Alone or in combination, heavy doses of sex, violence, and emotion are dismissed by one faction or another as having no logic or reason for exis- tence beyond their power to excite. Gratuitous sex, gratuitous violence and terror, gratuitous emotion are frequent epithets hurled at the phenomenon of the "sensational" in pornography, horror, and melodrama. This essay explores the notion that there may be some value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres. For if, as it seems, sex, violence, and emotion are fundamental elements of the sensational effects of these three types of films, the designation “gratuitous” is itself gratuitous. My hope, therefore, is that by thinking comparatively about all three “grooms” and sensational film body genres we might be able to get beyond the mere fact of sensation to explore its system and structure as well as its effect on the bodies of spectators ” (3)
I think this reading made a lot of connections between the idea of spectacle and with Mulveys ideas of the relationship women have with film and the ways they are represented. She brings together the idea of power and pleasure as represented in film, and the ways those intertwine to create such sensational and sometimes disturbing patterns in film. The anatomy chart provided gives an interesting visual to the similarities between genres of pornography, horror, and melodrama, based on what they try to elicit from the audience. I enjoyed that this piece was grounded in examples beyond the Freudian psychoanalysis that mulvey leans into
Differences and similarities in the roles of sex and women as sex objects between Mulvey and Williams. The role of women in the three body genres is very intertwined with pleause and the controlling of the look.
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