odds with freshness of seeing a transvestite at center of a popular film.
For a start, why did no one mention horrendous representation of lone woman in this film, Jude (Miranda Richardson), as a chameleon bitch murdered for her treacherous femininity? Everyone talked about relationship between Dil (Jaye Davidson) and Fergus (Stephen Rea), but why didn't anyone mention Fergus and Jody (Forest Whitaker)? We proceeded to do research, and read about fifty articles and reviews from Canada and United States. Surprising to us, many reviewers described film as a "comedy" and referred to central relationship as "perverse,"[1] [open notes in new window] while simultaneously claiming that film dealt with difficult political issues.[2] None of descriptions coming from eir progressive community or from mainstream press fit film we saw. To us, espoused a reactionary position with respect to women, blacks and queers, and displaced concrete political concerns onto a transhistorical notion of human nature. We set out to explore our reading of considering its misogyny as a starting point.
Particularly useful in our exploration of role of women in is a historical consideration of film noir. While is not an example of film noir, it borrows some clearly — and perhaps some not so clearly — recognizable conventions from that genre. This includes codification of Jude as a film noir spider woman in a costume that suggests 1940s, period out of which film noir emerges. Most of all, 's similarities to film noir occur at level of me or ideological project and not style.
Film noir's ideological project is to alleviate male confusion over women's roles or sexual through restoration of Woman to patriarchy. Film noir develops in mid-40s as a response to women's new found, wartime independence and constitutes a backlash. Frank Krutnick (1991) asserts that a large number of noir films are concerned with woman who seeks self-definition outside family and home, and are symptomatic of that period's "male sexual paranoia." Simply put, independent woman is perceived in se films as an assault on masculine (61-3). Film noir's meta-discourse on women and its emergence during a period of patriarchal retrenchment has a relation to film noir revivals of early 70s and early 80s, periods which experienced a recurring cycle of anti-feminist backlash. It is within this context that we wish to consider women and "postfeminism" in .
Reviews of film eir do not mention character of Jude or refer in passing to her as "alluring blonde" used by Irish Republican Army (IRA) to trap a "black British soldier."[3] Yet she has an important narrative function. She provides an all-too-easy means of closure to a narrative that would orwise surely spill out, given socio-political context of Britain and Norrn Ireland. To speak of as progressive means to ignore portrayal and treatment of Jude, only "woman" in film.
We put "woman" in quotation marks because Jude very clearly represents a type: spider woman or femme fatale of film noir who tempts men with her and destroys m when y cannot resist her. spider woman is not inherently evil, but rar her attractiveness and unknowability make her dangerous. She must he recuperated by eir her annihilation or her final restoration as good object within patriarchal order. Moreover, in such films women are defined by ir .[4] Significantly, femme fatale's sexual power tends to he overvalued by male characters (Krutnick 64). Male fears of economically independent career woman become displaced onto threat of a destructive female .
noir-influenced thriller almost immediately marks Jude as possessing a dangerous, ominous sexual power as she uses her feminine wiles to ensnare Jody in an IRA kidnapping. Jody begs his captors to not leave him alone with Jude because, he insists, "She's dangerous." Curiously, Jody never blames Peter (Adrian Dunbar), IRA leader of operation, even though Peter is more inclined to mentally abuse captive. Later, when Jody describes his romantic relationship with Dil to Fergus, Irishman asks why Jody was "fucking around" on her with Jude if he was so in love. "That bitch!" exclaims Jody, implying that it was impossible for him to resist Jude's feminine power. She is dangerous in his eyes because she is a woman and because she is sexually attractive.
film never expresses that Jude is politically active — doing her job, so to speak, because she believes in goals of IRA. Only briefly when she talks about her role in kidnapping, she says, "Someone had to do it." Like her predecessor, Mildred Pierce, Jude dares to seek an outside traditional confines of home and family — but in a career of terrorism rar than restauranteurship. Still, she can be read as a New Woman, independent and driven, and in her last incarnation, a "power-dressed businesswoman"[5] who happens to be in business of assassinating British judges. Despite establishing her as a character who works for IRA, film resolutely displaces Jude's political motives onto her treacherous female .
A consideration of Jewish heroine Judith of Bethulia, from whom Jude's name derives, reveals that places Jude in same impossible, unenviable position as her namesake.[6] It is illuminating to consider briefly parallels between two women and ir stories. Judith, story goes, saved Jewish people by using her feminine wiles to cross enemy Assyrian lines. She n seduced Assyrian commander Holofernes and beheaded him while he was drunk. Interestingly, Renaissance depictions of this event suggest that story of Judith and Holofernes came to be perceived as "an allegory of man's misfortunes at hands of a scheming woman" (Hall 1974:181). This is despite fact that Judith is considered a freedom-fighter by Jews. Jude receives same treatment in : all we need to know as viewers is that Jude is bad. And if we don't see that at beginning, n over-coding of Jude's body by end ensures that we do.
Jude's physical appearance undergoes three transformations in course of narrative. When we first encounter her, she is a blonde working-class woman in tight mini-skirt, sexually enticing a black soldier in civvies at an amusement park. second time we see her she is in an oversized fisherman's sweater with clean-scrubbed face, obediently serving tea and sandwiches to male IRA members at ir hideout. third time we come across her is in London. Here, she is a virtual cardboard cutout of film noir, femme fatale with dark, severe-looking hair, red lips, and a 1940s Joan Crawford-esque suit, complete with pumps and lear gloves to match. What was only articulated earlier through Jody's words is now made visible. Jude's hair and costuming code her as dangerous and threatening, a phallic woman who must he destroyed. She comments to Fergus at ir reunion that she needed a "tougher look." Ironically, she does not understand that her new look renders her a scapegoat for narrative's loose ends, which must be tied up to effect closure, specifically, to provide a sense that justice has been done.
Typically in film noir and elsewhere, notions of duplicity center around feminine. Kaja Silverman (1986) argued that women's ability to change ir appearance more drastically and frequently than men because of greater fashion options has historically rendered femininity an unstable signifier:
" endless transformations within female clothing construct female and subjectivity in ways that are at least potentially disruptive, both of gender and of symbolic order, which is predicated upon continuity and coherence" (148).
Male dress on or hand, Silverman says,
"[freezes] male body into phallic rigidity…a rock against which waves of female fashion crash in vain" (148).
Although it may undergo minor variations, suit and tie, explains Silverman, has been a constant since it became uniform of Western bourgeois male in eighteenth century. Male costuming has come to signify constancy and stability of male sexual and authority, placing masculinity firmly in line with symbolic order.
Jude's frequent transformations in appearance make her unknowable to men in film and to us. Because she is chameleon-like, she cannot be trusted and proves disloyal and unreliable with men. Moreover, her presence is disruptive. When she appears in London as vengeful spider woman she throws everything into disorder, in particular newly reconciled relationship of Fergus (who is in London under alias of Jimmy) and Dil.
At this point, Jude intoduces an oppressive tone of danger, betrayal, jealousy and viciousness into narrative (consider, for example, catty exchanges between her and Dil). She insinuates herself into lives of Fergus and Dil, and inescapably and inexplicably materializes everywhere y go: at hair salon where Dil works, at a South Asian restaurant where couple are dining, and at bar where Fergus and Dil hang out. Her omnipresence increases her threat.
While film noir demonstrates that spider woman's power is terrifying, it simultaneously gives sanction to narrative to proceed with her destruction (Place 1978:43-5). In latter half of , Jude is often photographed in ways which express her dangerousness. In scene where she appears suddenly at Fergus' apartment, framing at an odd, oblique angle and low-key lighting, which casts shadows from window blinds on wall, create a sense of threat and dread. In this scene, she grabs Fergus by balls and demands that he fuck her. repulsive tone of this act proves that sexual aggression — a sign of masculinity — is treacherous in women. Later in film, when Jude is "suiting up" to assassinate a British judge, she stands in front of a paneled mirror which shows her as split off into three images, one perhaps for each of her incarnations. Common in film noir, mirror expresses spider woman's duplicitous nature. mirror also suggests narcissism, a destructive trait in film noir woman, suggesting as it does absorption in herself and not in a man, which would constitute proper femininity (Place 47-8).
mirror sequence is an interesting one because "suiting up," as a stock sequence in action-adventure films, is usually reserved for bulky, well-armed male protagonists. As she gazes at her image in mirror to make adjustments to her appearance, Jude places a gun into her lear purse, demonstrating that she possesses in Janey Place's words, an "'unnatural' phallic power" (43). As phallic woman Jude signifies female masculinity. (This will figure importantly later in discussion of both Dil's and Fergus' possession of male femininity.) use of masculinizing gun iconography, oblique angles, low-key lighting, and femme fatale costuming constructs Jude as owning an omnipotent, threatening power that must be destroyed. Jude is set up visually to take fall for narrative's disequilibrium — wher she is actually to blame for it or not. As Claire Johnston states in her discussion of Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck) in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944),
"'Woman,' locus of castration, of anxiety, source of 'whole mess,' must be punished" (110)
For all lack of attention Jude/Miranda Richardson has received in discussions and reviews of film, it is Jude — as femme fatale — who alone appears on poster used to advertise in its Canadian and U.S. releases. She is holding a smoking gun, although she never fires one in course of narrative. Against a black background, sharp lines of her pale cleavage resemble blade of a knife.[7] She is 's narrative image, a concept Stephen Heath (1981) defines as "a kind of static portrait in which [ film] comes toger," and presents itself as a "unity" or "single articulation" (133). For Heath, narrative image is synonymous with film's presence,
"how it can be talked about, what it can be sold and bought on, itself represented as…" (121).
Posters and publicity stills often constitute a film's narrative image.
Teresa de Lauretis(1984), elaborating on Heath's work, adds that since narrative process is contingent upon rehabilitation of object Woman to patriarchal order, narrative image is, to be more precise, image of Woman herself, of her position within narrative. De Lauretis explains,
"What promotion stills and posters outside cinema display, to lure passers-by, is not just an image of Woman but image of her narrative position, narrative image of Woman — a felicitous phrase suggestive of join of image and story, interlocking of visual and narrative registers…" (140).
To put it anor way, entire movement of a film's narrative is condensed onto image of Woman, and in case of , onto figure of Jude-as-femme-fatale, as poster suggests.
Only when Jude appears in her latter incarnation do visual and narrative registers of film finally coalesce. That is, once Jody's overblown fears of Jude's omnipotence are visually incarnate and audience sees Jude as a frightening and dangerous figure, only n does image (Jude-as-spider-woman) move toward providing narrative conclusion ( punishment of bad woman). Up until n, it had been confusing as to how would resolve its two plot trajectories of Fergus' relationship with Dil and his relationship with IRA.
Yet for all her significance, Jude/ Miranda Richardson receives attention from reviewers only in terms of her first incarnation as "an alluring blonde."[8] character Dil is main focus for critical attention paid to . This is not surprising since Jude functions as solace to dominant, heterosexual male fantasies. Her presence as a familiar female type helps balance out discomfort stirred by Dil's challenge to masculinity.
One could argue that Dil's character is a positive image of transgressive in mainstream cinema. She is a central, sympatic, active character in a serious film, which is not pigeonholed as gay. Previously, few mainstream, queer and cross-dressing characters in film appeared in comedies or horrors, and usually in bit parts. Even more significant, Dil is not punished for her transgression. As Vito Russo (1987:347-49) makes clear in Celluloid Closet: Homo in Movies, virtually all queer characters in film end up dead, beaten or orwise absent from conclusion, yet Dil remains free and transgressive — and she gets to keep her new man.
Importantly, Dil's gender and sexual transgression is represented as "natural" and stable, especially in comparison to Jude's radical shifting through versions of femininity. Dil is constantly feminine because she wears clothing and a hairstyle that fit a single type of femininity. She always appears in a narrow range of urban and contemporary skirts, jackets and shoes, wher at work, at home or at bar. When Fergus tries to make her look male, his attempt is thoroughly unconvincing — oversized clothing and ragged haircut make her look like a woman in male drag — which adds to reading her as constantly and truly feminine. This is certainly a reversal from films in which men, like Buffalo Bill in SILENCE OF LAMBS (1991), are shown as disgusting in female drag and must be annihilated or, like in TOOTSIE (1982), as a source of humor for lighting ir "nature" and must he restored to maleness. By conclusion, Dil returns to her true as an attractive woman — despite her biological sex.
Still, one should not he too quick to laud as queer-positive. For example, although during most of film Dil is accepted, Fergus does respond with revulsion to sexual transgression, when he pukes after discovering truth about her. Moreover, we refer to Dil as a transvestite, yet we are not certain that this term accurately describes this character since role conflates a pile of transgressive identities. allows viewers to see Dil as a transvestite which itself includes a range of identities, or as a gay man who happens to cross-dress all time, or as a transsexual, given that Dil passes as female in all aspects of her life. se are all different kinds of people.
In Siskel's and Ebert's 1993 pre-Oscar special, Gene Siskel argued that Jaye Davidson deserved an Oscar because he had two roles to play: first, a woman, and n, character Dil. Siskel and or critics have had no trouble maintaining ir heterosexist assumptions as y try to squeeze non-dominant identities into male/ female and hetero/ homo binaries. y remain comfortably blind to queer-positive viewers' understanding of complexity of Dil's — that her character is totally imhricated in her sexual and gender identities, and that se identities cannot be conflated.
Queer-positive descriptions of differ considerably from mainstream reviews. We speak of film as a type of drama here, but several reviews refer to film as a comedy, suggesting that mainstream film critics must see queers and/or cross-dressing as comedic, at all costs.[9] Comedy is a cornerstone of hegemonic strategies to trivialize, and refore, defuse threat of Orness. As well, se reviewers use words like "hidden bomb," "mind-blowing," "bizarre," "sexual extremism" and "perverse"[10] to refer to Dil. Quite clearly se critics use a different reading strategy than those who see film as breaking ground for transgressive in mainstream cinema. Even more telling, director Neil Jordan describes Dil as "a beautiful creature" and film as having "strange and dark things underneath,"[11] while producer Stephen Wooley explains that he makes "critical films showing worm at apple's core."[12]
attitudes of mainstream critics, as well as filmmakers, suggest that does not challenge dominant straight ideas of gays and transvestites because queerness only functions as spice and not as an accepted part of film. Hence, Neil Jordan can describe his search for perfect actor to play Dil as "[sending] my casting people out into night and onto street."[13] And press kit can see world of Dil as "seedy contemporary London," as " suffocating subterranean underbelly of capital's bright lights…"[14] What this illustrates is that Dil is not read as a given but rar as a hidden "dark" secret, lurking somewhere beneath London's "seedy" underbelly.
Reviewers comfortably use words like "savor," "overripe" and "delicious," and y deploy circus metaphors, such as "high-wire act" and "tight-rope walk,"[15] which demonstrate ir view of Dil as a bizarre Or for entertainment of or consumption by "normal" viewers. This is made apparent in press kit that was handed out to reviewers and journalists at screenings of film. kit includes a request from director and producer, asking that writers "do not reveal… exact nature of character Dil's sex" in order to "maintain this key element of surprise and revelation for initial audience's pleasure."[16] Carla Hall of Washington Post boasted that "film critics…have kept mum as if initiated into a cult."[17] question is: Why should anyone be so
amazed? Being secretive about queer is nothing new. Nor is shoving queers back into closet so y can pop out at just right moment for pleasure and surprise of heterosexist viewers — at a time, we would stress, when gays and lesbians are asserting ir right to be out.
Moreover Dil's "nature" is kept secret within film because re is virtually no sign of her queerness until she takes her clos off. This functions to set her up as absolute Or — and only real sexual rebel in film. bartender at Metro serves drinks and general patter in a bar that looks and acts remarkably like a trendy straight bar, Dil's jealous boyfriend Dave behaves like any straight asshole and is never shown as sexually active with Dil, and Jody dies before he could do anything actively offensive to delicate heterosexist sensibilities.
In short, one cannot call progressive simply because it allows a central queer character to live transgressively to end, when film also allows assumptions that marginalize queerness to remain intact. As Teresa de Lauretis (1990:224) puts it,
"Films that portray or are about lesbian and gay subjects may provide sympatic accounts, 'positive images,' of those subjects without necessarily producing new ways of seeing or a new inscription of social subject in representation."
Queer viewers are renowned for ability to read more into films than mainstream will allow. So it is no great feat to incorporate enough suggestions that can fertilize active, hungry imaginations to produce an empowered queer reading of . It is this segment of audience who is progressive, not film y watched.
is not first time that Neil Jordan has used Orness to spice up lives of straight white men.[18] MONA LISA (1996) features a black, lesbian prostitute as foil for protagonist's fantasies. In both films, not just queerness but blackness as well functions as "seasoning" (as Jordan's reference to "strange and dark things" implies). Of course, use of "spice" or "flavoring" is a common feature of noir-influenced films. hero, usually a "colorless characterization" of a white, heterosexual male (Richard Dyer cites Dana Andrews and Glenn Ford as examples, and considers characters played by Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchtum as more macho exceptions), stumbles into a milieu that is charged with decadence and perversion, and inhabited by freaks and criminals.
Against this type of backdrop, marked as it is as deviant and feminized, male hero appears as "normal" and properly masculine (Dyer 1978:91-2). Fergus in exemplifies this type of film noir hero. As Jude mockingly describes him, he is a "Mr. Nobody," boring, inactive and alienated. Fergus wanders into an urban landscape where gender and sexual identities are not what y seem (to his "normal" perspective), where an atmosphere of unknown and forbidden prevails, and ultimately seduces him.
What is particularly offensive about Jordan's brand of so-called postmodern film noir is that blackness and queerness now function as that deviancy or charge against which straight, white, male hero is defined as normal. Race, as a sign combined with queerness, exponentially increases enigmatic and exotic quality of Dil's character, and most importantly, her ability to serve fantasies of white men. Blackness as sign carries meanings of wildness and hyper that add up to sexual availability without responsibility, according to white patriarchal myths. As well, blackness distances both Dil and Jody from presumed white, male viewers. Consequently, se characters are not as big a challenge to "normal" viewers' sense of . It is not one of "us" who is queer because only black people are sexually different.
same reviewers whose word choice reflects ir discomfort with queer also make claims that has "no precedent for way it goes on to explore politics, race, and sex"[19] and that Jordan "celebrates a loving humanity triumphant over nationality and race and death — and or barriers."[20] ir ease with film's consideration of race and politics belies 's own eliding of difficult issues. film provides no complex, committed exploration of politics or systemic racism.[21]
In fact, it displaces problem of racism onto Irish and women. Jody makes erroneous statement that Ireland is " one place in world where y call you nigger to your face." And Jude refers derogatorily to Dil as "wee Black chick," which serves to furr characterize Jude as villain. We would go so far as to say that, in order to maintain a progressive reading of , one must adopt a "United Colors of Benetton" approach, where race is not supposed to matterexcept to racists like Jude who do notice difference — because, after all, we're just people. Jody and Dil "just happen to be black," a rationale which makes white mainstream critics and audiences comfortable because y don't have to think about politics of race or feel guilty for reaping benefits of white privilege. But of course, race really does matter in since Jody's and Dil's blackness is necessary for Fergus' pleasure and white viewers' comfort.
After considering above points, one begins to wonder how progressive 's representation and use of transgressive is. Initially this article described Dil as sympatic, but for whom? Even if one does not mind misogyny as a convenient plot device, one should wonder if Dil's phallic possession nets her better treatment than or women. She serves exactly same function that Luce Irigaray (1985:171) describes for women in patriarchal language and social interaction: Dil is an object to facilitate "hom(m)osexual exchange." Irigaray coined this term to describe how patriarchal interaction simultaneously denies women subjectivity and suppresses male homo. Women function as Or so that men can talk about mselves without having to actually talk about mselves, without having to risk intimacy. At same time, women serve as a buffer so that direct male-male exchange is prevented and thus homoerotic contact is suppressed. Men swap stories of sex with women or men go out cruising toger, but real men never reveal anything about mselves, and y presumably never have sex with each or.
We would argue that Dil's penis does not let her stay a subject interacting with Fergus. Instead, her feminine image relegates her to object that facilitates Jody's and Fergus' patriarchally forbidden love affair. When Fergus tries to disguise Dil, he chooses Jody's clos — not just any old thing but meaning-loaded cricket outfit: same outfit that Jody wears when he appears bad in an angelic, golden glow in Fergus' dreams; same outfit that causes Fergus to soak his sheets in sweat. Reviewers neglect to mention se details.[22] Despite attention given Dil as a transgressive figure, this suggests to us that sight of two men — biologically and in terms of — falling in love might be too frightening to make this film a mainstream success — for suddenly delicious spice would become hard facts. Jody can remain a flavor as long as Fergus does no more than help him pee,[23] and as long as Fergus redirects his homoerotic desire to a feminine image — Dil.
Jody's death conveniently lets passive Fergus avoid making any decision about his homoerotic attraction. But it does not remove Jody from plot. His repressed presence is acknowledged enough to charge film with threat of two real men's but not enough to disturb comfy consciousness of dominant audiences. Jody can still be seen as Fergus' buddy even if Fergus constantly asks Dil about him, dreams (sweatily) of him, and tries to change Dil into him. Dil, too, becomes aware of Fergus' fascination with Jody. Most of ir conversations during ir courtship center around dead man, even during ir one sexual encounter. Here, Fergus expresses interest in sexual activity of Jody and asks Dil, "Did you do that to him?" She replies, "You want to know how I kissed him…," and proceeds to perform fellatio. Eventually Fergus' numerous questions about Dil's deceased lover prompt her to inquire, "Is this an obsession of yours?"
Fergus' interest in Dil, as well as his dreams about Jody, could be motivated by guilt for soldier's death, but that is far too simple and convenient an answer which avoids discussion of homoerotic desire. If guilt is only emotion in Fergus' subconscious, n why dream of a mythical Jody — Jody in clothing and in an activity that Fergus never actually saw? He dreams of Jody in his cricket gear at very moment when Dil gives him a blow-job. visual meaning of a romantic Jody combined with Fergus' and Dil's sexual act produces a definitely erotic reading — a reading which is supported by Dil's use of word "obsession" later.
Dil may achieve centrality for transvestites in cinema but that achievement is deceptive. She has replaced position of Woman. Dil does not carry over a man's rights to a role that transgresses boundaries that support patriarchal rights, in or words, Dil has no more power than any woman. She is but a '90s version of good woman or redeemer who acts to help integrate male film noir hero into his environment and gain greater self-knowledge (Place 42). Today, in contrast to 40s version, actual women are no longer good enough for even this passive and harmless secondary role.
At film's conclusion, Fergus repeats a parable that Jody had told him when soldier had tried to help Irishman understand his "nature" as a kind man.[24] At time, Fergus did not understand, but once he achieves love of a good woman, he can, An essential part of Fergus' lesson, moreover, is that he divest himself of bad woman, Jude. film noir hero's success is contingent upon his ability to extricate himself from manipulations of scheming sexual woman (Kaplan 1978:3). Dil's bitchy competition with and murder of Jude help place Fergus well onto path of redemption.
Furrmore, Dil does not represent a significant change in position of queers in film and in dispelling homophobia. She distracts from film noir's repressed homo and helps shore up all-male universe that has historically characterized this type of thriller. "In such films," says Krutnick, " men seem much more at ease in company of or men (63). homosexual subtext that emerges in se films, though ultimately contained, is contingent upon dread of heterosexual encumberment, specifically, domestication within bounds of patriarchal family. Unfortunately, this manifests itself in a hatred of women; male homo and misogyny become part and parcel of same thing in film noir thriller.
Jody's and Fergus' relationship defines parameters of 's particular kind of male universe. two men form ir bond with each or in most typically masculine way: y talk about sports.
But not any sport. each prefer a nationally specific : Fergus argues for Irish favorite hurling while Jody touts merits of English cricket. Jody, however, speaks in past tense because his race and his class ended his acceptability as a cricket player once he moved to England from Antigua. choice of se s is significant because each is representative of a national and reinforces or differences between two men that distracts from ir differences in race. Jody's black masculinity would be too threatening if that were all that attracted Fergus. Cricket as a sign works like Dil's ambiguous gender to provide distractions from blackness and still allow race to function as a "spice."
image of Jody in Fergus' dreams, an image Fergus never saw in actuality but only produces in fantasy, sums up all-male world of this film. Jody's soft, white cricket clos are heavily drenched in boyhood nostalgia and all peaceful signs of a purer, simpler time, a time before feminism and gay , and a time when white colonialism was at its height. In Fergus' dream, Jody is isolated: Jody has no context or surroundings, only his clos, his cricket moves and his smile. Jody is a lovely vision of male homoerotic desire — more overtly homoerotic than Dil, who passes as female and visually works as "safe" gender opposite of Fergus (even after slower members of audience have figured her out).
Jody, however, is just as invisible to dominant viewers a: any or potentially subversive image. And he is just as dead as any queer character listed in Vito Russo's necrology. He is classically repressed, relegated to dreams of main character, never mentioned in mainstream critical responses, and only allowed a physical presence in second half of film when Fergus transforms Dil into his fantasy of Jody — image Dil carries when she punishes Jude for using her "tits and ass" to lure Jody.
Dil plays woman's role in this boyhood world of s. She is not one of active men, one of guys on team. For added emphasis, her unnaturalness in Jody's cricket clos proves this because y are too big and obviously do not suit her. Instead, she is one of girls who facilitates male bonding. As in traditional war movies, Jody shows his new buddy Fergus a photo of his one true gal waiting back home. Dil serves as buffer between male homoerotic desire: Jody and Fergus can talk about sex and love without having to talk about mselves, and Fergus can sublimate his impossible desire for Jody by pursuing Dil.
A familiar figure in heterosexist representations, Dil's new addition to role of good woman simply allows Fergus an excuse to dress her up as man of his dreams. film displaces male homoeroticism via patriarchal hom(m)osexual exchange and in no way actually challenges it, even though a transvestite is substituted for Woman. In fact, this substitution leads to new possibilities: how to do without any women, reby eliminating nagging risk that is posed by ir presence as objects of exchange.
Women are doubly erased from : Dil as biological male functions as a non-castrating image of Woman. She is innocuous compared to threat posed to male characters by Jude's destructive sexual power and duplicitous femininity. As captive Jody says to Fergus at IRA hideout, "re's only one kind of woman you can trust." It is not until later in film that Jody's statement gains its full import, when it is revealed that Dil, as only one kind of woman one can trust, is biologically speaking a man. Oil as Woman-with-a-phallus acts as a "sugar-free" substitute for Jude phallic woman. male characters can have all sweetness of image Woman but without calories — dangers of female . Dil can dress as a sexually alluring woman and sing torch songs like her predecessor Gilda (Rita Hayworth) in classic noir film of same name (1946). But she is in no way an object of fear, hatred or suspicion for men in film. But even as an image of Woman, Dil is erased, for she functions merely as a conduit through which repressed love affair between two men can be enacted at a latent level. Just where are women in this film?
A clue to women's whereabouts can be found, ironically, in a more detailed consideration of construction of masculinity in film noir, In In A Lonely Place: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (1991), Frank Krutnick argues that 1940s Hollywood film noir is symptomatic of post-war U.S. society's crisis in cultural regimentation of masculinity. "[S]habby, defeatist and alienated" film noir heroes indicate a problematic relation to culture's representation of ideal, traditional masculine hero as aggressive, dynamic and tough (90). prevalence of traumatized males in se films, says Krutnick, is a sign of
" disjunction between, on one hand, contemporary representational possibilities of masculine self-image and, on or, traditional cultural codification of masculine " (91).
In or words, since post-war period, image "Man" has become a difficult one for contemporary men to live up to. For this reason Krutnick refers to film noir as "paranoid man's film," melodrama concerned with " problems besetting masculine and meaning" (131).
Fergus in functions as a contemporary re-working of film noir hero. He speaks about Western, patriarchal concerns regarding masculinity in '90s. When we first encounter him, he is a cynical, cold IRA tough who has no problem in kidnapping and abusing Jody. Gradually, via Jody's "seduction" of him, Fergus begins to reveal his true "nature," as a kind, sympatic, gentle man. Judy recognizes se aspects of Fergus, but captive is run over by a British military convoy before his hyposis about Fergus can be tested out. In meantime, however, Fergus undergoes a profound crisis, plunging him into a world of moral confusion. He goes to London to escape his former life as an IRA member and becomes Jimmy, a construction worker, a "Mr. Nobody" who doesn't even mind if people believe he is Scottish.
Dil acts as agent through which Fergus can come to an understanding of himself, of his true "nature" as a kind, sensitive, feminine man. Indeed, film eliminates threat of female power not only through annihilation of Jude but more complexly through male incorporation of femininity. With his possession of male femininity, Fergus is an example of new man for 90s. His femininity is given, not us a sign of deviancy, but as a trait which is natural to men. Moreover, it should not he denied: only when Fergus denies this side of himself is he unhappy, confused and lost. Similarly, only when Dil dons masculine attire is she unstable and unpredictable. As a woman, however, she is natural, loyal and steady. Male femininity is solid and reliable because beneath that feminine masquerade lies authority of phallus.
But femininity, when it is in employ of women, is destructive, dangerous and duplicitous, as our discussion of Jude, only woman in film, indicates. She is paradoxically punished for her "nature" on two counts, both for violating it and for being true to it. That is, Jude is penalized, on one hand, for possessing an unnatural phallic power, as signified by her gun, and on or, for embodying feminine traits such as duplicity and narcissism. In or words, both masculinity and femininity are bad in women. Caught in this Catch-22 it becomes apparent that, in fact, it is in very "nature" of women to be bad. As Jody comments to Fergus,
"Women are trouble…But Dil — she's no trouble, no trouble at all."
Women are locus of narrative trouble (with exception of a woman like Dil). Jude's murder is used to restore narrative to equilibrium, with human nature functioning as ahistorical moral authority of world of film. IRA, like blackness, is reduced to mere spice, a sexy charge that livens up our hero's search for moral certitude. Moreover, Jody, as a black British soldier, furr severs social and historical connections because a black man, originally from Antigua, can hardly function as a representative of British imperialism, IRA's enemy, when he too is a colonized subject.
Politics in are not about groups or social movements or history but about personal in bourgeois individualistic sense. IRA soldier Fergus divests his Irish national as part of his personal quest for self-knowledge. implication is that only cruel, amoral individuals (by inference this includes all women), who have no respect for human nature can be members of radical groups like IRA. Those like Fergus recognize that in end politics, power and cultural oppression don't matter. Especially when killing Jude-as-spider-woman allows one to skirt (pun intended) difficult questions concerning British and Norrn Irish antagonisms.
Mainstream reviews of have caught onto film's "subversive" portrayal of masculine .[25] In an article in New York Times Magazine which discusses new man in contemporary cinema, is hailed as touching "anti-macho chords" since it features a hero who "refuses to fire his gun." Moreover, " two or sympatic male characters" in this film, writer assures us, also "enjoy blurred sexual identities." This prompts reviewer to conclude that poses a challenge to dominant sexist stereotypes of gender because,
"Even country anm 'Stand by Your Man,' sung by Lyle Lovett over final credits, is stripped of its rigid sexism by this film, in which evil is represented by a female assassin as manly as [Jack] Nicholson's marine [in A FEW GOOD MEN]."[26]
In Feminism without Women: Culture and Criticism in a "Postfeminist" Age (1991), Tania Modleski makes significant point that contemporary crisis in male subjectivity that is evidenced in recent films must he considered in terms of
" extent to which male power is actually consolidated through cycles of crisis and resolution, whereby men ultimately deal with threat of female power by incorporating it" (7).
se films depict male femininity as progressive, natural, non-sexist, and good, while women, and especially masculine women, are eir completely absent or portrayed as aberrant. Men's rejection of rigidly demarcated gender roles, which has been a goal of feminism, can only come in se films at expense of women. emancipation of women is forgotten. What we have, to use Modleski's phrase, is a "feminism without women."
Dil's murder of Jude proves that Dil is perfect "postfeminist" solution, and Fergus as new man is film noir hero) for 90s. When he gets in touch with his feminine side, he can alleviate trauma of his crisis (one that feminism probably had a hand in facilitating, given film's historical context). Now that men like Dil and Feigns can be feminine, we no longer need feminism to challenge gender stereotypes. implication is that men not only make better women, as y clearly do in , but that y probably make better feminists as well, since y are more skilled at defying gender stereotypes.
Although we have investigated as a thriller which borrows from film noir, it is not our intention to try to lit film into a particular genre. Rar, we wished to show 's strong ideological associations with film noir as a way of examining ways in which film reworks and revives very particular noir codes and mes to speak about our contemporary, so-called "postfemmist" culture. Placing film within its contemporary social context, , we argue, represents a backlash response to feminism since challenge that feminism poses to masculine is ultimately defused through incorporation (Modleski 10), and this at expense of one woman in film. 's potent combination of male homoeroticism and male appropriation of femininity eliminates threat to masculinity that is posed by Jude's female sexual power (cf. Modieski 82).
This film comes at a critical time when women's reproductive rights are being threatened, employment equity programs are being attacked, and mainstream is proclaiming that feminism is dead. We situate within or backlash representations that we have seen in mainstream media since late 80s, including preponderance of U.S. TV sitcoms featuring single-far families (such as MY TWO DADS, FULL HOUSE, and BLOSSOM), and especially, emergence of female/ career-woman stalker in films such as FATAL ATTRACTION (1987), BASIC INSTINCT (1992) and TEMP (1993). All attention on Dil's transgressive distracts from this film's virulent misogyny and racism, and its hegemonic containment of male homoerotic desire. After a few screenings, we resented this film for its insidious division of queers from feminists and from people of color. Dil may be an unparalleled image of transgressive within mainstream cinema but is price of admission worth it?
We wish to thank Leila Armstrong, Lynne Hissey, Lianne McLarty and Michele Valiquette or ir comments on an earlier draft.
1. See David Ansen, "Very Dangerous Liaisons," in Newsweek (Nov. 30, 1992), p. 80; David Denhy's review of , in New York (Dec. 7, 1992), p. 64; and Peter Travers' review, in Rolling Stone (Nov. 26, 1992), p. 80.
2. Kitty Bowe Hearty, 'London is Burning," in Premiere (Dec. 1992), p. 36; Brian D. Johnson's review, in Maclean's (Dec. 14, 1992), p. 54; Donald Lyons, "Bloody Miracle," in Film Comment 28:6 (1992), p. 42; plus press kit for film.
3. See Johnson specifically, but also Denby, who makes mention of IRA "using a good-looking blonde as lure for a black British soldier"; and Lyons, who refers to Jude as "blonde pick-up" for a "black Brit soldier." Jude is also referred to as an "IRA seductress" by Michael Walsh in Province (" has more than one sting in its tale," Dec. 27, 1992), p. C10); as a "deranged IRA seductress" by Michael U. Reid in Times-Colonist ("Emotional Irish thriller deftly observes s people play," Jan. 8, 1993); and as "a tarty Irish woman, who turns out to be a lure for IRA" by Julie Salamon in Wall Street Journal ("Film: Neil Jordan Works His Magic," Dec. 10, 1992).
4. We wish to acknowledge anthology Women in Film Noir, edited by B. Ann Kaplan, as an invaluable resource in helping us to define role of femme fatale.
5. This description of Jude's final incarnation, interestingly enough, appeared in press kit for .
6. name "Jude" has immediate negative connotations due to its similarity to name "Judas,"
7. text for poster reads " …Sex. Murder. Betrayal…nothing is what it seems to be…play it at your own risk."
8. As well, synopsis in press kit for insists on referring to Jude as a blonde, even after her hair color has changed during her femme fatale incarnation. She is referred to as "a blonde in a brown wig," even though re is nothing in film to suggest she is wearing a wig.
9. See Ansen, Denby and Travers. In an interview with Damian Inwood of Province, director-writer Jordan called film "a kind of unrequited love story…[which) ends in a comedy, in a kind of resolution" (" builds on MONA LISA," Dec. 24, 1992).
10. Johnson — "hidden bomb;" Bowe Hearty — "mindblowing;" Rick Groen, "Passport to borders of mind," in Globe and Mail (Dec. 4, 1992) — "bizarre;" Walsh — "sexual extremism;" Ansell and Denby — "perverse."
11. John Armstrong, "A far cry from usual Hollywood ," in Vancouver Sun (Dec. 24, 1992), p. E4.
12. Linda Joffe, "How Was Made," in Christian Science Monitor (March 26, 1993), p. 12.
13. Louis B. Hobson, " director sheds tears of joy," in Calgary Sun (Jan. 14, 993).
14. In addition, Denby refers to atmosphere of bar that Dil hangs out in as "squalid but voluptuous."
15. Lyons — "savor;" Joseph Hooper, review in Esquire (Dec. 1992), p.42 — "overripe;" Ansen — "delicious;"Travers — "highwire act; Ansen — "tightrope walk."
16. In one of few articles we found that criticized , Caryn James of New York Times described it as "a fascinating example of how a smart, small film can get a huge amount of mileage out of a gimmick [ secrecy over Dil's )." She hails film's marketing as more brilliant than film itself (in " Wins at Gimmickry," Jan. 31, 1993). As a furr side note to this, Miramax Films, distributors of , received accolade of "best film marketing campaign" from Film Information Council (Tire Vancouver Sun, Feb. 24, 1993).
17. Carla Hall, "It's A Shame! Media with wrong attitude try to spoil nominee's secret," reprinted in Vancouver Sun (Feb. 19, 1993), p. C6, courtesy of Washington Post.
18. bell hooks develops concept of race functioning as "spice" or "seasoning" for white mainstream culture in Black Looks.
19. Bowe Hearty. As well, Johnson notes that "Jordan explores issues of racial and sexual …his mes of loyalty and compassion acquire a deeper, political resonance." And in press kit for film, Jordan is quoted as saying that "deals with race and , and love, but it goes much deeper."
20. Lyons. Or reviewers make similar points: for example, Green explains that film "[maps) out a state of mind…that levels barriers of politics, nationality, of race, of religion, of gender itself;" Reid states that film "strips away beliefs of several characters whose race, color, political stripes and may differ, but whose vulnerabilities and basic needs as humans are similar;" and Travers writes, "For all characters, hiding behind race, sex and politics is no longer possible."
21. We should note that our discussion of film's reception is mainly concerned with Canada and United States. We are aware that had a different reception in Great Britain, where it did not do as well at box office, because of its IRA content. Wolf Schneider of Telegraph-Journal reports that marketing film in England was more difficult than in United States, He quotes Jordan as saying,
"In England, not only could y not tell you about second part [of film], y couldn't tell you about first. About IRA, Irish aspects" (Jan. 2, 1993).
Jordan is quoted by Hobson on same issue:
"In Canada and America movie plays as love story I intended it to be. Because IRA issue is far more delicate in Britain, it's harder for audiences to separate two stories."
In Maclean's, actor Stephen Rea explains,
"In England, y have a problem facing fact that Fergus is a very sensitive guy. That's not how y like to see Republicans portrayed because it is not thrust of ir propaganda" (Feb. 1, 1993).
22. While we do not wish to indulge in auteur ory, it is neverless interesting to note that Jordan himself recognizes homoerotic undercurrent in Fergus' and Jody's relationship. In an interview by John Levesque of Hamilton Spectator ("Director Neil Jordan shows his brilliance in ," Dec. 20, 1992), Jordan stated:
"In stories about men in conflict, re's always a kind of homoerotic subtext to m, and in many ways that's what makes m so powerful In this film I wanted to take that kind of story and pull it to a place that macho intentions of those stories never allowed m to go."
Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly quotes Jordon as saying,
"I was interested in telling story of a man who wanted a woman only because anor man had had her a homoerotic obsession" (" Little Movie That Could," Feb. 12, 1993).
23. Denby claims that this scene "sends a shiver through audience."
24. In parable, frog offers to swim scorpion piggyback across river to safety, if scorpion in turn promises not to sting him. promise is made, but scorpion stings frog in midstream, even though it means his own drowning because it is in his nature. figuring of "nature" and its relation to moral authority in film is a concern to which we will return later in discussion.
25. In his review, Reid wrote, "Jordan shatters stereotypes." As well, press kit states that "main characters do not fit to Hollywood stereotypes" because "Jody is a black British soldier, who exposes his vulnerability…Fergus is a terrorist with a great sense of humanity," and Jude is "an IRA activist with chameleon talents [who] exploits her masculine and feminine traits to furr cause." As indicated in note 22, Jordan sees film as challenging "macho intentions."
26. Frank Rich, "Clintonian Cinema," in New York Times Magazine (Mar. 21, 1993), p.76
WORKS CITED
de Lauretis, Teresa. (1984) Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
— — — (1991) "Film and Visible." In Bad Object Choices (ed.) How Do I Look? Seattle: Bay Press, pp. 223-276.
Dyer, Richard. (1978) "Resistance through Charisma: Rita Hayworth and Gilda," In B. Ann Kaplan (ed.) Women in Film Noir. London: British Film Institute, pp. 91-99.
Hall, James. (1974) Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. London: John Murray Publishers.
Heath, Stephen. (1981) Questions of Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
hooks, bell. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. Toronto: Between Lines.
Irigaray, Luce. (1985) This Sex Which Is Not One, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Johnston, Claire. (1978) "Double Indemnity." In Women in Film Noir, pp, 100-111.
Krutnick, Frank, (1991) In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity. London and New York: Routledge.
Modleski, Tania. (1991) Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a "Postfeminist" Age. London and New York: Routledge.
Place, Janey. (1978) "Women in Film Noir." In Women in Film Noir, pp. 35-67.
Russo, Vito. (1987) Celluloid Closer: Homo in Movies, revised edition. New York: Harper and Row.
Silverman, Kaja. (1986) "Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse." In Tania Modleski (ed.) Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 139-152.