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University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol
Thursday 12th and Friday 13th July 2007
> Click here to view the detailed programme overview (online)
> Click here to download the detailed programme overview (pdf)
Conference Programme - Abstracts
Panel 7: Sexual Representations in Cinema
Chair: Dr Greg Tuck
Female sexual desire in contemporary Spanish cinema directed by women
Ana García López, University of Bedfordshire
contemporary Spanish cinema, sexual representations, women filmmakers
In the UK, Post-Francoist Spanish cinema has been associated with the explicitness of its sexual representations. Several researchers, such as Pilar Aguilar, have already pointed out how many of these representations have been formulated from a male point of view. The ‘spectacularisation’ and fragmentation of the female body are common features in those films, which furthermore tend to focus on the representation of heterosexual practices.
Since the mid-1990s, a significant number of women filmmakers have incorporated to the industry. And in many of their films, such as Me llamo Sara/ My name is Sara (Dolores Payás, 1998) and Costa-Brava (Marta Balletbó-Coll,1995), they offer new ways of representing female sexual desire. In this paper, I will analyse the different forms that the representation of female desire has taken in their films and ways in which they deconstruct previous models of sexual representations.
Sex embodied: representing the explicit in contemporary cinema
Ming-jung Kuo, University of Bath
sex in cinema, embodiment, performance
Starting from the debate director Catherine Breillat initiates around the use of a prosthetic penis in her own film Sex is Comedy (2002), my research sets out to examine the various ways contemporary cinema has increasingly sought to represent explicit sex and the means it has used to do so. In the process, such insistence on the explicit has brought sharply into focus, how the actor perceives and negotiates their embodiment of the ‘act’.
Ranging from real sex performances in 9 Songs (2004) and Intimacy (2001), through the use of body doubles in The Idiots (1998) and Anatomie de l’enfer (2004), and graphic images borrowed directly from pornography in The Piano Teacher (2001)and Seul contre tous (1998), to A Hole in My Heart (2004), which turns the body inside out to reveal the organs, such techniques challenge us to re-think the interface between the body and the artificial, the body as presence and absence, and the hierarchy of bodies on screen.
My research will draw from performance studies, pornography studies and discussions of the body and prosthesis to explore this emergent trend in contemporary narrative cinema.
The Killer Father and the Final Mother: Womb-envy in The Cell
Shweta Sharma, St. Mary’s University College
Science fiction and horror are two film genres that most explicitly represent what is repressed in society. This paper will draw on representations in films of the ‘bad’ father, referred to here as the “Killer” Father (Clover, 1992, pp.26-30), the sort of father who gets drunk, tortures, hurts or even kills his wife and children. This paper deals with the figure of the Killer Father not through the exploration of social factors like economic suppression, the career oriented woman etc. that lead a man to torture and kill his own family; but explore the unconscious motives that might be the cause of such
behaviour. This paper will then put forward a feminist reading of the Killer Father through the employment of the psychoanalytical concept of “womb-envy”
(Kittay, 1983, pp.94-128); and elaborate on the possible unconscious motives of such a figure. The Killer Father, his actions,
behaviour, motives and existence will be studied through a brief analysis of The Cell
(Tarsem Singh, 2001). In the end, this paper will also identify and explore the strong mother figure, referred to here as the “Final” Mother (Clover, 1992, pp.35-41), the sort of mother who kills the Killer Father and puts an end to his monstrous deeds.
Panel 1: Imperialism and Globalisation
Panel 2: Online Citizens and Democracy
Panel 3: Television Audiences
Panel 4: Mediating Identity 1
Panel 5: Reporting the Conflict
Panel 6: Journalism and Social Responsibility
Panel 7: Sexual Representations in Cinema
Panel 8: Popular Culture
Panel 9: Still Image
Panel 10: Branding, Advertising and Corporate Cultures
Panel 11: Film and Theatre
Panel 12: Alternative Film
Panel 13: Feminism, Gender and Identity
Panel 14: Fan Culture and Online Audiences
Panel 15: Public Service Broadcasting and Radio
Panel 16: Design for Screen
Panel 17: Uses of Music and Sound in Film
Panel 18: Mediating Identity 2
Panel 19: Citizens, Interaction and the Public Interest
Note: Please be aware that the programme might be subject to changes. Please refer back to this page for a final programme overview nearer the conference. The final programme will also be communicated to delegates via email.
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