Lesbian Rule , livre ebook

247

pages

English

Ebooks

2003

Écrit par
Villarejo Amy Villarejo

Publié par
Duke University Press

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247

pages

English

Ebooks

2003

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

05 novembre 2003

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780822385356

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

With hair slicked back and shirt collar framing her young patrician face, Katherine Hepburn's image in the 1935 film Sylvia Scarlett was seen by many as a lesbian representation. Yet, Amy Villarejo argues, there is no final ground upon which to explain why that image of Hepburn signifies lesbian or why such a cross-dressing Hollywood fantasy edges into collective consciousness as a lesbian narrative. Investigating what allows viewers to perceive an image or narrative as "lesbian," Villarejo presents a theoretical exploration of lesbian visibility. Focusing on images of lesbians in film, she analyzes what these representations contain and their limits. She combines Marxist theories of value with poststructuralist insights to argue that lesbian visibility operates simultaneously as an achievement and a ruse, a possibility for building a new visual politics and away of rendering static and contained what lesbian might mean.Integrating cinema studies, queer and feminist theory, and cultural studies, Villarejo illuminates the contexts within which the lesbian is rendered visible. Toward that end, she analyzes key portrayals of lesbians in public culture, particularly in documentary film. She considers a range of films-from documentaries about Cuba and lesbian pulp fiction to Exile Shanghai and The Brandon Teena Story-and, in doing so, brings to light a nuanced economy of value and desire.

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Publié par

Duke University Press

Date de parution

05 novembre 2003

EAN13

9780822385356

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

1 Mo

Lesbian Rule

 :

  

    ’

A series edited by Inderpal

Grewal, Caren Kaplan,

and Robyn Wiegman

Lesbian Rule

  

   

Amy Villarejo

Duke University Press

Durham and London



Typeset in Scala by Tseng

Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-

in-Publication Data appear on

the last printed page of this book.

Publication of this book was made possible by a subvention granted by the

Hull Memorial Publication Fund of

Cornell University.

Acknowledgments, vii

Introduction, 

. Lesbian Rule, 

.Droits de Regards/Right of Inspection: For Agnes and Inez Albright, 

. Archiving the Diaspora: A Lesbian Impression, 

. Absolut Queer: Cuba and its Spectators, 

. Forbidden Love: Pulp as Lesbian History, 

Conclusion: Straight to Video, 

Notes, 

Index, 

Contents

Acknowledgments

Though the faults of this book are my own, I owe thanks and give it with pleasure to a number of organizations, thinkers, makers, friends, and family members for their inspiration, support, advice, conﬁdence, and care. Begun as a dissertation at the University of Pittsburgh, this project was supported there by a Mellon Foundation grant. Paul Bové read the dissertation carefully and remains a strong interlocutor in the book’s im-plicit address; Colin MacCabe provided dual inspiration as an academic member of my committee but also as a resource for the issues of inde-pendent media and media education that are central to the present incar-nation. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak graciously agreed to remain on my committee from a distance; her care in reading closely instructs my own eﬀorts constantly, and I depend on her thought in what follows. Marcia Landy, who directed the dissertation from which this book springs, has been more than a teacher, an intellectual mentor, and a com-rade. I hope what lies between these pages bears some trace of her ques-tioning and relentless intellectual work. I remain simply grateful for her presence in my life. While at Cornell, I have received generous grants from the President’s Council on Cornell Women and from the Society for the Humanities. Production of this book was supported by the Hull Memorial Publication Fund of Cornell University. Faculty, staﬀ, and student members of the newly named Program in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Studies Program, and the Department of Theatre, Film, and Dance nurtured the project as well, and I am grateful to belong to these wonderfully diﬀerent communities. Graduate and undergradu-ate students in all three areas have challenged me, but I owe particular thanks to my successive waves of undergraduates in my course on the history and theory of documentary and experimental ﬁlm; they helped me enormously to redraw the context for this book. I am also especially thankful to those makers and organizations who

viii



made their resources and time available to me: to Peggy Gilpin; to the oﬃces of Ulrike Ottinger for gracious permission to reprint the images fromExile Shanghai;to the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and Atara Releasing; to Frameline; to Women Make Movies; to the Lesbian Her-story Archives; to David Johnson forChained GirlsandThe Lavender Lens; to Barbara Hammer for an encouraging word at the Persistent Vision conference; to Lynn Fernie for makingForbidden Loveand for, with Ellen Flanders, organizing that conference; and to Ann Bannon for her read-ing and recollections. Thanks to Ellis Hanson and Duke University Press for publishing an earlier version of chapter  inOut Takes.Thanks also to Erik Rentschler, David Bathrick, andNew German Critiquefor accepting a version of chapter three for publication. From Pittsburgh onward, I have been submerged in a group of friends with whom thinking, hoisting beers, talking, playing, reading, and pub-lishing have been indistinct activities, not only due to the beers but to the seamlessness of the knit. The group’s boundaries remain permanently unclear, but here’s a start: Joy Van Fuqua, Sally Meckling, Madhava Prasad, Anna McCarthy, Rich Cante, Angelo Restivo, Mary Beth Haralo-vich, Steven Cohan, Ina Rae Hark, Alex Doty, Cathy Davidson, Mimi White, Ann Cvetkovich, Tara McPherson, José Muñoz, Lynn Spigel, Patty White, Jody Greene, Debbie Zimmerman, Ruby Rich, Diana Reed, Kara Keeling, Jackie Byars, Eric Zinner, Tom Waugh, Vanessa Domico . . . In Ithaca, the overlapping set of my coconspirators includes Rebecca Schneider, David Bathrick, Patty Zimmermann, Gina Marchetti, Byron Suber, Tim Murray, Vincent Grenier, Biddy Martin, Ellis Hanson, and Mary Fessenden. Matthew Tinkcom belongs in the intersecting arcs of this Venn diagram; he alone knows how much I’ve leaned upon him, and I’d like him to know how much fun I have with him. Marcia and Stanley Shostak, are friends, and friends who ask all the hard questions. I thank them for that, for countless evenings around the plexiglass table and for their companionship. Ken Wissoker showed interest in this project early on, and his faith in its growth sustained me during the revision process. As I have come to know him as an editor, I have also been honored by his friendship and have come to rely on his judgment and insight. The anonymous readers of the manuscript while in still in dissertation form gave me the gifts of serious consideration and rigorous criticism; I could not have had better readers and better suggestions. Also at Duke, Christine Dahlin



and Leigh Anne Couch guided me through the production process with care and grace. My parents, Don and Merna Villarejo, are also models of being-in-the-world for me; their commitment to change, their sense of responsibility in thinking, and their skills at playing hard set the bar high. I thank them for the ﬁgurative and real fuel over the past ten years especially. Finally, there is no way to describe my gratitude and love for Andrea Hammer, with whom I am accumulating years in the forward as well as the back-ward direction, who made of a house on an unfamiliar spit of land a home in which to ﬁnish this book, who daily makes life a joy, and who makes beingan activity for two. (Or ﬁve—thanks to all the critters, Slash, Taag, and the late Quince for additional cuddles.)

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