Armatage, Kay

English

Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

cluded the worship of goddesses as the primary deities." Associated with this religion of the goddess was a culture characterized by "qualities such as caring, compassion, and nonviolence." There is evidence of division of labour, but not of male dominance. S he writes that "there is no evidence of women associated with men in inferior positions," and that "warfare is conspicuous by its absence." Finally, she proposes that "social rela- tions are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking." After centuries of peace and stability there "appeared on the prehistoric hori- zon invaders from the peripheral areas of our globe who ushered in a very different form of social organization." After sev- eral waves of invasions, these agrarian, partnership societies began to undergo rapid change and the culture in all three areas was replaced by "the warlike, hier- archical, male dominated social structure that is still prevalent." After establishing the case for the ex- istence of the partnership societies, Eisler makes the following observation: Yet even when cogronted with the au- thority of new research, with newarche- ology, and the corroborationji-omsocial science, this truly huge block of new knowledge about millennia of human history so contradicts all we have been taught that its hold on our minds is like a message written in sand. She uses the central portion of the book to explain why our new knowledge of these early, peaceful societies is so diffi- cult to retain. She starts by pointing out that there are innumerable traces of the earlier culture in written history, which are not identified as such. For example, she argues that "the story of Cain and Abel in part reflects the actual confrontation of a pastoral people (symbolized by Abel's offering of his slaughtered sheep) and an agrarian people (symbolized by Cain's offering of 'the fruits of the ground') rejected by the pas- toral god Jehovah." Eisler then shows how all aspects of the cultures of dominance and force became woven into the entire social fabric, for example, the way a deity is originally viewed as an all powerful woman, then, over a period of time, her husband or son gradually becomes more powerful, and eventually only a remnant, such as the Madonna, is left of the original deity. Throughout history there were resur- gences of the partnership ethic only to be suppressed or co-opted by the prevailing culture. Her treatment of the message of Jesus, and the subsequent alteration of his basic message by a hierarchical church, is particularly strong. It is difficult to know if The Chalice and The Blade should be viewed as apopulari- zation of current research or a scholarly work. Eisler seems to lean toward the latter, and viewed this way the book has several shortcomings. Archaeological research that does not support her case tends to be minimized and she over-interprets results that do. She also introduces a lot of unnecessary terminology. Her claim that work done in the fields of physics, chemistry, and biol- ogy on the dynamics of change is appli- cable to her more general cultural inter- pretations is not substantiated in the few pages she gives to this subject. One can go to other works for a more scholarly approach. Two books that cover much of the same material are: Beyond Power: On Women, Men and Morals by Marilyn French (Summit Books, New York, 1985),andThe Creation ofpatriar- chy , by Gerda Lerner (Oxford University Press, New York, 1986). The Chalice and the Blade is better viewed as a popularization of current re- search and arallying cry for much-needed change. In this light it is a very positive work. It contains a good summation of evidence that there have been partnership societies in the past, and convincing argu- ments that our knowledge of these socie- ties and attempts to return to them have been systematically and sometimes in- visibly suppressed; and it offers hope that we can take an active part in making deci- sions for a better future. THE WOMEN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory Tania Modleski. New York: Methuen, 1988. Kay Armatage Tania Modleski teaches film and liter- ature at the University of Southern Cali- fornia. Her first book, Loving With A Vengeance, was the first really thorough treatment of popular romance novels util- izing semiotic, psychoanalytic, structu- ralist, and feminist methodologies. Her second, Studies in Entertainment, was a collection of articles by some of the most original figures on the feminist cultural theory scene. It charted up to the minute the most currently provocative issues in feminist theory, notably a cluster about the feminine body: the carnival monster body (after Baudrillard); the perils of the posunodern body for feminism; the sub- versive meanings of the shrieking body of punk fashion; and the potential subver- sion of fashionable sartorial systems through an invocation of the masochistic male body and a self-conscious masquer- ade of the feminine body through vintage dressing. This particular constellation, all related more than tangentially to the theory of the masquerade, issues in a virtually unbro- ken trajectory from a dual source in Claire Johnston's work on femininity and the masquerade, and Laura Mulvey's work on the gaze and the gendered spectator, from nearly fifteen years ago. The masquerade as a metaphor for the female spectator position, articulated some years later by Mary Ann Doane, joined Mulvey's and Johnston's work through a breathtakingly literal reading of Freud's model of the differences in the ways that the two sexes acquire the capacity for fetishization or the mastery of knowl- edge. In Doane's reading, the female subject is doomed to a masochistic overidentification with the body - a closeness to the body, desire and lack - because she cannot reproduce the 'dis- tance' between self and other which is the prerequisite for the (male) capacity for sadistic mastery. The masquerade, then , is the way out for the female subject, and in later treatments of the notion, such as those found in Modleski's Studies in En- tertainment, it would be theorized as the means by which, through an excessive display of conventional feminine signifi- ers, the cultural constructions of feminin- ity could be parodically subverted. Along the way, as this argument was formulated, the satellites in the orbit came to veer further and further from Mulvey's CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME ground-breaking suggestions about the unconscious relations between the spec- tator, filmic conventions and the cine- matic apparatus, and to slide closer and closer to Johnston's work on the signify- ing chain, the image and the operations of the diegesis. Although the theory of the spectator and the gaze was invariably involved as a starting point, work cen- tered more and more firmly on the time- honoured objects of analysis of all narra- tive media: plot, action and character. Methodologically, this is where The Women Who Knew Too Much is situated. In its initial thrust, the book takes up the debates in film theory around the issue of gender and film spectatorship, dealing particularly with some of the more sche- matic developments from Mulvey, such as that women's response to patriarchal cinema can only be masochistic, while men's response is necessarily sadistic. These are the theoretical underpinnings of the masquerade. But just as Johnston and Doane took their illustration and support from the unfoldings of character and plot, so also in her examination of the issues of the gaze, the spectator and femi- ninity, Modleski offers psychoanalytic readings of the diegetic operations of seven films from different periods in Hitch- cock's career. These readings are largely plot-oriented and characterological, emphasizing Hitchcock's complex atti- tudes towards femininity through his presentation of women characters who are variously hateful or charming, schem- ing or duped, murdered or married. As the back cover blurb puts it, Mod- leski claims that critical approaches to Hitch- cock have falsely fallen into two camps: either he is seen as a misogynist, or he is seen as sympathetic to women in his demonstration of women's plight in patriarchy. In opposition to theseposi- tions, Modleski asserts that Hitchcock is deeply ambivalent towards his fe- male characters. Her readings of Rebecca (also the sub- ject of Doane's early treatment of the gendered spectator and the masquerade), Notorious, Rear Window and Vertigo are especially useful antidotes to the usual readings of these popular films; and her treatment of two early films, Blackmail and Murder!, and one of the first thorough examinations of Frenzy, are fresh and original additions to the Hitchcockcanon. In this way, The Women Who Knew Too Much is a pretty goodbook. It sets out its project clearly and attacks it thoroughly. The examinations of the films are insight- ful and penetrating, and the theoretical issues are presented without either sim- plification or undue complication. The writing itself is one of the great strengths of the book. Far from the tortured and tortuous verbiage of - come on, let's face it - far too much of the current feminist discourse, The Women Who Knew Too Much is a model of rigour combined with clarity. Lucid, well-argued and compelling to read, in fact it is one of those rare books which actually lives up to the blurbs on the back cover. This book should take its place along that by now very lengthy shelf of works on Hitchcock, with cross-references to that infinitely longer shelf on the classical Hollywood cinema. I hope that students will take up this book as a secondary source and consult it for essays right along with Robin Wood, Raymond Bellour, Donald Spoto, Raymond Durgnat, Fred Jameson, and all the rest of the boys, finding in it just what Modleski intends: the interpretation of Hitchcock from the woman's point of view. Then why am I not more enthusiastic? Why am I not applauding, with Kaja Sil- verman and Constance Penley in those cover blurbs, the first feminist rereading of Hitchcock? For me, the task of feminist film theory and criticism lies elsewhere, in the sup- port - through analysis, critique and further theorization - of feminist filmmakers. I am increasingly impatient with the feminist examinations of the classical Hollywood genres and now au- teurs which have not begun to abate even after almost fifteen years. Around ten years ago there was a move towards feminist filmmakers: Chantal Akerman, YvonneRainer and Marguerite Duras were embraced briefly as salutary opposition to the classic realist text. But they were shortly abandoned in the journals, and no book-length study has appeared. Instead, feminist work, especially from American scholars, has settled back comfortably with those old favourites, those juicy, naughty narrative films where there is really something to talk about: plot and character; romance, danger and death. Meanwhile, feminist filmmakers in Canada, Hollywood and Europe are find- ing it harder and harder to survive. We find an interesting but distressing phe- nomenon in the past ten years. Many women directors get to make a first and even second film. And then no more, because they can't make a profitable re- turn on their budgets. Without commer- cial distribution, they can't find their audience through conventional means. Feminist critics don't write about them, feminist scholars don't examine them. Thus their potential audience can't find them because they don't know of them. And feminist filmmakers are left without even anything in print to indicate to po- tential supporters - governments, arts councils, educational TV stations - that there might be good reason to support feminist films. And so they are dying out. And so I will put this very good book high up on my shelf. If I ever have to teach Hitchcock, I'll take it down again. WOMEN AND AGING Ellen M. Gee and Meredith M. Kimball. Toronto and Vancouver: Butterworths, 1987. Mary O'Brien To date, academic publications on women and aging have been anthologies and too uneven to use as primary texts for teaching introductory courses on this topic. Therefore, a definite highlight is a recent monograph, WomenandAging, published in Butterworth's "Perspectives on Indi- vidual and Population Aging" series. Written by two feminist scholars, Ellen Gee and Meredith Kimball, this small, well-researched and highly informative book consists of eight chapters and a comprehensive bibliography covering issues germane to older women, and largely from acanadian perspective. Most chapters identify areas for furtherresearch and conclude with a discussion of policy implications. Rather then focussing on topics which have tended to limit under- standing of middle-aged andolder women, such as adjustment to widowhood and the empty nest, the authors have chosen the more arduous task of compiling informa- VOLUME 10, NUMBER l 

Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory, Tania Modleski

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Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory, Tania Modleski

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Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)