GLOSSARY

The following definitions explain terms frequently used by feminist film critics and are intended to aid in reading the introductions and the essays. Though widely used, many of these terms are remarkably hard to pin down. Furthermore, many of the words have multiple meanings, some specific to one author only. However, I have tried to offer a succinct explanation of each term without going into a detailed history of its origin and development. Though individual essays will differ in their use of some terms, the definitions provided here should suffice for beginning students.

cinema apparatus = the process of film production and exhibition which takes into account economic and social forces

cinéma vérité = a style of filmmaking typified by a hand-held camera, natural lighting, synchronous sound, and the elimination of a narrator either on-or offscreen

closure = the ending or point in the narrative when all major conflicts are resolved

codes = rules or sets of identifiable elements which allow individuals to interpret a film (e.g., image code, music code, lighting code, etc.)

deconstructive cinema = a filmmaking practice devoted to breaking down the illusionistic aspect of cinema by interrupting the narrative flow and by calling attention to its own artificial construction

diegesis = the artificial world of the film, including the narration

discourse = a form of utterance which implies a speaker and a receiver; also a specialized utterance, such as a medical discourse, a feminist discourse, etc.

distancing devices = techniques which encourage an intellectual response from viewers, among which are ruptures of the narrative, direct address to the audience, and other techniques which create a distance between spectators and the screen

dominant cinema = used here as synonymous with Hollywood cinema; in our culture the most widely accepted form of cinema, which is Hollywood-style cinema, uses invisible editing and creates an illusionary world that hides the means of its own production

dominant meaning = the generally accepted meaning of a text

feminine = the socially-constructed ideas attached to the female sex

feminist film criticism = analyses of individual films or the mechanisms of film production and consumption from a feminist perspective

fetishization = 1. in Freudian terms, an unconscious disavowal of the threat of castration by idealizing the source of the threat—the sight of women and their lack of a penis; 2. in Marxist terms, a commodity of exchange

film text = the film plus the interpretation of the viewer

genre = a type of film (e.g., western, musical, melodrama, etc.)

ideology = a system of beliefs, including visual representations, universally accepted by a society to the degree that its tenets become invisible

Marxist ideology = a system of beliefs which sees economic and class struggle and the control of representation as primary historical and social forces

masochism (as applied in film studies) = a reference to the passive pleasures of film viewing or identification with the character being acted upon, which replicates the preoedipal phase of infant/mother bonding

the narrative = the story plus its cinematic presentation

negotiated reading = the meaning produced by a viewer which takes into account the generally accepted meaning of a film text together with one’s individual interpretation, the latter deriving from one’s social position within a culture

object of desire = the object of a viewer’s erotic interest

patriarchy = a political and/or social system in which men control the major means of power

post-modernism = an aesthetic which emphasizes the fragmentary nature of images, the appropriation of images from previously created images and their resistance to a single unity logic or subject position

progressive film = one which encourages the possibilities of change in the status quo

psychoanalysis (as applied in film studies) = theories derived from Sigmund Freud and his followers, primarily Jacques Lacan, and especially those devoted to the development of identity, the Oedipus complex, and the process of identification

reading = a viewer’s interpretation of the film text

realist documentary = non-fiction films which do not call attention to themselves as artificial constructs; based on the assumption of film’s capacity to capture reality

sadistic scopophilia = a process whereby the instinctual pleasure in looking (scopophilia) is put into the service of castration fears so that pleasure derives from the sight of women’s punishment, degradation, or fetishization

semiotics = the study of signification or meaning, especially in verbal language but also in non-linguistic cultural languages such as film

shot/reverse shot = a series of complementary images typically used to depict conversations between two or more individuals on the screen

signifier = in semiotics, the word or image which refers back to the concrete object or abstract idea (e.g., the word “rain” or the picture of drops which refer back to the actual water or to the concept of rain)

spectacle = object of display to be viewed

subversive reading = an interpretation based on contradictions within the film text in which a viewer recognizes the non-dominant, as well as the dominant meanings; also known as “reading against the grain”

“talking heads” = head shots of individuals speaking directly to the camera

the viewing subject = 1. the implied viewer of a film, an abstract concept structured into the work; 2. the actual viewer in the audience; the social subject

woman’s cinema = films directed by women, not exclusively feminist women

women’s desire = unconscious sexual impulses

women’s pleasure = pleasures related to viewing an erotic object of desire or satisfactions related to cinema viewing in general