SCREEN-L Archives

June 1993

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
"Lynn A. Sprague" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 8 Jun 1993 11:11:54 EDT
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (54 lines)
<This notion of men as the uncontrollable force of nature and woman as the
civilizer seems more common.
 
When approached through Erich Fromm's perspective on feminine and masculine
(respectfully motherly and fatherly) roles of God, [The Art of Loving], one
may find that man's lack of control, namely aggression, IS his control.
Woman is the opennness of nature, where life begins and grows. Further that
a fatherly role is to induce penetration, guidance and discipline. This is
contrary to the masculine force of God as "uncontrollable," thus resulting in
insanity: Should men instill boundaries and labels, for since he has, the
obvious result has been mayhem? Further still, man admits to the superiority
of the motherly role of God everytime he feels good about going home or about
getting in touch with nature. Through man's insane aggression, the truth is
obscured: we can live better without it. Now that most men and women alike
have gone insane to some point, who may communicate to them, through what
movie or medium at all, will their *closed* minds *open* AND ADMIT THE DEFEAT
OF AGGRESSION? This must be done in an UNpenetrative fashion or the response
would be more aggression, rather than understanding. There is a recent real
life story which is probably getting scripted as I write, on the humbling fall
of the U.S.S.R., that clearly symbolizes the futility of aggression.
 
<It also seems to me that the only possible outcome to a confrontation between
a Romantic vision of nature and "civilized" man that does not result in the
suppression of nature must be that man "goes native", ala SPLASH...If I recall
correctly CAT PEOPLE with Nastasia Kinski ended similarly.
 
SPLASH is a good example of *Romantic* non-suppression of nature. CAT PEOPLE
is not, for even though the protagonist Irena becomes a cat, she still kills
as the cat. This hostility is a perversion of life's original purpose, growth.
 
Here again, viewed through Fromm's motherly and fatherly God roles, Irena
returns to nature, by becoming the cat, because she is unwilling to submit to
man's boundaries. Becoming the cat is her way of assuming balance between the
oppossing forces. After all, what has more balance than a cat? It's just par
for the course (of men) that Val Lewton had to appease the RKO's sadism by
including some sort of aggression, insanity, murder, thus HORROR.
 
To fight aggression with aggression automatically loses the battle, aggression
wins by default.
 
There is a desperate need for movies to turn the viewer into
pro-life. The key to destroying the sword is balance.
 
Humble those barriers through education, it is the balance of both forces of
nature, which is also god, the balance being both unoppossed and unrestrained.
 
 That's all.
 
____________________________________________________________________
LYNN A. SPRAGUE Hey vanity, get thee behind me,
32BWGRR@CMUVM for I know your father.
CMU SOPHOMORE Hey vanity, you can't make ME sorry
JRN major/Ad concentration for all the good I have stood for.

ATOM RSS1 RSS2