A GAZE OF CRUELTY, DEFERRED: ACTUALIZING THE FEMALE GAZE IN CATE SHORTLAND’S BERLIN SYNDROME (2017)

dc.contributor.authorChuk, Natasha
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-30T09:44:15Z
dc.date.available2022-06-30T09:44:15Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.description.abstractAustralian director Cate Shortland’s dramatic thriller Berlin Syndrome (2017) follows the conventions of the genre involving a psychologically unstable male perpetrator and his female victim, thus could hinge on patriarchal control. Instead, based on a close reading of feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey’s theoretical definition of the former, Shortland’s cinematic apparatus can be read as an inverse of the male gaze, a type of systematic ‘female gaze’. This observation both warrants clarification of the term and concept behind the female gaze and suggests a pressing need to re-evaluate the language of cinema and its habitually damaging depictions of women. In doing so, it may encourage a counter cinema in which such cinematic language is more readily accessible and asserted from a non-male perspective. This essay addresses the question of the female gaze, a term that refers, in fuzzy terms, to the subversion of the male gaze in cinema and elsewhere. To do this, key points in Laura Mulvey’s argument are unpacked in reference to other examples of male-on-female on-screen violence — a kind of accepted and frequently employed gaze of cruelty extending Antonin Artaud’s celebration of the theater of cruelty. All of this is in support of the argument and demonstration of how Shortland upends key cinematic and genre conventions throughout Berlin Syndrome to effectively enact what the female gaze purportedly entails. Keywords: Laura Mulvey, male gaze, female gaze, film studies, theater of crueltyen_US
dc.identifier.citationChuk, N. (2020). A gaze of cruelty, deferred: Actualizing the female gaze in Cate Shortland’s Berlin Syndrome (2017). Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 7(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v7-issue-1/a-gaze-of-cruelty-deferred-actualizing-the-female-gaze-in-cate-shortlands-berlin-syndrome-2017/en_US
dc.identifier.issn2378-2331
dc.identifier.urihttp://journaldialogue.org/issues/v7-issue-1/a-gaze-of-cruelty-deferred-actualizing-the-female-gaze-in-cate-shortlands-berlin-syndrome-2017/
dc.identifier.urihttp://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/6346
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherDialogue, 7(1)en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy;Volume 7, Issue 1 — Bodies in Motion: Challenging Imagery, Tradition, and Teaching
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States*
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/*
dc.subjectType of access: Open Accessen_US
dc.titleA GAZE OF CRUELTY, DEFERRED: ACTUALIZING THE FEMALE GAZE IN CATE SHORTLAND’S BERLIN SYNDROME (2017)en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
workflow.import.sourcescience

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
A GAZE OF CRUELTY, DEFERRED ACTUALIZING THE FEMALE GAZE IN CATE SHORTLAND’S BERLIN SYNDROME (2017).pdf
Size:
193.69 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Article
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
6.28 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description: