Session 6A: The Bitch
1st Global Conference
Friday 1st May 2009 – Sunday 3rd May 2009
Budapest, Hungary
Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers
“Switchblade Romance”: Lesbian Predators and Rednecks
Jan Peterson Roddy
College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, USA
The image of lesbian as predator has had currency in western literature and film since homosexuality began to be recognized as a potential aspect of individual female identity. Feminist and queer studies scholars have generated various analyses of this trope, often focusing on historical representations in such genres as the mid 20th century American pulp novel. A parallel figure exists in representations of the violent and perversely sexualized redneck, or lower socio-economic class, rural male. Like the pulp novel, the sub-genre of slasher horror films created an arena where social fears and fantasies could be acceptably indulged at their more vulgar. The subject of this paper is the 2003 French slasher film “Haute Tension”, also known as “Switchblade Romance” in the U.K. and “High Tension”, released in the U.S. in 2005). I explore this film’s remarkable conflation of the lesbian and redneck predator through a dramatic plot twist, into one sexually- and gender-ambiguous villain/victim who is alternately monstrous and an object of audience admiration and desire. The pairing of predator types in this film allows for the examination of an evolving and more complex portrayal of the lesbian woman and evil within middle-class, patriarchal, heteronormative culture.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
The Vengeful Cunt Asked for it: Constructions of Women as Evil in our Analysis of Rape
Pamela Cross & Donna-lee Iffla
National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), Canada, and Bail Safety Project, Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, Canada
The serious and pervasive social problem of violence against women — both intimate partner violence and sexual violence — persistently attracts a gender-neutral analysis by systems and institutions working for its eradication.
While this is true with respect to both intimate partner violence and sexual violence, it is particularly powerful in the systemic analysis of and response to sexual violence perpetrated both by men known to their victims and by strangers.
One of the reasons that a gender-neutral analysis continues to hold such a place of favour is because of misogynist cultures that define women as inherently evil and sexually rapacious. In places where the dominant culture is western European, an additional layer of oppression is visited upon women of colour and Aboriginal women, who are both sexualized and dehumanized in contemporary and historical myth-making.
This construction of women as evil, so strongly rooted in organized religion (amongst other institutions), creates two realities, both of which interfere with a meaningful response to violence against women.
First, when women are constructed as evil, they are seen as responsible for the violence that happens to them — for example, women are blamed for their own rapes because of the way they dress, the kind of work they do, being in the wrong part of town, having too much to drink.
Second, the construction of women as sexually rapacious negates the possibility that violence can even be done to them. Such women are aggressively greedy (from the Latin rapere: to snatch/seize) or grasping and unscrupulous — these are not women who can be raped.
This seminar will examine the roots of the construction of woman as evil, modern examples of this phenomenon in literature, popular culture and the media and the impact of this construction on the treatment of sexual violence cases in criminal courts, service delivery and in women’s own understanding of their experiences. Participants will be encouraged to join a discussion about possible strategies for developing a new approach.
Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)
The Rebirth of Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Basic Instinct 2 and the Characteristics of the New Femme Fatale
Tuna Yilmaz
Izmir University of Economics, Turkey
When looked at the history of film, it is quite a fact that the Femme Fatale figure had a significant role in the film noir genre. This figure has always been represented under the male gaze. This paper discusses the new qualities of the new femme fatale and indicates that the film Basic Instinct 2 announces the birth of a new model for the old one. Given the visual and narrative qualities of the film, Basic Instinct 2 is a modern and contemporary example for the genre neo-noir. However, the representation of the character Catherine Tramell who is the femme fatale in the film is totally different than previous examples. The evil in her is not displayed through the male gaze. Hence, it represents the inner freedom of the female. The focus of this paper will be the new qualities of femme fatale figure and how it is represented in the mentioned film by Michael Caton-Jones.
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