#oneyearofwomen

[whisenantpix]

[hannahwhise]

‘The Crisis of Naming in Feminist Film Criticism' - B. Ruby Rich

“Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable.” -- Adrienne Rich

Rich explores the conventions of naming and the idea that women must reclaim their voice through filmmaking. The idea being that we exist within a world and language which is limiting. Years of suppression have led to what she refers to as a backlash emphasis on liberalization -- on human liberation. This in of itself represents progress.

“Perhaps this discovery of increased fragmentation and decreased events comes as no surprise, yet the chronology helps remind us that memory is not playing tricks and that today presents a very different picture.”

She then divides the essay into two types of feminist film criticism: speaking from one’s own voice or that of history’s narrative. She divides this into American as subjective and British as objective. 

“History of philosophy has an obvious, repressive function in philosophy; it is philosophy's very own Oedipus. 'All the same, you won't dare speak your own name as long as you have not read this and that, and that on this, and this on that . . . To say something in one's own name is very strange.” -- Gilles Deleuze

She describes women’s experience of cultural engagement and consumption as that of passivity and exile. We operate within without creating, stripped of our own voice and interaction with that which we consume. On the other hand, operating within is necessary as Rich points out that feminist theorists are not able to ignore Freud or Marx because they represent a crucial part of historical ideology.  

She describes American theory as that of optimism and British as pessimism, and from these two poles of experience dualism has evolved.  

“It is a problem common to an oppressed people at the point of formulating a new language with which to name that oppression, for the history of oppression has prevented the development of any unified language among its subjects.”

She concludes the essay with the over reaching idea that we must challenge the status quo. We must reclaim our ability to analyze a movement which is that of our own, but by not letting our perspective go unheard through a lack of naming. 

“We are now in a period of normalization, a time that can offer feminists complacency as a mask for cooption. As long as we allow others to do our naming, we will go unnamed.”

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I am currently reading a collection of essays that are a part of the Feminist Film Theory by Sue Thornham. This is a compilation of notes from one short essay within the book. You can find a downloadable PDF through google scholar if you’re interested in exploring more.