Concepts and Framework-building for Analyzing

Movies

Foucaults

The History of Sexuality

Power : Biopower
: Disciplinary power
Subjectivity

Truth and Power

Power-knowledge
Discourse
Use Foucaults 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 enabling
Discourse can be an instrument of power and an effect of
power, but It can hinder us or act as a hindrance
It 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:

Fs 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 groups

Decentralized, 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
Foucaults anti-repression argument was:
Repression led to incitement to sex
More focus on sex, more talk and desire
Restrict by laws led to sexual perversion
Sex is desired as it became hidden and secretive
It then became an obsession
Powerful categories of normal/abnormal emerged
Western society is a singularly confessing society:

Confessions a double subjection

1. A subject or a person in society is unerr social
rules
2. A confessors narrative on own desires,
thoughts, actions and experiences to light
on:
Justice
Medicine, psychiatry
Education
Family relationships
Love relations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KL92oBWcQ

Sexuality in control under power 1.23 min 2008

Confessions
The 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 confession

Psychiatrist (Power) to Patient (subject) relations

Power is embedded in the Discourse when subjectivity is

established on normal-abnormal status
Confessions: The Oprah Show
Rihanna 2012 5 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoitLatLAXk

Whitney Houston 2009 5 min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14O-cHb9DGY
 F: Power is the structure of force relations in a
society, tied to cultural modes of understanding
discourse

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

LEGO & Gender Part 2: The Boys Club feb 2012 13.43 min
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/lego-gender-part-2-the-
boys-club/
 Movies on discourse of the power of love: Is it experts
treatment or expression of bio-power?

Mental Illness in Movies

http://www.squidoo.com/MentalillnessinMovies
As Good as it Gets (1996)
Shine (1996)
F: Power/knowledge and discourse on excluded women or
racialized persons
The Oscars and the Bechdel Test 10.30 min feb15, 2012

http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/
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 Its 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 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.

Women & Hollywood
Sexism Watch: ABC New Pilot Title
by Melissa Silverstein on January 12, 2011

ABC picked up a new series entitled Dont 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/ (a rich source of films & commentary)
Equal pay:

Made in Dagenham Reflects A Current Reality

by Melissa Silverstein on November 17, 2010
in 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=ZXCW6Ztkp7Y
Top 10 Movies That Take Place in a Mental Institution (Audience Choice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzktK6Gceg
The Truth about Mental Hospitals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ERXsCo5ME

Inside Mental Hospital

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9wEvsg-nhA&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Madness
CHANGELING http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvHquOz-lDU 2008
Trailer 1 5.39
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edX09NFZ3oc trailer contd 2 min

- FILM REVIEW 10.03 min

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

1928 woman (woman vote 1920)

Judyism: Judge Judy At Her Best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH57MnJIjkc 3.36 min

BEST OF JUDGE JUDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mV5jyBu0i8 11.30min