This paper consider the operation of living phantasies in the blockbuster film, Avatar, with refe... more This paper consider the operation of living phantasies in the blockbuster film, Avatar, with reference to an ‘original matricide’ as theorised by Melanie Klein, Luce Irigaray and Amber Jacobs. I will focus on those elements of Avatar that are gynophobic, matriphobic and matricidal. I wish to examine the desire to restore the mother-victim of an original murder as it is played out alongside theoretically matricidal operations in the film. In my reading I argue that, taken as a prescription for Utopia, Avatar advocates the elimination of the female reproductive capacity, characterising the womb as a feature of abjection unfitting to an ideal world. The implications of such an ideology are very real, if we consider film as a cultural practice, and cinema as a ritual that shares something with other forms of drama in its descriptive and prescriptive function. Cinema, after all, is theatre through a new medium, one that puts distance between spectator and spectacle, but one which has the power to reach mass audiences and the capacity for countless repetition in the form of repeated viewings. The distance between spectacle and spectator I consider a feature of didacticism, for there can be no interaction, simply a passive spectatorship and identification from an audience. This I consider one of the powers of film, and something that makes the conscious feminist interrogation of a ‘cultural phenomenon’ like Avatar imperative. The product of a variety of creative contributions and tailored towards box office sales, Avatar does not prescribe a single moral or ethic code. In my reading I will consider the film not as the product of an autonomous author with a single intent, but as an ambiguous amalgamation of ideals that provides some insight into the cultural imaginary from which and for which it has been created. Such a reading aims to uncover some of the underlying cultural laws operating in a contemporary equivalent of the Ancient Greek tragic spectacle. By reading Avatar in this way I am assuming that, like the function of Greek tragedy as ‘the polis official celebration of itself,’ a spectacular and widely celebrated film like Avatar is a contemporary culture’s celebration of its own social contract.
This paper consider the operation of living phantasies in the blockbuster film, Avatar, with refe... more This paper consider the operation of living phantasies in the blockbuster film, Avatar, with reference to an ‘original matricide’ as theorised by Melanie Klein, Luce Irigaray and Amber Jacobs. I will focus on those elements of Avatar that are gynophobic, matriphobic and matricidal. I wish to examine the desire to restore the mother-victim of an original murder as it is played out alongside theoretically matricidal operations in the film. In my reading I argue that, taken as a prescription for Utopia, Avatar advocates the elimination of the female reproductive capacity, characterising the womb as a feature of abjection unfitting to an ideal world. The implications of such an ideology are very real, if we consider film as a cultural practice, and cinema as a ritual that shares something with other forms of drama in its descriptive and prescriptive function. Cinema, after all, is theatre through a new medium, one that puts distance between spectator and spectacle, but one which has the power to reach mass audiences and the capacity for countless repetition in the form of repeated viewings. The distance between spectacle and spectator I consider a feature of didacticism, for there can be no interaction, simply a passive spectatorship and identification from an audience. This I consider one of the powers of film, and something that makes the conscious feminist interrogation of a ‘cultural phenomenon’ like Avatar imperative. The product of a variety of creative contributions and tailored towards box office sales, Avatar does not prescribe a single moral or ethic code. In my reading I will consider the film not as the product of an autonomous author with a single intent, but as an ambiguous amalgamation of ideals that provides some insight into the cultural imaginary from which and for which it has been created. Such a reading aims to uncover some of the underlying cultural laws operating in a contemporary equivalent of the Ancient Greek tragic spectacle. By reading Avatar in this way I am assuming that, like the function of Greek tragedy as ‘the polis official celebration of itself,’ a spectacular and widely celebrated film like Avatar is a contemporary culture’s celebration of its own social contract.
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Papers by Elske M Rahill
In my reading I argue that, taken as a prescription for Utopia, Avatar advocates the elimination of the female reproductive capacity, characterising the womb as a feature of abjection unfitting to an ideal world. The implications of such an ideology are very real, if we consider film as a cultural practice, and cinema as a ritual that shares something with other forms of drama in its descriptive and prescriptive function. Cinema, after all, is theatre through a new medium, one that puts distance between spectator and spectacle, but one which has the power to reach mass audiences and the capacity for countless repetition in the form of repeated viewings. The distance between spectacle and spectator I consider a feature of didacticism, for there can be no interaction, simply a passive spectatorship and identification from an audience. This I consider one of the powers of film, and something that makes the conscious feminist interrogation of a ‘cultural phenomenon’ like Avatar imperative.
The product of a variety of creative contributions and tailored towards box office sales, Avatar does not prescribe a single moral or ethic code. In my reading I will consider the film not as the product of an autonomous author with a single intent, but as an ambiguous amalgamation of ideals that provides some insight into the cultural imaginary from which and for which it has been created. Such a reading aims to uncover some of the underlying cultural laws operating in a contemporary equivalent of the Ancient Greek tragic spectacle. By reading Avatar in this way I am assuming that, like the function of Greek tragedy as ‘the polis official celebration of itself,’ a spectacular and widely celebrated film like Avatar is a contemporary culture’s celebration of its own social contract.
In my reading I argue that, taken as a prescription for Utopia, Avatar advocates the elimination of the female reproductive capacity, characterising the womb as a feature of abjection unfitting to an ideal world. The implications of such an ideology are very real, if we consider film as a cultural practice, and cinema as a ritual that shares something with other forms of drama in its descriptive and prescriptive function. Cinema, after all, is theatre through a new medium, one that puts distance between spectator and spectacle, but one which has the power to reach mass audiences and the capacity for countless repetition in the form of repeated viewings. The distance between spectacle and spectator I consider a feature of didacticism, for there can be no interaction, simply a passive spectatorship and identification from an audience. This I consider one of the powers of film, and something that makes the conscious feminist interrogation of a ‘cultural phenomenon’ like Avatar imperative.
The product of a variety of creative contributions and tailored towards box office sales, Avatar does not prescribe a single moral or ethic code. In my reading I will consider the film not as the product of an autonomous author with a single intent, but as an ambiguous amalgamation of ideals that provides some insight into the cultural imaginary from which and for which it has been created. Such a reading aims to uncover some of the underlying cultural laws operating in a contemporary equivalent of the Ancient Greek tragic spectacle. By reading Avatar in this way I am assuming that, like the function of Greek tragedy as ‘the polis official celebration of itself,’ a spectacular and widely celebrated film like Avatar is a contemporary culture’s celebration of its own social contract.