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Spectatorship's Role in Film (ENG 600) - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Pt 1. Quotes:
        "The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies" by Siegfried Kracauer; translated by Thomas Y. Levin:
        "... business considerations require the producer to satisfy the need for social critique among the consumers. A producer, however, will never allow himself to be driven to present material that in any way attacks the foundations of society, for to do so would destroy his own existence as a capitalist entrepreneur" (291).
        "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception" by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno; translated by John Cumming:
        "The mentality of the public, which allegedly and actually favors the system of the culture industry, is a part of the system, not an excuse for it" (96).
        Pt 2.
        What new question do you have?
        In "The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies," Kracauer emphasizes that, while adhering to a capitalist sense, movie directors and producers must also cater to their audience, at one point stating, "Society is much too powerful for it to tolerate any movies except those with which it is comfortable" (292). Indeed, many of the examples in the piece seem designed to demonstrate how an audience is made to feel comfortable. However, what then, do we make of movies designed specifically to make an audience uncomfortable? Why have audiences come to enjoy such films and how (if it indeed does) does this change the parameters with which producers, directors, and writers approach their craft?
        What random something caught your attention?
        One part of "The Culture Industry" that particularly caught my attention was the way that the masses themselves help enable capitalist culture. Horkheimer and Adorno note that "the defrauded masses today cling to the myth of success still more ardently than the successful" and thus seem to eagerly conform to the thoughts and expectations the industry feeds to them (106). It's interesting to see how the industry functions not just because of one end of the system but through both ends of the system. This makes me feel more cautious and alert toward "feel-good" movies and reminds me of "The Little Shopgirls" reading, which demonstrates just how different types of film manipulate the perspectives of an audience and how willing we sometimes are to be manipulated. (In thinking about this, I realize how complacent I've been on this front, as I tend to turn to film-- or books -- as a way to escape reality, and I do tend to be pulled into the feel-good aspect of these forms of entertainment without looking too deeply.)
        Pt. 3. Theory Ideas/Connections:
        In "The Little Shopgirls" much space was given to the way spectators are influenced by film, namely through means such as "the daydreams of society" (292). At one point, Kracauer discusses how film and reality seem to come together as the spectator watches, leaving a theater as if still in the reality of the film. What this particularly made me think of was the Harry Potter film franchise and how strongly it impacted the imaginations of its audience. I remember waving my own imitation wand at locked doors as a child in response to these films and the excitement and adventure they evoked. And what eleven year old viewer of these films wasn't a little disappointed when they didn't receive a letter admitting them to Hogwarts? Not only do the films present a magical alternate reality for those who might feel that they don't fit into regular society, but it also presents a strong sense of community and friendship, a belonging that we all desire. Drawing on those points, the films do indeed draw us into its reality, as if we really are muggles and magic exists around us if we just look closely enough. While, arguably, the books which predate the films can be said to aim for the same effect, the films provide a level of immersion that bring that alternate reality, that "daydream of society" to life.
        
        Pt 3 Image:
        
        Sullivan's Travels (the moment that applies to the Little Shopgirls' fear for the protagonist which ultimately ends in relief when things turn out ok)
        
        Mass culture: Mass culture is the idea of art (or film) as a product made by the corporations, targeting the masses (in terms of audience) in order to make a profit.
        
        Culture Industry: The culture industry produces "standardized" products that they claim were developed according to the needs of the consumers. Such products are meant to be readily accepted by consumers with little thought beyond what the films want consumers to think.
  - - - Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections
        Thinking of a film in connection to the theories of this week was a little more difficult for me -- I'm not an avid movie watcher, and when I think back, I tend to move toward the more narrative-driven films. However, there was one aspect of Gunning's article that caught my attention in terms of how film can step beyond the narrative and provide something to surprise and draw in the audience. Gunning states, "From comedians smirking at the camera, to the constant bowing and gesturing of the conjurors in magic films, this is a cinema that displays its visibility, willing to rupture a self-enclosed fictional world for a chance to solicit the attention of the spectator" (382). This reminds me of some c-dramas I have watched where the characters, to borrow a term from drama, "break the fourth wall." In particular, it reminded me of Le Coup De Foudre, a drama in which we frequently jump between different time periods, including a time period after the main events of the drama where the characters sit and talk directly to the audience, which gives the characters an awareness that breaks free from the traditional narrative action of the plot, even as their role is to "narrate" their own story. Although not quite as "carnivalesque" as Gunning's article describes, Le Coup De Foudre does allow the movement out of a traditional story narrative. Though I have not seen it -- just the trailer -- I recall that Deadpool does much the same. Even in the trailer, Deadpool himself talks to the audience, breaking out of the narrative and bringing the audience further into the film. I recall my brother saying this was exactly why he didn't care for the movie, which, I anticipate, can be an effect such experimental, non-narrative features can have on some viewers. However, it also gives an awareness to the film or drama, just as it brings the spectator in with more immersion by including them and doing something different beyond simple storytelling.
        Clips:
        Deadpool Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuH3zDs2y3s
        Le Coup De Foudre episode 1 (refer to about minutes 2:00 to 4:00 for a specific example of what I discuss above). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ-VcrWKkMc
      - Playtime (the ridiculous moments of the restaurant staff holding the doorknob and pretending that the glass door is still in one piece and most customers adhering to what the doorman believes)
      - Pie and Chase: The pie and chase refers to the gag and narrative aspects of slapstick comedy, with the pie acting as the gag which interrupts the chase (or the narrative flow) of the film. The pie/gag is kind of like a bump in the narrative road that halts the action.
        
        Cinema of Attractions: The cinema of attractions moves the action out toward the spectator and focuses on exhibitionism and festiveness -- much like going to an amusement park or fairground to view the attractions there. It breaks narrative absorption by allowing the characters to break the fourth wall and include the spectator in the trick.
    - - Part 1:
        "Kinoks -- A Revolution" by Dziga Vertov (Translated by Kevin O'Brien)
        Quote: "If one films everything the eye has seen, the result, of course, will be a jumble. If one skillfully edits what's been photographed, the result will be clearer. If one scraps bothersome waste, it will be better still" (18-19).
        "The Dramaturgy of Film Form" by Sergei Eisenstein (Translated by Jay Leyda)
        Quote: "The differentiation in montage-pieces lies in their lack of existence as single units. Each piece can evoke no more than a certain association. The accumulation of such associations can achieve the same effect as is provided for the spectator by purely physiological means in the plot of a realistically produced play" (60).
        
        Part 2:
        What new thing have you learned?
        One new thing I learned from reading Vertov's piece is what a "kino-eye" is. From the word itself, it's easy enough to assume it has something to do with vision, but Vertov provides a clear explanation of how it is the mechanical eye of the camera, capable of capturing and organizing images beyond the ability of the human eye. For example, it can slow down a moment, speed it up, zoom in or out, and take a series of these different images and put them together in a way that can allow for a certain interpretation and understanding from viewers who are seeing the product produced by the kino-eye.
        What new question do you have?
        After reading Eisenstein's piece, I found myself more curious about montages and duration. For certain effects, is there a certain length of montage that might be considered preferable? Does this depend on whether it's a montage of quick images or a montage of slower drawn out images? I can only imagine that a montage drawn out for too long might lose some of its impact on the audience?
        Part 3 Theory Ideas/Connections
        In connection with both readings this week, I was drawn to the idea of montage and emotional conveyance. Eisenstein mentions that "Emotional effect begins only with the reconstruction of the event in montage fragments, each of which will summon a certain association -- the sum of which will be an all-embracing complex of emotional feeling" (Eisenstein 60). One of the most emotional montages I recall from a film (and one that had me bawling my eyes out in front of a room of people during a class) is the moment when Seok-Woo, in Train to Busan realizes he's become infected by the zombie virus and chooses to sacrifice himself for his young daughter. This particular moment is devoid of dialogue, yet, between the gentle piano music, the sounds of distress, the flashbacks to the birth of his daughter, and Seok-Woo's facial expressions, we, as viewers, are drawn into that moment and feel that psychological connection to Seok-Woo's character. All of the aspects work together to move the audience. In terms of Eisenstein's discussion of montage, this particular one acts as a temporal and spatial montage, bringing in moments across time periods in juxtaposition and across spaces on the train as we witness Seok-Woo's last moments. The images are much more abstract, as Eisenstein mentions, showing brief flashes of Seok-Woo with his newborn daughter, a baby foot, his expressions in the present in contrast to the sweet moments of his daughter's birth. And in concert with Vertov's article, we are only able to get this montage due to the mechanical eye of the camera and its ability to transcend the human eye and refine the provided images to that which is significant to delivering a certain message.
        Movie Clip: Train to Busan
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5byk6sAh34E
        
        Strike (uses soviet montage in order to create a link in the spectator's mind between farm animals and factory workers)
        
        Kuleshov Effect: The Kuleshov effect is the idea that the juxtaposition of two different images together synthesizes a new image in the spectator's mind, allowing new connections to be made.
      - Spectator Perspective and "Reality"
        
        Part 1: Quotes--
        "The Apparatus: Metapsychological Approaches to the Impression of Reality in Cinema" by Jean-Louis Baudry
        "... in order to explain the cinema effect, it is necessary to consider it from the viewpoint of the apparatus that it constitutes, apparatus which in its totality includes the subject. And first of all, the subject of the unconscious" (773).
        "From Mystifying Movies: Jean-Louis Baudry and 'The Apparatus'" by Noel Carroll
        "... if the impressions [Baudry] has in mind are a matter of imagery charged with affect, we can remark that dream imagery is, if not just more vividly charged, it is at least more invariantly charged than movie imagery … the affect that attaches to dream imagery originates in the dreamer and her personal associations whereas the affect derivable from film imagery comes from an external source - such as the imaginations of screenwriters and directors -- which may or may not correspond to the film viewer's emotive life" (789).
        Part 2:
        What New Thing Have You Learned?
        In reading Baudry's article on cinema and the idea of the apparatus, I was drawn in by his discussion of sight versus sound. We can be given a representation or illusion of reality visually, but the sound cannot be figuratively produced. According to Baudry, "voice does not lend itself to games of illusion, or confusion, between the real and its figuratively … to which sight seems particularly liable" (765). The sense most likely to be drawn into an illusion, therefore, is sight. (This also made me think about silent films and how we can still be drawn into the images on the screen without relying on auditory aspects.)
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        In Carroll's article, I kept finding myself agreeing that his refutations of Baudry made sense, but what I think especially caught my attention was his explanation of how reality testing can work in cinema but not in dreams because of the shared aspect of cinema. Carroll explains how films are open to the public and can be watched multiple times. We can do research on the films. We can analyze them for nuances we might have missed before. We can share our viewing experience with others. All of that is in contrast to dreams which are unique to the dreamer and may or may not ever recur.
        
        Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections --
        Baudry's discussion of how cinema can create a dream-like scenario, immersive and "more-than-real" to the point that we feel absorbed in the film, reminded me of a c-drama I watched called "Love-Crossed." The premise moves a bit beyond film into the realm of VR, where girls begin losing touch with reality as they buy these VR glasses that allow them to imagine having "the perfect boyfriend." The female protagonist and her best friend, however, eventually learn that these "virtual boyfriends" are indeed based on real models who are being used to fuel the "game." In trying to rescue the four boys from a corrupt system, the girls are also dragged into the game and struggle for some time to discern that they are not in reality -- and even when they realize and "emerge back into the real world" it turns out they are in another layer of the illusion, an illusion only shaken off when the characters are bold enough to "die" in their perceived reality. VR itself is meant to simulate reality and be immersive, but it's interesting to see how willingly or unwillingly, we can be drawn into this fantasy. Although I don't quite buy all of Baudry's arguments, I do agree that there is an interesting level of immersion in the "reality" presented before our eyes and that we, as a race, do seem to strive to create these fictitious realities. In such cases, we are not forcibly immobilized, as Baudry discusses, nor are we necessarily in a dark room (although a cinema typically does follow this convention), but we do still become drawn into what we see, which seems to be what most intrigues Baudry.
        Trailer: Love Crossed (2021)
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bwgr2In4AM
        (I apologize that the English subbing on this isn't great. This particular trailer just captured the essence of the idea of desire, perceived reality, and immersion that reminded me of Baudry.)
        
        Videodrome (the way we, as spectators, seem to be seeing the screen through the eyes of Max, so we are also being exposed to videodrome, just as he is, in a sense)
        
        Spectator Influencing Film and Film Influencing the Spectator
        
        Freud and Film:
        Both Mulvey and Baudry seem to agree as far as Freud having an influence in film. Baudry sees it as a regression where the viewer goes back into the state of primary narcissism and the "whole world revolves around them" which allows that immersion into the film world. Mulvey builds on this connection with the idea that the spectator is a straight male who identifies with the active male characters in film while looking at passive female characters with both desire and the fear of castration.
        
        "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" by Laura Mulvey
        Part 1: Quote
        "The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Woman displayed as sexual object is the leitmotif of erotic spectacle … yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a story-line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation. This alien presence then has to be integrated into cohesion with the narrative" (Mulvey 436).
        Part 2:
        What New Thing Can You Explain?
        After reading Mulvey's article, I feel like I can explain the idea of scopophilia and how that works in film, combining with Lacan's mirror phase. Mulvey talks about scopophilia as a pleasure in looking or being looked at, noting how Freud looked at this as the child's voyeuristic desire to watch what is "forbidden." Meanwhile, Mulvey also talks about how this works in a narcissistic way through Lacan's mirror phase due to fascination with that which is like ourselves. The theater space creates that kind of voyeuristic view as the film reveals itself with no care for the presence of the audience, making it seem more like we are looking in on something. And what we see adheres to that narcissistic need to see that which is like us -- when applied to the patriarchal side of theater, this usually leads to the female characters as spectacles and the male characters as the "like us" active characters moving through the narrative.
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        One part of Mulvey's article that caught my attention was her reference to Budd Boetticher, who states, "What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance" (qtd in Mulvey 436). This made me think of all of the plots, even dating back before cinema, where stories focused on the "damsel in distress" plot -- the female character exists only to illuminate the male character around whom the plot centers. While cinema clearly gives this phenomenon a more effective mode to connect with audiences, it's interesting to see how this placement of women in a more passive role has existed in other forms for so long, as well.
        
        Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections
        While reading Laura Mulvey's article, I was very much reminded of Julie Taymor's 1999 film, Titus, which features a particularly disturbing scene where the mutilated Lavinia is left on display, a view we see through her uncle's eyes as he gives a lengthy speech that seems to poetically describe the atrocity before his eyes. Perhaps this scene works somewhat subversively for the scene is artistically rendered in a way that is almost beautiful while engendering viewers with horror and discomfort at the sight, particularly combined with Marcus's slow-moving speech as he (the active character) makes his way to Lavinia (who is rooted to the spot until he scoops her up). This part reminded me of Mulvey's note that "Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like. Hence the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man's role as the active one of advancing the story, making things happen" (437). This aligns with my thought of Lavinia as "revenant" in the play, highlighted in Taymor's film adaptation in a way not always shown in stage performances. From this moment, Lavinia becomes a spectacle, and the sight of her drives her male family members toward vengeance.
        The disturbing beauty of Lavinia in the moment seems to work with the idea of the scopophilic in presenting something that could appear to be an "object of desire" but at the same time seems to exhibit the other side of the coin -- the fear and anxiety of castration. In this case, Lavinia's violation seems to threaten the violation of her family members (all male) and of Rome itself, causing her family line to be castrated. The conveyance of her depiction could almost seem to draw the audience into that same fear and alarm as she transfixes viewers, particularly with her bleeding mouth and penetrated arm stumps.
        Scene from Julie Taymor's Titus (1999):
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgE0xzUpWgI
        
        Born in Flames (feminist film's attempt to fight against the male gaze with a more documentary style structure)
        
        Primary Narcissism: Primary narcissism is the idea of the "blobby baby" where we revert to a state where we view ourselves as the world and the world as us -- as such, we become the center of what we see as spectators.
        
        Fetishistic vs Voyeuristic Scopophilia: Fetishistic scopophilia is the gaze that focuses on the beauty and desire for an icon (or as Mulvey would say, a female body), which halts the action of the narrative. Voyeuristic scopophilia on the other hand is an investigative gaze that seeks to punish the female body on screen in order to avert castration anxiety; it is incorporated in the narrative and therefore more active than fetishistic scopophilia.
        
        Spectator's Relationship to Killer and Survivor (Blending Genders)
        
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        Using a Subversive Critical Gaze (Black Female Spectatorship)
        
        "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators" by bell hooks
        Part 1: Quote
        "Identifying with neither the phallocentric gaze nor the construction of white womanhood as lack, critical black female spectators construct a theory of looking relations where cinematic visual delight is the pleasure of interrogation" (126).
        Part 2:
        What New Thing Have You Learned?
        As I was reading bell hooks' article, I was surprised to learn how the oppositional gaze works as a form of resistance. I had never heard of this form of the gaze before, and it was interesting to see that black women often would choose not to relate to the black female characters in a film due to the portrayal given from a perspective of white supremacy. At one point, hooks notes "Critical discussion of the film while it was in progress or at its conclusion maintained the distance between spectator and the image" (117). Rather than just watching the film, the oppositional gaze seems to require this critical view.
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        One thing that caught my attention was in hooks' discussion of how, while some black women found viewing films painful in the way black femininity was either erased or marginalized, others who enjoyed films would have to avoid being critical. She states, "Every black woman I spoke with who was/is an ardent moviegoer, a lover of the Hollywood film, testified that to experience fully the pleasure of that cinema they had to close down critique, analysis; they had to forget racism" (120). This comment reminded me of the earlier marxist readings by Kracauer and Horkheimer and Adorno in which the enjoyment of film largely requires us not to think too much beyond what the film itself would like us to think. The limitation on the ability to view cinema with a critical eye is similar.
        
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    - - "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess" by Linda Williams
        Part 1: Quote
        "... what may especially mark these body genres as low is the perception that the body of the spectator is caught up in an almost involuntary mimicry of the emotion or sensation of the body on the screen along with the fact that the body displayed is female" (4).
        Part 2:
        What New Thing Can You Explain?
        One thing I can explain after reading Williams' article is the way each of the three "body genres" she discusses works in terms of fantasy and the temporal. According to Williams, each genre embodies a different temporal placement in fantasy based on anxieties of time with pornography taking place in a mutual moment of the "now" while horror is situated in anxieties of being "too early" where those characters who are unable to prepare themselves in time do not survive. Williams notes how horror's "too early" anxiety generally is connected with "a moment of sexual anticipation" (11). Melodrama, on the other hand, tends to focus on anxieties of being "too late" with a desire to go back and the "moment when desire is finally recognized as futile" (11).
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        I was kind of surprised to find melodrama/tear-jerkers listed alongside horror and pornography as a type of body genre. However, once Williams noted that one feature of these genres is "the spectacle of a body caught in the grip of intense sensation or emotion" and how that same excess seems to impact the physical reaction of the film's viewers, the connection made sense to me (4). Williams further notes that all three of these genres are in themselves a type of melodrama and that while on the surface, the genres may seem more gendered, all of them have a certain mix of sadism and masochism that complicates the passivity or activeness of identification in the films.
        Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections:
        Of the three body genres Williams describes, I'm most familiar with the melodrama -- particularly in terms of looking for films that will evoke tears. Interestingly, I've always done this as a form of catharsis, preferring to empathize with the characters and cry for them in order to release my own pent up anxieties and stress, which seems to be what Williams discusses. One film that I recall experiencing this with -- and which definitely gives off the anxieties of "too late" temporally -- is The Best of Me (2014). The entire film centers around a couple who fell in love as teenagers but were separated due to the troubled family background of the male lead. Twenty years later, it seems they have another chance, but the female lead is married with children, even though she is having problems in her marriage. She chooses to go back to her husband, but then regrets her choice and plans to leave to be with the male lead, only to find out she is too late and has missed the chance to be with him forever. Dawson's death scene in the film particularly seems to capture the idea as we first see the removal of the option for the two to be together, followed by Amanda's devastation and tears over the knowledge that she is too late. (I remember this scene making me cry for quite some time after I first saw it.)
        Video Clip: (apologies for the poor quality. This was the only version of that particular scene I could find on youtube).
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Cx5x3YAlg
        
        Imitation of Life (the moment of tears for Sarah Jane in that temporality of "too late")
        
        Spectators and the Physical Sensation of Film
        
        "What My Fingers Knew: The Cinesthetic Subject, or Vision in the Flesh" by Vivian Sobchack
        Part: 1 Quote
        "Even at the movies our vision and hearing are informed and given meaning by our other modes of sensory access to the world: our capacity not only to see and to hear but also to touch, to smell, to taste, and always to proprioceptively feel our weight, dimension, gravity, and movement in the world. In sum, the film experience is meaningful not to the side of our bodies but because of our bodies. Which is to say that movies provoke in us the 'carnal thoughts' that ground and inform more conscious analysis" (50-51).
        Part 2:
        What New Question Do You Have?
        Within the article, Sobchack discusses the way we experience all of our senses, at one point noting the possibility of these sensations, different from if we were truly experiencing them yet more than just seeing them, as "a sense memory less reflectively thought than reexperienced" (59). Knowing at least one person who has never known what it is like to have all five senses, I am curious as to how the absence of certain senses might impact this experience or how the body might adapt to make up for that lack of lived experience?
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        Throughout the article, I was very interested in the discussion of language as a product of experience. In the Affect Theory Youtube video, the speaker discusses the way that such sensations precede emotion and cannot fully be explained in language. Similarly, Sobchack notes the way language used to describe the senses in fact results from having experienced the sensations first. She states that "sensual reference in descriptions of cinema has been generally regarded as rhetorical or poetic excess -- sensuality located, then, always less on the side of the body than on the side of language. This view is tautological. As Shaviro points out, it subsumes sensation 'within universal (linguistic or conceptual) forms only because it has deployed those forms in order to describe sensation in the first place'" (49-50). I think it's important to note the role language plays and how it is more an after-effect of feeling or noticing something than the sensation itself.
        Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections
        For me, this particular concept was hard to connect to previous experiences, as I tend to notice my emotional response to film more than my sensational response. In part, I wondered if the fact that I have aphantasia and cannot visualize in my mind, nor do I dream more than a few times in a year (never with any sense other than an impression of something unfolding) makes it more difficult for me to connect and bounce my senses off of what I view. However, although not a "film," I did recall watching a music video by the Korean artist, Taemin, the other day for his new song "Guilty" and telling my friend "I felt claustrophobic." Without reading the subtitles one can't outright tell what the song is about, and much of what happens in the video is abstract. However, darkness, bouncing off walls, and hands and bodies everywhere left me personally feeling like I couldn't breathe. In everyday life I am particularly sensitive to being in crowded spaces and tend to feel that claustrophobic feeling (the inability to breathe properly and the sensation of being squished into a space that doesn't fit my body) whenever I am in such a scenario. It was interesting to me, therefore, that I felt that same sense watching this music video unfold. Although I enjoy the song and feel that emotional pleasure from listening to it, the music video creates an uncomfortable tension in me that makes my body feel both squirmy and tense at the same time. Perhaps because it so closely relates to a sensation I am sensitive to naturally, I was able to feel a similar sensation with this video.
        The Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pasRphQvEUE
        
        Connecting the Spectator's Physical and Emotional Responses -- The Cinema of Disgust
        
        Part 1: Quotes
        "Toward a Poetics of Cinematic Disgust" by Julian Hanich
        "Hence, in anticipatory disgust the viewer is caught in an ambivalent double bind. He or she is cautious or even apprehensive of the upcoming confrontation -- and drawn to it out of sheer attractions and the curiosity about whether the prediction will turn out to be true" (17).
        "The Erotic Politics of Disgust" by Anna Breckon
        "... an introjective identification can be understood as the process in which the ego forms an identification with an external object/image by incorporating the qualities that correspond to the subject's idealized image of the self and by repudiating the qualities that are alien. An empathetic incorporative relation is when the culturally enfranchised subject, confronted with a disenfranchised other, disavows the difference that the ego refuses to assimilate" (524).
        Part 2:
        What New Question Do You Have?
        In Breckon's article, I was very intrigued by the idea of Kristeva's theory of abjection being key to how Pink Flamingos works as a film. However, I was struggling a little to make sense of that connection. Breckon discusses how we cannot have empathy for any of the characters as we fail to find commonality between ourselves and the characters based on their actions. In that sense, I can see how the characters seem to represent the abject -- that which we reject from ourselves. I'd like a little more clarity on how this relationality to the abject works within the spectator. Is it that we can't entirely separate ourselves from them, despite how much we might like to? Or is there more to it?
        What Random Something Caught Your Attention?
        In Hanich's article, I was fascinated at the way anticipatory disgust works. What I was initially struggling to accept was that anyone would actively seek to be disgusted. However, the way Hanich describes the anticipation of disgust is actually quite interesting. And it does make sense. Even if we expect something to be disgusting, we're still curious to see if it's as bad as we expected, worse, or not nearly as bad, and that keeps us engaged. It also reminds me of my own experience, not with disgust films, but with horror movies -- I've been teased by my friends for the way I sit with one hand ready in front of my face, only to extend the hand in front of my face during a horrific scene… but with fingers spread so I can inevitably peek between them. It's that curiosity that overcomes the initial aversion to the horror or disgust reaction.
        
        Part 3: Theory Ideas/Connections
        In terms of cinema of disgust, I initially thought I hadn't watched much that fell within that category only to realize…there have been a lot of scenes that have disgusted me over the years. Although I've referenced it before, I wanted to include a scene from Julie Taymor's Titus, primarily as part of Hanich's article reminded me precisely of the scene where Titus feeds a seemingly innocuous pie to Tamora, only to reveal, once she has consumed it, that her own sons are baked into the pie. Prior to the feeding, we see Titus murdering Tamora's two sons and describing his plots, so we see it coming -- we anticipate this moment of disgust. To add another layer, the pies, initially baked are depicted in a very 1950s scene -- open windows, pies in the window with the odor wafting in the breeze. It almost seems delicious, except we know what those pies truly contain.
        I also couldn't help thinking of a scene from a television show -- an episode of The Strain I watched for a class back in undergrad. In the scene, the scientist holds the still beating heart of an infected person only to have the parasites within it attach to his own skin and try to consume him right before the infected, in various states of autopsy, attack and consume him. Throughout the scene, Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" plays, and I have honestly never been able to listen to that song again without it triggering feelings of discomfort -- its connection to that scene continues to disturb me nearly five years later.
        Scene from Titus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB-mdaUcLak
        Scene from The Strain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54iUklKleLs
        (I also confess to almost including a music video from a Korean artist I really enjoy as it was the first time I've ever encountered the phenomenon of saying "I really love the song… I don't think I can stomach watching the video ever again, though." -- For curiosity's sake, it's called "Voodoo Doll" by VIXX. It really is gruesome, though.)
        
        Spectators, VR, and Emotional-Physical Responses (Empathy)
        
        Quotes:
        "The Metaverse is Bad" by Ian Bogost
        "If only the public could be persuaded to abandon atoms for bits, the material for the symbolic, then people would have to lease virtualized renditions of all the things that haven't yet been pulled online. Slowly, eventually, the uncontrollable material world falls away, leaving in its stead only the pristine -- but monetizable -- virtual one" (Bogost, "Metaverse" 4).
        "Dystopian Virtual Reality is Finally Here" by Ian Bogost
        "VR isn't about being fooled into thinking that you're in another reality, even if the Oculus and its ilk do effectively trick your animal brain into believing that you are somewhere else. No, VR is about occupying another agency, as if you were inside it like a pilot in a cockpit, controlling it at a remove" (Bogost, "Dystopian" 9).
        "'Forced Empathy': Manipulation, Trauma and Affect in Virtual Reality Film" by Raphael Schlembach and Nicola Clewer:
        "The claim to something like 'vicarious trauma' or 'prosthetic memory' lies at the heart of many claims regarding the power of immersive technology. Here, as we shall see in our VR examples, the central thesis is that knowing is not enough, that we must be made to feel and that exposing individuals to emotionally difficult and even distressing representations of victimisation engages them in transformative processes which have a desirable social, ethical and political impact" (Schlembach and Clewer 834-835).
        
        Response:
        *What's Your Reaction to the Arguments Here?*
        Raphael Schlembach and Nicola Clewer bring our attention to some interesting issues with the idea of virtual reality, namely in terms of those who use it relying on a type of forced empathy to influence their audiences. One issue that the authors point to ties in with Bogost's explanations of how VR works, as well -- they claim that those who are likely to be audiences for campaigns that rely on VR are already those likely to be politically inclined toward the situation. Ian Bogost talks about how VR (unlike augmented reality) is a choice we make -- we choose to engage and are aware, at least on some level, that we have made that choice. In this sense, is it really that the impact of the VR experience creates empathy or that it provides an experience for those already inclined to be empathetic? Schlembach and Clewer, citing Kaplan, note two other major issues with the VR experience -- 1, that the experience might in fact trigger anxiety and result in the viewer rejecting further interaction with the subject and 2, that the viewer may in fact experience a more narcissistic response where they fail to take their experiences outside of the individual. I find these all valid concerns -- and ones that seem true from my own experience.
        When I went to the VR lab, the two films I watched did indeed trigger responses in my body that made me uncomfortable -- as indeed they likely intended to. However, I was very much in my own body --I wasn't empathizing with others, but merely stressing for myself. And some elements were uncomfortable enough I didn't want to reflect on them further. This could be from what Schlembach and Clewer discuss as not having enough distance between the viewer and the experience. While it can be easy to become immersed -- perhaps easier than Bogost claims (one time playing VR games, I accidentally punched a door while in a gladiator ring… and another time, I screamed at a rat flying toward my face when I opened a cabinet) -- the physical response and the emotional response are not necessarily functioning together. While I react more physically to VR, I find I tend to have stronger emotional feelings with the distance created by regular film, where I get to know characters rather than being forced to be the character. Indeed, this might be something that differs from person to person, but I don't find VR to be as emotionally effective at creating empathy than film. It creates a shorter-term physical response that I shy away from and soon push away, while a film can leave me emotionally devastated for some time after it has ended, even if I don't have as much of a physical response in the viewing experience.