Amy in Gone Girl

Flynn: “For me, [feminism is] also the ability to have women who are bad characters … the one thing that really frustrates me is this idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing. In literature, they can be dismissably bad – trampy, vampy, bitchy types – but there’s still a big pushback against the idea that women can be just pragmatically evil, bad and selfish … I don’t write psycho bitches. The psycho bitch is just crazy – she has no motive, and so she’s a dismissible person because of her psycho-bitchiness.”

Monstrous women have often been portrayed as something that must be stopped at any cost, and whoever stops the monster, usually a man, is then the hero, even if the person who created the monstrous woman is a man. Popular cinema and art have also mostly concentrated on the phallic woman as a strong feminine character, however, could this indeed be a problematic notion? Perhaps a woman using her yonic power, even if it is for monstrous reasons, could very well be more empowering to women. We clearly see this theory unfold in the tale of Medusa, where Poseidon rapes the virginial Priestess she previously was, and Athena curses her out of jealousy when she finds out. Men then sought her out, but not because of her beauty, but to kill her, and Perseus is crowned the hero for doing so (Leeming, 2013). Contemporary versions of the monstrous woman, such as Amy Dunne in Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” (2012), who is changed throughout her life to be the ideal woman by her parents and the men in her life, including her husband, contrasts Medusa’s story by not ever being stopped (Flynn, 2012). This change is similar to Medusa’s curse, as Amy now does not know fully who she really is. Throughout the book and film adaptation, Amy displays psychopathic tendencies, frames her fake murder on her husband, and even kills a previous boyfriend. Amy Dunne and Medusa’s characters beg the question whether if monstrous women can have valid feminist points and messages, since they are perhaps only monstrous from being a product of a patriarchal society.

Unlike Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, Medusa is stopped through death, whereas Amy wins. Even only with reference to the Vagina Dentata in Medusa’s snake hair we see how her myth will end because, as Creed points, the threat of castration must go, as the myth “generally states that women are terrifying because they have teeth in their vaginas and that the women must be tamed, or the teeth somehow removed or softened – usually by a hero figure – before intercourse can safely take place” (Creed, 1993, pg1), and once again, the hero was Perseus, reaffirming phallic power. Amy Dunne’s husband, Nick Dunne, tries to stop her after figuring out she is trying to frame him for her fake murder, but we quickly realise that he is no hero figure, just as we realise Perseus is not for slaying the ‘monster’ Medusa had become. This parallels with Amy Dunne’s character because it is the rules of being a woman, or “Amazing Amy” whom her parents had made into children’s books based on her, that pushed her to have a psychotic episode. Although most of what Amy Dunne wrote in her diary about him to portray Nick as a terrible person was false, he was still having an affair with a younger “cool girl” and had made Amy feel invisible in their marriage (Flynn, 2012). This was enough of a motive to break free from the “cool girl” persona she had been pressured to live all her life and become truly monstrous, which parallels with the monstrous mother in Sherman’s piece. She fakes her own death and intelligently frames her husband for it, leaving behind “clues” to his involvement in the “murder”. She then comes across trouble during her escape and must ask a pervious boyfriend, who is obsessive over her, for help. She then fakes assaults by him using cameras around his home and then kills him just as he reaches climax during intercourse using a box knife, signifying using her vagina as a luring weapon for this murder, and thus feminising the use of the knife she uses to kill. This penetration using a possible phallic object is also a total gender reversal, with his neck being the penetrated vagina. This almost links to the ‘normal’ arrangement of women in horror because “they frame the vagina as vulnerable” (Harrington, 2017, pg7) but with a twist; she is using this vulnerability of being a supposed victim to manipulate the media and police, as well as the people in her life. Horror also uses the vagina “as a site of terror” (Harrington, 2017, pg7), where Amy Dunne has used this vulnerability against people, particularly males.

Saturn Devouring His Son – Francisco Goya

The only other brightness in the picture comes from the white flesh, the red blood of the corpse, the white knuckles of Saturn as he digs his fingers into the back of the body. There is evidence that the picture may have originally portrayed the titan with a partially erect penis, but, if ever present, this addition was lost due to the deterioration of the mural over time or during the transfer to canvas; in the picture today the area around his groin is indistinct. It may even have been over painted deliberately before the picture was put on public display.

Various interpretations of the meaning of the picture have been offered: the conflict between youth and old age, time as the devourer of all things, the wrath of God and an allegory of the situation in Spain, where the fatherland consumed its own children in wars and revolution. There have been explanations rooted in Goya’s relationships with his own son, Xavier, the only of his six children to survive to adulthood, or with his live-in housekeeper and possible mistress, Leocadia Weiss; the gender of the body being consumed cannot be determined with certainty.

 

The Grotesque Body

Exaggeration, hyperbole, and expressiveness are all key elements of the grotesque style. Certain aspects of the body are referenced when talking about the grotesque. These things include elements of the body that either protrude from the body or a part of the body that can be entered. This is because the body in many cases is seen as pure where as the outside world is not. Therefore, parts of the body that allow the outside world in or allow elements inside the body out, are seen and used as an exaggeration of the grotesque. It is said in an article by Koepping; “Absurdity and Hidden Truth: Cunning Intelligence and Grotesque Body Images as Manifestations of the Trickster”, Koepping refers back to Bakhtin’s statement, “The themes of cursing and of laughter are almost exclusively a subject of the grotesqueness of the body.”

Italian satirist Daniele Luttazzi explained: “satire exhibits the grotesque body, which is dominated by the primary needs (eating, drinking, defecating, urinating, sex) to celebrate the victory of life: the social and the corporeal are joyfully joint in something indivisible, universal and beneficial”.

Bakhtin explained how the grotesque body is a celebration of the cycle of life: the grotesque body is a comic figure of profound ambivalence: its positive meaning is linked to birth and renewal and its negative meaning is linked to death and decay. In Rabelais’ epoch (1500–1800) “it was appropriate to ridicule the king and clergy, to use dung and urine to degrade; this was not to just mock, it was to unleash what Bakhtin saw as the people’s power, to renew and regenerate the entire social system. It was the power of the people’s festive-carnival, a way to turn the official spectacle inside-out and upside down, just for a while; long enough to make an impression on the participating official stratum. With the advent of modernity (science, technology, industrial revolution), the mechanistic overtook the organic, and the officialdom no longer came to join in festive-carnival. The bodily lower stratum of humour dualised from the upper stratum.”

Before people began to develop literature or art, leaders would sit in their halls surrounded by their warriors amusing themselves by mocking their opponents and enemies. The warriors would laugh at any weakness or defect, either physical or mental, giving nicknames which exaggerated these traits.

Soon warriors sought to give a more permanent form to their ridicule, which led to rude depictions on bare rocks, or any other surface that was convenient.

In the Medieval Grotesque Carnival, emphasis is put on the nether regions of the body as the centre and creation of meaning. The spirit rather than coming from above comes from the belly, buttocks, and genitals, which is what I’ve tried to re-create in my art by using these exact body parts.

Frances Connelly, a well known art historian, describes the grotesque as “a boundary creature”, which is what I’ve hopefully achieved in my projections.

In her influential 1982 essay “Powers of Horror”, Julia Kristeva developed the term ‘abject’ to explore the human reaction to the fragmented, decayed or impure human body. The abject refers to the horror felt in response to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the boundaries between self and other, the loss of a sense of self.

Jeanne C. Finley, Gretchen Stoeltje – A.R.M. Around Moscow, 1994

A.R.M. Around Moscow documents particpants in A.R.M. (American-Russian Matchmaking) to explore the relationship of personal power to domestic identity, and economic and political structure. Finley and Stoeltje followed 21 American men as they travelled to Russia to meet 500 local women. Each man was provided with a car, driver, translator, apartment, and meals for a “14-day tour of Russia’s most beautiful and highly-educated women” at the cost of about $4,700.

From the moment of their anxious arrival at the Moscow airport, and throughout their dances, dates, and tearful departures from their newly acquired fiancees, these American men repeatedly disparaged American women as “too feminist,” “demanding,” and most importantly, “lacking in traditional family values. The Russian women, exhausted from balancing their careers and domestic responsibilities, look to these men as a possible hope for a better life and mutual love.

“At its heart, A.R.M. Around Moscow is about a new U.S. export, the feminist backlash. Whereas the Russian women yearn for liberation from an uncertain future, the American men look to a past where they were armed for domination.

 

Hermine Freed – 360º 1972

This piece is an example of early feminist video art. The frame is filled with two concentric magnifying lenses, one larger than the other. Behind them is a mirror. The mirror turns and reflects the landscape around it. Distortions of the moving images appear in the lenses while the space behind remains stationary. A voiceover reports what is being seen in each of the layers of space. There are at least three simultaneous soundtracks. One scene is a country house and garden, another is a city apartment.

I found this piece interesting because of the use of mirrors and distortion it caused through the lens and this link to my work. This sort of work began in the 1960s when she started to use video in order to document other painters and in 1972 began to experiment with the medium to question gender conventions and women’s self-perception.

Snakenub – Arcade exhibition opening

Snakenub’s opening was wonderful to see, by the artist Jacob Taylor, who’s current project looks into our happiness and to what extent we as people will go to achieve happiness in their everyday lives. It featured a great mixture of paintings, prints, and wooden shaped paintings. Some had strange but interesting things in them, such as “send nudes” in letter spaghetti, high-end brands, cigarettes, playboy, and even a Nazi symbol made of horses.

I really enjoyed the paintings especially, and found one in particular useful towards my own work, which was the one with the fruit bowl, surrounded with other objects that had connotations of death, illness, and big famous brands. I though these parallels and contrasts were interesting to put together, as a fruit bowl being so large and central in the paining makes it an important aspect, almost distracting from the other things. Using fruit for the grotesque is exactly what I’m trying to achieve in my own final piece.

Meg, Imo and myself were also featured in the Arcade’s instagram story from the event.

Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti (Elisabeth) Rist is a visual artist, who disrupts the female objectification typical of both Hollywood and art history, creating short and colour-drenched works that are as sexual as they are strange.. She is best known for creating experiential video art and installation art that often portrays self-portraits and singing. Her work is often described as surreal, intimate, abstract art, having a preoccupation with the female body. Her artwork is often categorised as feminist art. In a 2011 Guardian exhibition review article, Rist describes her feminism: “Politically,” she says, “I am a feminist, but personally, I am not. For me, the image of a woman in my art does not stand just for women: she stands for all humans. I hope a young guy can take just as much from my art as any woman.”

This statement from her is quite second wave, since feminism has adopted many genders, however I do enjoy how she uses the objectification of women’s bodies in her artwork through film, especially her film “I’m not the girl who misses much”. The video depicts the artist in a very low cut dress – exposing her breasts – in an empty space, dancing around the room while repeatedly singing ‘I’m not the girl who misses much.’

 

Alex Prager – La Petite Mort

Looking into Prager’s work, I found a very interesting interview for Phaidon about her film La Petite Mort, that goes as following;

“They’re your reaction to the tragedies you came across?

They’re a way for me to deal with what I was reading – to make it a little bit easier – but also a way to realise that this sort of thing has been going on for centuries. This is the world we live in – it’s a beautiful and ugly and good and very bad place. La Petite Mort is me exploring one really intense emotion. It’s about the idea of death, or, at least, what it might feel like to die. It describes the moments immediately before and after the event, in a beautiful, kind of surreal way.

That’s where the name comes from?

Yeah, “La Petite Mort” translated directly means “the little death”, but it’s also the words the French use to describe the orgasm. They feel it’s the one moment while living when you’re closest to death because all of your senses have been shut off, bar one. Obviously that’s a very dramatic and poetic way to talk about it, but I really liked it, and thought it could apply to feelings that I’ve had before – not about death necessarily, but those I’ve had when focussed on something really intense, that feels so overwhelming.

Where did the story come from?

The story is completely made up, but certain things are definitely taken from experiences I’ve had, or things I’ve come across, or emotions I’ve felt before that I didn’t really know how to express at the time. It definitely relates to the drama of being a woman – thankfully I’m now able to express those emotions through my work rather than in real life! It’s the first film I’ve done that shows an understanding of the traditional medium, that’s been approached in a more classical sense. Compulsion was a combination of me desperately wanting to do something different to what people knew me to do, and just being bored with what I’d been doing up until that point. I felt as if I’d come to the end of that journey, that I’d got all I could out of it for the moment. So instead I tried to do something completely different, and challenging. Of course that process is time-consuming and expensive, but it’s the only way to do it I think.

There are very few people featured in Compulsion – normally your pictures are people-focussed

Right, but you still feel the presence of someone being there. There’s a human feeling to the pictures, but the viewer doesn’t feel connected to anyone in particular. I wanted the series to seem like the news articles I was reading. I didn’t want it to feel like you knew the people involved. The eyes represent the emotional response. The main idea behind the title of the series was to show the spectator’s compulsion to watch disaster, rather than act. We can’t look away when there’s an accident on the side of the freeway – everyone slows down and looks – but nobody helps. And we can all relate to that. Alex Prager, “Compulsion is at  Michael Hoppen Contemporary until May 26. Click through our gallery above to see pictures from the series.”

 

Janaina Tschäpe

Tschäpe explores themes of sex, death, nature, myth and transformation using her body as a vehicle. Her videos, at once organic, fluid and otherworldly, offer a space from which daydreaming can begin.

In her photography and video work, Tschäpe creates fantastical worlds that incorporate the bodies of mysterious or amorphous beings into organic landscapes, reflecting her interest in mythologies from around the world. Inspired by memories, myths, and dreams, Tschäpe often stages her models as nebulous creatures with appendages made from fabric, water-filled latex, or inflatables. She uses landscapes as a narrative source, where the whimsical and the actual coexist. Her  paintings and drawings feature saturated colors and reflect her interest in the fluid and transformative properties of water. Tschäpe’s work is highly personal—the artist alludes to her own mythology as well as humanity’s complex interactions with the natural world.

Duelos y Quebrantos – Sebastian Brun

Duelos y quebrantos means duels and losses English, though no English word can be directly translated from Quebrantos: meaning to break down a person’s morale, and captures his time travelling over the course of 4 years, in a two-and-a-half-thousand kilometre journey through Castilla La Mancha. The same path famously travelled by a fictional character: Don Quixote. Using this route, Bruno compares present-day Castilla La Mancha with the 17th Century landscape, as described by Miguel de Cervantes.

The images Bruno made on his journey are surreal. Scenes that should be mundane are instead strange. The photograph of three old ladies and a young boy is typical of this. Normality is turned on its head by a bright on-camera flash, and what we’re presented with is uncanny. Bruno explains that this is a recurring theme in the work, the viewer is “constantly disturbed and challenged by a photograph that could have felt perfectly normal”.

Despite portraying the modern face of a landscape described by Cervantes over 400 years ago, there are few traces of modernity within the pictures. This is intentional. Bruno gives us no “temporal references”, and explains that his use of black and white was to create “the timelessness in the work.” This deliberate uncertainty is emphasised by references to long established Spanish traditions: bullfighting, religious processions, and modes of dress.