Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

I guess the most interesting thing about the movie to me was the reaction from the audience after the film. The things people found offensive, unacceptable, or just gross and outrageous were indicative of why people watch this movie. I wonder if females (the ones who many people found objectified) watch it for escape and identification. Jackie Stacey used these terms in her study of female moviegoers in Britain who watched movies from the 40s and 50s, identifying how women viewed the films, not in terms of film scholarship (male gaze sort of thing, objectification) viewed the films. Her work isolates the film in memory. Ien Ang (Watching Dallas) and Sudha Rajagopalan's work on Hindi cinema in the Soviet Union is also imperative in this realm. When we give the audience agency over the text, understanding that truth is created between artist and receiver, we begin to study the larger picture of film -- not just the images on the screen. Perhaps, just perhaps, labeling something oppressive without understanding why people want to watch it is just as much a reflection of our own backgrounds. As one actor in South Indian cinema put it to me, "people need that emotional balm."