How Film Can Subject Us to a Non- Heterosexual Gaze

How Film Can Subject Us To A Non- Heterosexual Gaze

Gender and Performativity in Carol (2015) and The Danish Girl (2015)

University of Amsterdam (Graduate School of Humanities) MA Media Studies: Film Studies

Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Catherine Lord Second Reader: Dr. Abe Geil

Master Thesis submitted by: Michelle J.L. Versluis (12124168) Date: 28 June 2019

Dedicated to all the beautiful people brave enough to be themselves and paving the way for our future generations towards a future without binary oppositions.

Abstract

When we watch a film, we are positioned into a certain gaze that the camera work and other filmic elements guide us towards. However, these positions are often not deemed as successful and thus spark controversial debates. LGBTQ representation is often the center of these debates because there is a lack of LGBTQ representation in the film industry, both onscreen as offscreen. When reading reviews of these ‘controversial’ films, the emphasis is almost always on the identity of the actor and if they are ‘allowed’ to represent a certain group. In this thesis there is an attempt to reconcile representation and identification in film by looking at Judith Butler’s gender performativity and a reworking of Laura Mulvey’s gaze into a queer gaze. These theories are applied to Carol and The Danish Girl, the first one deemed successful in LGBTQ representation, the second a failure, however both controversial. Both films portray LGBTQ characters that are portrayed by non-LGBTQ actors. The aim of this thesis is to show that the different approaches and outcomes when analyzing representation. In order assess a representation we need to be more open-minded and fluid and reject our contemporary norms that are often gendered and heterosexual.

Table of Contents

Abstract 2 Reconciling Representation and Identification: An Introduction 4 Chapter 1: The Queer Gaze in Carol (2015) 15 Introduction: A Film Outside the Heterosexual Male Gaze 15 Laura Mulvey and the Queer Gaze 16 How Carol Creates a Queer Gaze That is Understandable to the Heterosexual Spectator 18 Chapter 2: To Desire or to Identify? The Female Body in The Danish Girl (2015) 25 Introduction: The Danish Girl and Transgender Representation 25 Gender as a Social Construct or Performance? Judith Butler and Phantasmatic Identification 26 Performing Gender onstage: Gender Performativity in The Danish Girl 30 Chapter 3: Other Ways of Looking at Representation and Performance 35 Introduction: From Spectatorship to Stardom 35 Analyzing Stardom and Representation according to Dyer and Drake 37 Other ways of analyzing representation and performance 40 Performativity of Gender versus Performativity of Acting 41 Towards a Queer Society; A Conclusion 44 Sources 46 Films 46 Literature 46

Reconciling Representation and Identification: An Introduction

When putting a magnifying glass on mainstream Hollywood cinema, LGBTQ representation is something that we do not see very often yet. Surely there is some representation but this is often stereotyped. A lot of studies that researched representation in the film industry show that women and racial or ethnic minorities remain underrepresented.1 The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is a non-profit organization that was founded by LGBTQ people in the media and they research the LGBTQ representation in the media. They publish reports every year where they analyze TV shows and the major film studios. They also publish lists of LGBTQ characters in in TV shows on their website.2 In their report from 2017 they showed that even though ‘high-profile’ Academy Awards wins for art-house films, like Call Me By Your Name (2017), LGBTQ representation still declined when looking at a total of a more than hundred films from these major film studios. None of these films featured a representation of a transgender character either.3 Throughout this thesis I will mention LGBTQ, short for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer, even though this abbreviation has more suffixes already, LGBTQIA. The reason for this is because in this thesis the focus will be more on the LGBTQ representation and identification and does not really focus on the IA part. This lack of representation is not just in the films but in the mass media and award shows as well. When looking at the Academy Awards, a ‘high-profile’ Hollywood exclusive award show, also here there is a lack of acknowledging LGBTQ representation by actual LGBTQ actors. Admittedly, this year’s nominations and wins were dubbed the ‘queerest in history’ where straight actors received numerous nominations for portraying LGBTQ characters. “Historically, even when LGBTQ films have been nominated for Oscars, they have stood alone.

Call Me By Your Name (2017), Moonlight (2016) and The Imitation Game (2014) were the only LGBTQ films nominated for Best Picture in their respective years.”4 There have been LGBTQ actors who have won an Academy Award for portraying heterosexual characters, and

1 Maryann Erigha, “Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media’s Potential for Change,” Sociology Compass, 9:1, (2015), 78. 2 GLAAD Media Institute, “About,” website GLAAD.org, last accessed 4 March 2019, https://www.glaad.org/about 3 GLAAD Media Institute, “Studio Responsibility Index 2018,” website GLAAD.org, last accessed 16 January 2019, https://www.glaad.org/sri/2018. 4 Jill Gutowitz, “This Year’s Oscars Will Be the Queerest Ever. But There’s a Bigger Story Behind the Numbers,” website Time, published January 23, 2019, last accessed 13 April, 2019, http://time.com/5510371/2019-oscar-nominations-queer/. 5 heterosexual actors who have won an Academy Award for portraying LGBTQ characters. There are also LGBTQ actors who have won an Academy Award but at the time were not exclusively out with their sexuality, for example Kevin Spacey who has won an Academy

Award for his role in AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999).5 This often spikes debated in the media and online about the underrepresentation of LGBTQ people. The focus here is always on the representation of LGBTQ identities of the actors and characters but the performing qualities of these actors is often left out. In 2015, there were two very influential, but also controversial, films released that had an impact on the LBGTQ community, Carol (2015) and The Danish Girl (2015). Carol was received very good reviews from the critics and got high ratings.6 However, The Danish Girl had more varied reviews which spiked some controversial debates in the LGBTQ community.7 Both films and their actors were nominated for Academy Awards however, only one of them won. Being nominated for, or even winning, an Academy Awards is as an actor or filmmaker seen as one of the biggest achievements in their career. Even though the voters in the Academy Award are exclusive Academy Award members only, the media attention around the award ceremony is worldwide spread. Because it is ‘worldwide’ covered in the mass media it can thus be regarded as influential on representations, especially of those of minorities. When looking at the actors of the films mentioned above, the transgender woman in The Danish Girl is played by a heterosexual actor, Eddie Redmayne. And in Carol, Cate Blanchett is not really open about her sexual orientation and Rooney Mara is often left out of this discussion mainly because the focus is on Cate Blanchett. Even though these films share two completely different stories they do have some similarities beginning with the fact that they both portray underrepresented LGBTQ characters. Both films also received high praise, by getting nominated for lots of awards, for the achievements of the actors. Both Cate Blanchett and Eddie Redmayne received Academy Award nominations for best achievement as a leading character. Rooney Mara was nominated for best achievement as a supporting character and Alicia Vikander actually won an Academy Award for best achievement as a supporting character.8 Another thing these two films have in

5 “List of LGBT Academy Award Winners and Nominees,” Wikipedia, last accessed 4 March 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees 6 Metacritic is a database of reviews and ratings from certified critics which often differ from the ratings from IMDB and are thus also mentioned separately on IMDB. On Metacritic there is a distinction between critic reviews and user reviews because of this. “Carol,” website Metacritic, last accessed 13 June 2019, https://www.metacritic.com/movie/carol. 7 “The Danish Girl,” website Metacritic, last accessed 13 June 2019, https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the- danish-girl. 8 “Academy Awards, 2016,” website Internet Movie Database, last accessed 6 March 2019, 6 common is the fact that the characters appear fluid in their genders, shifting from masculine to feminine and vice versa. Besides, this fluidity does not apply only the characters but to the actors as well. When looking at the filmographies of Eddie Redmayne and Cate Blanchett they both portrayed a character from the opposite side. These films sparked debates about the LGBTQ representation because they were all portrayed by, allegedly, non-LGBTQ actors. These accusations about representation are all based on identity, saying that a non-LGBTQ actor does not deserve an award for portraying a LGBTQ character. In an interview Cate Blanchett told the interviewer that she received the most questions about her sexuality when doing the press tour for Carol. These questions imply and question, according to her, that to understand such a character and portray such a role she must have had a lesbian experience. In her opinion this defies the whole point of acting in general; “And I will fight to the death for the right to suspend disbelief and play roles beyond my experience.”9 Discussing the fact that her personal sexuality and portraying a character are supposed to be seen separate from each other. She mentions that it provides a lot of opportunity for the actors to portray an LGBTQ character but with all the discussions around diversity and representation people now expect for the actor to have a close connection to the character, which all should be based on experience. Her skills as an actress are not mentioned in a debate like this, the focus is all on identity. For her as an actress it is all about trying to understand the importance of storytelling.10 With The Danish Girl it is different kind of discussion about the LGBTQ representation. The film was criticized by the public about the wrong use of historicity, even though it is based on a fictitious novel, and the use of a cisgender actor for the portrayal of a transgender character. Some criticized it even for being too femme forced erotized, saying that the gender reconstruction was just put in as an afterthought to the whole film. Next to this critics have also said that Eddie Redmayne not winning the Academy Award for this role is seen as a win for transwomen, calling his casting as in this film ‘Oscarbait’ since the year before he won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014). “Casting a cis man as a trans woman is akin to casting a white person in a role written for a person of color or a non-disabled person in a disabled role – both of which happen routinely in

https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2016/1?ref_=ttawd_ev_1. 9 Ariston Anderson, “Rome: Cate Blanchett Defends Straight Actors Playing Gay Characters,” website The Hollywood Reporter, published 19 October 2018, last accessed 6 March 2019, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rome-cate-blanchett-defends-straight-actors-playing-gay-characters- 1154008. 10 Idem. 7

Hollywood.”11 The film is seen as a setback to transgender representation in Hollywood after Dallas Buyers Club (2013), who, two years prior, opened up the discussion about the lack of trans people on screen. Thus, there are difficulties surrounding the casting of LGBTQ actors for portraying LGBTQ characters. These difficulties are not unknown to the film going public who are always quick to respond to these themes and issues. Especially when popular actors, who are known to be heterosexual, portray non-heterosexual characters. Star theory is an analytical research method that focuses around the actor’s performance and how this performance influences the experience of the spectator. The origins of star theory is mostly known through the works of Richard Dyer, who in 1980 wrote the book Stars.12 In this book he developed the idea that the spectator’s experience of a film is influenced by its perception of the star and the star’s performance, like Cate Blanchett’s lingering looks and Eddie Redmayne’s awkwardness that expresses in his every move and expression. He explains that stars are constructed through mass media, magazines, advertising and etcetera, and that they are produced in this way to create a profit for the film industry. Stars are constructed to represent ‘real people’ with real emphatic emotions. However, a star is also seen as an ideology by Dyer, because a star often represents a social group, the result of this is that the spectator will idolize this star. A star thus starts as a ‘real’ person but slowly transforms into a construct, a construct that can be made into a brand.13 Richard Dyer also explains that there exists a paradox in stardom which means that a star has to be both ordinary and extraordinary, present and absent. The star needs to be ‘like us’ but at the same time be the person we idolize to become, something out of our league. They need to exist as part of our lives, that we discuss them in our social circles and may construct our identity, but they are absent in the fact that they are not really there.14 In another book, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, he continues this star research and argues that not only the media constructs a star’s image but the spectator does so too. The spectator selects what it wants to believe and deems important, to create an image of the actor that gives meaning to him/her personally.15

11 S.E. Smith, “Why The Danish Girl’s Oscar loss is a satisfying win for trans women,” website PRI, published 12 March 2016, last accessed 6 March 2019, https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-12/why-danish-girl-s-oscar- loss-satisfying-win-trans-women. 12 Richard Dyer, Stars. (London: New York Film Institute. 1979). 13 Richard Dyer, “Part One: Stars as a Social Phenomenon,” Stars, 7 - 32. 14 Richard Dyer, Stars, 43. 15 Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, (London: Routledge.,1986). 8

Another academic that is specialized in star studies is Philip Drake who focuses more on screen performance in his article “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance”.16 In this article he suggests that when conceptualizing performance it should involve more than just reading actor’s performances, it needs a wider consideration of the ontology of film and the epistemological frames through which a screen performance makes sense.17 He argues: “[…] there remains a conceptual gap between modes of film analysis (formalist, industrial, psychoanalytical) and the demands that an analysis of screen performance places upon them. Film theory, […] remains conspicuously silent on questions of performance.”18 His central argument is that performance is fundamentally different from representation and that all media texts are in a way performative because they construct particular relationships between the audience and the performer. Thus, as I argued above as well, we need a concept that fills the gap between film analysis and screen performance analysis. Drake argues that stardom, in a way, can fill this gap when they use a certain degree of ostensiveness, a scale of frequently used gestures. These gestures are performance signs and are what makes an actor’s work recognizable as his and his only and create what he calls their ‘idiolect’. Importantly, this idiolect of the actor does not have to involve emphatic performance, but their voice is normally a powerful sign of identification.19 He also argues that screen performers are aware of the way the camera frames them and so they adjust their performance accordingly. This means that for instance with a close-up facial gestures are important because the slightest movement is highlighted and gives meaning to the character’s interiority.20 A star performance means that the performer has to adjust in a way by varying the ostensiveness of their performance so that gap between performer and character is closed.21 Star theory only focuses on how the performance of the actor can influence the experience of the spectator. However, there are other analytical approaches which focus on the representation onscreen which are important for this kind of research. These approaches also originate from film studies but are combined with approaches from gender studies. In the seventies when feminist film theory was founded, gender studies and film studies were already academically linked. In her book And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory,

16 Philip Drake, “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance,” Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 58, No. 1/2, 2006), 84. 17 Philip Drake, “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance,” Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 58, No. 1/2, 2006), 84. 18 Idem. 19 Philip Drake, 87-88. 20 Philip Drake, 89. 21 Philip Drake, 93. 9

Anneke Smelik explains that feminist film theory derives from two different perspectives, semiotics and psychoanalysis. “From semiotics, feminist film critics learned to analyze the crucial role of cinematic techniques in the representation of sexual desire. From psychoanalysis, they learned to analyze structures of desire and subjectivity.22 An example from Carol and The Danish Girl are how the females are captures by the camera. The camera keeps focusing and almost lingers on every move and gesture they make. Especially in The Danish Girl, it is this emphasis on the gestures and hand movements that defines Lili’s femininity. In Carol it is the numerous close ups of nicely painted nails and the brushing of hair, to just give a few semiotic examples. Other examples could be the use of language in Carol are the secret looks Therese and Carol exchange as a way to show their desires for each other. In The Danish Girl it is a light flicker of a desire when Einar looks at the feminine gestures a woman makes. In her book Smelik states: “Film is no longer seen as reflecting meanings, but as constructing them; thus cinema as a cultural practice actively produces meanings about women and femininity.”23 Feminist film theory caused a shift in focus in film studies, not focusing solely on the ideological content of a film but rather the production of the meaning of a film. An example of a psychoanalytical approach as Smelik mentions in her book, is found back in the spectatorship theory by Laura Mulvey in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” where she explains the notion of the gaze. Shortly, the gaze is the way of looking or being looked at a character in a film. Mulvey explains that in traditional Hollywood cinema this gaze is mostly a male gaze that voyeuristically looks at the female as a lust object.24 In chapter one, this notion of the gaze and how power relations can be established will be explained more thoroughly by reworking Laura Mulvey’s notion off the gaze, which is a heterosexual and male gaze, into a queer gaze and applying it to Carol. “In most cases, the gaze is used to help explain the hierarchal power relations between two or more groups or, alternatively, between a group and an ‘object’”.25Mulvey’s notion of the gaze is important because it can be used to analyze and establish the power relations between for instance the characters, but also between the character and the spectator, the character and society to name but a few possibilities. However, to rework Laura Mulvey’s notion of the gaze into a ‘queer gaze’ an explanation of queer theory and more importantly for this thesis, gender performativity is

22 Anneke Smelik, “1. What meets the Eye: An Overview of Feminist Film Theory,” And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory, (London: MacMillan Press, 1998,) 9. 23 Idem. 24 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Visual and Other Pleasures, (New York: Palgrave, 1989), 19. 25 Clifford T. Manlove, “Visual “Drive” and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock, and Mulvey,” Cinema Journal, vol. 46, no. 3, 2007, 84. 10 needed. It is said that queer theory was founded by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, published in 1990.26 Queer theory is a counter movement from feminist studies that looks further than the straight female. Important to note is that queer theory is not necessarily a theory that is used in film studies and comes from gender studies and sociology. Judith Butler explains that the feminist theory is problematic in its approach because it restricts the meaning of gender and has often homophobic consequences. “It was and remains my view that any feminist theory that restricts the meaning of gender in the presuppositions of its own practice sets up exclusionary gender norms within feminism, often with homophobic consequences.”27 Queer theory does not take heterosexuality or binary gender constructions as its starting point or norm. it is a sociological and philosophical theory that in a way criticizes all the notion of sexuality in relation to heteronormativity. Queer is a term without a clear definition because the definition can change all the time. In Queer Theory: An Introduction Annemarie Jagose gives a definition of queer: Broadly speaking, queer describes those gestures or analytical models which dramatize incoherencies in the allegedly stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire. Resisting that model of stability – which claims heterosexuality as its origin, when it is more properly its effect – queer focuses on mismatches between sex, gender and desire. Institutionally, queer has been associated most prominently with lesbian and gay subjects, but its analytical frameworks also includes such topics as cross-dressing, hermaphroditism, gender ambiguity and gender-corrective surgery.28 Judith Halberstam in “In a Queer Time and Place” says “part of what has made queerness compelling as a form of self-description in the past decade or so has to do with the way it has the potential to open up new life narratives and alternative relations to time and space.”29 The term queer thus does not have a fixed and static definition, the definition of queer is supposed to be very fluid because the definition still changes and it develops just like our understanding of everything outside heterosexuality. She explains that queer was once used as slang for homosexual and as a term of homophobic abuse. But that in the recent years it has become more of an umbrella term for “a coalition of culturally marginal sexual self-identifications and at other times to describe a nascent theoretical model which has developed out of more lesbian

26 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, (New York: Routledge, 2006). 27 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, viii. 28 Annemarie Jagose, “Introduction,” Queer Theory: An Introduction, (New York: New York University Press, 1996), 3. 29 J. Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place, New York: New York University Press, 2005, 1-2. 11 and gay studies,” 30 which is how this term will mostly be used in this research. It this book she attempts to give an overview of queer theory and how queer theory can be used as a school of thought.31 Judith Butler is mostly known from her work Gender Trouble where she explains the notion of queer theory and gender performativity. Butler tries to explain that gender is not a construction but that gender is performative. It is performative in the sense that we are not born with a specific gender but that we perform a gender. In this way gender is not an expression of what one is but more of what one does. We grow up with the idea that our gender in determined by our sex, however they are different because gender is thus performative. It is performative in the sense that our identity is formed by a set of repetitive acts that we enact and make our own. When coming across these gendered acts, which are for instance only feminine, we have no other way of knowing other gendered acts. This means that our gender almost acts as a society organizing tool. Butler explains that performativity of gender is learned by these repetitive examples of gender we come across during the shaping of our identity. However, Judith Butler goes a bit further than this notion of performing gender by saying that gender is just as fluid as a performance, and that gender thus is not something static with an end result but can change over time. This changes by coming across other acts of gender that a person is not yet familiar with and adapting them as their own. Identification, then, is also something that constantly changes, because to identify is to desire a certain gender.32 She explains that identification is ‘the phantasmatic staging of the event’33 which means that the identification process is something imaginary, something she calls phantasmatic identification. In chapter two, I will go more deeply into Judith Butler’s notion of queer theory and her definition of phantasmatic identification. Even though Butler’s notion of queer theory and phantasmatic identification are not film theoretical concepts, it can be used as a tool to analyze the gender performativity of a character in a film, which is how I will apply this theory on The Danish Girl, to explain the gender performativity of Einar into Lili. The notion of gender performativity is important for this thesis because it shows how fluid a gender or sexuality can be and how we all perform our identities. I want to propose a queer gaze for analyzing films portraying LGBTQ characters instead of still putting them in boxes.

30 Annemarie Jagose, 1. 31 Annemarie Jagose, 1-2. 32 Judith Butler, “Phantasmatic Identification and the Assumption of Sex,” Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, (New York: Routledge, 2011), 68. 33 Idem. 12

The focus in this thesis will not be on how ‘realistic’ the representations in these two films, Carol and The Danish Girl, are. There are two main reasons for this, which are mainly personal, the first one being that I identify as a cisgender female and thus would not be able to rate how realistic these representations are. Second, which is the main assumption and incentive for this research, is that I believe that representation and identification are subjective and personal and could therefore not be analyzed in an objective and collective way. Especially when looking back at Judith Butler’s argument of the fluidity of gender and sexuality. The focus will be on the processes of identification and how they could have an influence on the representation of the character. In this way we look further than the identity of the actor to review their performance. This means that we have to look further than a representation being realistic and focus on the ‘how’ of the representation, and to what extent are we being influenced by the filmic elements that guide us when watching a film. What we see onscreen is already a multitude of representations brought together because there has already been input from different perspectives that create a certain representation which the spectator assesses and give meaning to. The spectator is directed in a certain gaze to give meaning to the representation onscreen, what this leaves out is that the character onscreen is a representation of the performance of the actor portraying that character. This representation can of course be influenced by their own identity, but it is not a necessity to identify with a character to be able to perform as that character. I want to propose that the identity of the actor is not important when representing a certain social group, in this case the LGTBQ community. My reasoning behind this is that representation is not based on the identity of the actor, but that of the character. The actor follows a script that lists the characteristics of the character and interprets them. However, what we see onscreen is not solely this interpretation of these characteristics by an actor, but a collaboration of the performance of the actor and the filmic elements that support this performance. Not only do they support but they also guide the spectator, which means that what we see is what the filmmaker wants us to see. This means that every interpretation of a representation can be different. What all these interpretations, and reviews and discussions about the representation have in common however, are the fact that we still focus on the identities of the characters and the actors. We still attempt to put them in ‘boxes’, when the aim of bringing up homosexuality or transgenderism in a film, or life in general, is to educate people. When we review or analyze a film, we do not seem to do this outside heteronormative because we as a society are programmed to do so. However, this always leaves us with views and beliefs that have been constructed for us instead of creating them ourselves. 13

In this thesis I would like to propose a way to reconcile representation and identification and look further than these power-based dynamics that society has put as our norms. By reading with Judith Butler and her notion of gender performativity, and reworking Laura Mulvey’s gendered heterosexual gaze into a queer gaze, I want to engage with Carol and The Danish Girl, and deconstruct these gender and sexuality based power dynamics. In her book, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler mentions in the 1999 preface: “Those who make such prescriptions or who are willing to decide between subversive and unsubversive expressions of gender, base their judgement on a description. Gender appears in this or that form, and then a normative judgement is made about those appearances and on the basis of what appears.”34 What Butler mentions here is exactly then what seems to happen in discussions about representation in film. I would like to analyze how different filmic elements help us deconstruct the gaze in a film, and how they subvert the spectator to a gaze that is outside their comfort zone. The aim is show that is possible for us to analyze a film and their character representations outside the heterosexual norms, thus creating the possibility for plural identities as a ‘norm’. This will be done by, as mentioned before, analyzing Carol and The Danish Girl, both these films include scenes where the heterosexual spectator is subverted to a queer gaze. In the first chapter, the gaze in Carol will be analyzed with a reworking of Laura Mulvey’s gaze into a queer gaze. This film tells two different stories, one which the heterosexual gaze follows, and one which the queer gaze follows. We can deconstruct this by looking at the filmic elements such as camera work, editing and the how the characters behave towards each other. Because it is set in the fifties, we are dealing with capitalism and a taboo on same-sex relationships. Thus, when two women are in a relationship, they have to show affection and desire in different, and mostly secretive, ways, with the use of a simple touch or lingering stare. It is this queer gaze that shows the spectator not only what these women desire, but also a story of love, and calls the spectator to have the same desire to be loved in a similar way. In chapter two, I will analyze The Danish Girl, also looking at the filmic aspects and how they guide the spectator but by applying a different analytical tool, Judith Butler’s notion of gender performativity. Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Einar/Lili in The Danish Girl is an example of gender performativity, because we not only see gender performativity in the actor but also onscreen. It shows a story of a man that never had a feeling he belonged

34 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, xxii. 14 somewhere, to desiring to be a woman. The camerawork shows the spectator not only what he lacks as a man who desires to be a woman but emphasizes this desire. We see Einar, biologically a man, performing as a woman, that what he desires most which he does so by repeating movements that he has seen other women do. In the last chapter, I will recap these findings and look at them in a more contextual way rather than just focusing on the performances onscreen. I will attempt to analyze whether we can say something about the performances of these actors and how they may, or may not, have an influence on their performances in Carol and The Danish Girl. As mentioned before, Eddie Redmayne has a specific, almost awkward, kind of acting style that we see in The Danish Girl, but also in The Theory of Everything (2014) and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (2016). When looking at Cate Blanchett, who also portrays a man, Jude, in I’m Not There

(2007), but has a variety of different kinds of character portrayals in MAnifesto (2015), both male and female. This chapter thus will focus more on the notion of stardom, Cate Blanchett and Eddie Redmayne, itself instead of their characters in Carol and The Danish Girl. However, when analyzing stardom there are struggles with representation and interpretation which is why there will be given short summaries of the different ways stardom, performativity and representation can be analyzed.

Chapter 1: The Queer Gaze in Carol (2015)

Power lies in the roots of the gaze.35 Caroline Evans and Lorraine Gamman

Introduction: A Film Outside the Heterosexual Male Gaze

In 2016, Carol was named the best LGBT film as a result of a critical survey of LGBTQ+ films which was executed by the British Film Institute. In an updated version of this list, from 2018, it still remains in the first place. Over a hundred film experts, including critics, writers and programmers, have voted for this top 30.36 CAROL is directed by Todd Haynes, a director who is a big advocate for the LGBTQ community in general, and starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. The two actresses were both nominated for Academy Awards for their roles in this film. The story is about Therese, an aspiring photographer in her twenties who falls in love with an older woman, Carol, and is set in the fifties. In the fifties same-sex relationships were forbidden and for two women to fall in love would thus need to happen in different ways which is exactly what this film is trying to show. The film does so by trying to subvert the heterosexual spectator to a queer gaze with the help of different filmic element. The story of the film is about Carol who at the time is still married to a man, however they have been living separately for a while and are in the process of a divorce. Her husband, Harge, does not want a divorce because he is concerned about his status in society because he does not seem to want to divorce a woman because of her sexuality, although she is not exclusively ‘out’. He petitions a morality clause against her where he threatens to expose her sexuality and give him full custody of their daughter. He thinks that she is unfit to be a mother to their daughter because of her sexuality. This film tells the spectator two different stories, one which the spectator follows through the camera which tells a story of two women dealing with their identities in a time where their love is restricted because of the law. The second one the spectator reads in the looks that Therese and Carol exchange, which is completely different story than the first one, this is a love story through their gazes where they show their desires for each other in secret. This is

35 Caroline Evans and Lorraine Gamman, “The Gaze Revisited, or Reviewing Queer Viewing,” Queer Romance: Lesbians, gay men and popular culture, edited by Paul Burston and Colin Richardson, (New York: Routledge, 1995), 20. 36 “The 30 Best LGBTQ+ Films of All Time,” website British Film Institute, last updated 19 July 2018, last accessed 4 March 2019, https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/30-best-lgbt-films-all-time. 16 why I will be using the term the gaze in combination with spectatorship theory from Laura Mulvey to analyze the looks in Carol and locate the gaze in this chapter, which is clearly defined as a female or queer gaze. In short, and as mentioned before, the gaze is a psychoanalytic term that analyzes the way of a character in a film is looking and being looked at by the spectator, who is guided by the camerawork and other filmic aspects. This gaze is, in classic narrative cinema, a male gaze, where the female character is seen in a voyeuristic way and mostly only functions as a lust object for the male spectator. In this chapter I will be using Mulvey’s concept of the gaze and apply it to Carol. However, because Mulvey’s notion of the gaze is heterosexual and gendered it will be reworked into a queer gaze. With this reworking of the gaze into a queer gaze we are able to deconstruct how the filmic elements subvert the spectator into a queer gaze, a gaze that maybe is outside their identity.

Laura Mulvey and the Queer Gaze

To be able to rework Laura Mulvey’s notion of the gaze it is important to know the basic principle and definition of this notion. She first mentioned the gaze in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” in Screen in 1975, a film magazine that covers the international film business and includes essays on film. This article and the theory she discusses became an influential staple in the film studies. She later republishes the same article in her book Visual and Other Pleasures. In this article she proposes a psychoanalytically inspired analysis which focuses on the structures of looking in Hollywood narrative film. It is thus an analysis that focuses on the reception of the spectator and how the narrative in a film guides the view of the spectator. She discusses that spectatorship is based on a division between active looking, which is done by men, and the passivity of the female, who is being looked at. The female is projected on the screen as the embodiment of the fantasy of the male. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly.”37 This means that women are not just looked at but are also displayed in an erotic way by the male gaze, something she connotes to-be-looked-at-ness.38

37 Laura Mulvey, 19. 38 Idem. 17

She argues that the ideal spectator is always positioned as male, and that his visual pleasure is derived from objectification of the female characters and the narcissistic process of identification positioning himself as the male hero, or ‘the ideal ego’. This theory she has drawn from Freud’s ideas of scopophilia, pleasure and the ego libido. However, she also draws on Lacan’s notion of the mirror phase and explains that recognition is overlaid with misrecognition.39 “[…] the image recognized is conceived as the reflected body of the self, but it is misrecognition as superior project this body outside itself as an ideal ego, the alienated subject which, re-introjected as an ego ideal, prepares the way for identification with other in the future.”40 When looking at the Hollywood film we can verify that in general the films present the men as active and dominant and that the women are treated as passive objects of desire, without being desired objects in their own right. She even goes as far as to state that the female figure poses an even deeper problem than it just being a lust object for the male spectator. What the female lacks is having a penis, which implicates that sexual excitement is not possible when not having a penis. “She also connotes something that the look continually circles around but disavows: her lack of a penis, implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasure.”41 When a woman is on the screen there is always an emphasis on something that represents her lack of penis; tight clothing, high heels, close-ups on breasts and legs or other body parts, long hair, bracelets, everything that society and the mass media stereotype as feminine. “Traditionally, the women displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.”42 Before feminism became popular in film studies as well, there was no notion of this happening in the films. But because of Laura Mulvey’s theory there has been a shift in the way we look at film and the ways in which we can analyze film. When applying her theory, we can psychoanalytically analyze the gaze of the camera and the character attached to it and how this gaze can influence the spectator. Which makes her theory valuable in this analytical method because it gives the tools on how the gaze in every film can be analyzed. Mulvey makes a distinction between three types of looks that influence the cinematic experience for the spectator; that of the camera as it is filming, that of the spectator, and the interactions or looks

39 Laura Mulvey, 16-18. 40 Laura Mulvey, 17. 41 Laura Mulvey, 21. 42 Laura Mulvey, 19. 18 between the characters onscreen. “The conventions of narrative film deny the first two and subordinate them to the third, the conscious aim being always to eliminate intrusive camera presence and prevent a distancing awareness in the audience.”43 Especially in classical Hollywood cinema there is no acknowledgement of the presence of the camera or the presence of the audience because of the rules of continuity.44 Instead of being absorbed as a spectator following the male gaze, we, as women, are now able to look from a distance. The gap in this approach concerning the research of this thesis, is that this theory, and Mulvey’s gendered approach specifically, only focuses on the experience of the male spectator and his desire and identification. What is left out is the issue of the desire of the female spectator and identification and thus also a queer gaze. It is thus a very gendered and also binary approach, it is only men versus women, and thus leaves out, for instance, transgendered spectators. But also bisexual spectators, because they can regard all genders as erotic. I would like to show that even though Mulvey’s approach does not incorporate the queer gaze, it can still be used as a basic analytical tool to analyze this queer gaze. We can still analyze how the camera work and other filmic aspects positions the spectator in a certain position that is outside their own identity. This is enhanced by the aesthetic structures in the film itself and creates an identification for the spectator that he or she thus maybe never experienced before.

How Carol Creates a Queer Gaze That is Understandable to the Heterosexual Spectator

Carol seems to be the embodiment of the opposite of the male gaze in classical Hollywood cinema, and thus uses a queer gaze. Carol has the gaze as its key aspect of narrating the story, in such a way that it can be argued that the looks they exchange tell their love story. At first their looks look almost lonely, which reflects on their personal lives. This is visible in the first scene where they meet for the first time in the shopping mall where Therese works. At first, they are both very distant in the frame as if they are just two random people in the story. However, the camera slowly zooms in when they see each other for the first time. When Carol approaches Therese at the desk we are more positioned closer to them, however still very distant, which changes at a scene a little later in the film where they meet in a diner. These

43 Laura Mulvey, 25. 44 Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener, “Cinema as Eye – Look and Gaze,” Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 106. 19

distant positions in combination with their lingered staring to nothing in particular give an overall sad atmosphere in the scene. Given the information we know from the characters separately already, we know that Therese is not happy with her job and love life. There is no enthusiasm in the things she does, but she lights up from the moment when she sees Carol. Carol’s look and expression seems empty at first as well which can be derived from the fact that she is going through a divorce, and will possibly lose her child, which we learn a little later in the film. This is enhanced by the cold lighting and her position in the frame, which is not in the center, but more to the left creating a big space next to her as if something or someone is missing from her side. Another thing that is creating this space is her far distance from where the camera is positioned. What happens in this film is that their looks evolve in a way when they meet and fall in love, they become warm and loving, but at the same time secretive in their desires.

Image 1: Scene where Carol and Therese meet for the first time. Image 2: Therese spotting Carol from across the room. Showing both women from a distance, the spectator positioned somewhere in between them. Although the looks they exchange are discrete, when analyzed closely they can be regarded as flirtatious and seem to have a depth to them not visible to the heterosexual gaze in their filmic world. There is an emphasis on their looks, not only towards each other, but also their furtive glances out of windows and their reflections in mirrors. Same-sex love is forbidden in the fifties and so they use their yes and light toughing throughout the film to express their desires. This gives the film a secretive vibe, when looking closely we are let into their little secret of love. What this also does is creating a queer gaze for the viewer, putting them in this power position that creates a desire of wanting to be looked at in the same way, despite their sexual orientation. This is done with using two different ways of looking that they use throughout the whole film, which are a direct stare and a broken stare. This direct stare is mostly used in the beginning when they first meet at the department store where Therese works. From the moment Carol walks in Therese notices her and keeps staring at her and almost everything 20

around them seem to disappear for a moment. They lock eyes for a brief moment and then this stare is interrupted by a female customer with her child who asks Therese a question. When Therese is able to look again Carol has disappeared, but suddenly a second later stands in front of her. The broken stare is mostly used when they are sitting facing each other at a restaurant or café. This broken stare seems to be their way of flirting and implicates a sexual attraction as well. It starts with a stare which gets broken off by looking at something on the table, food, a drink etcetera, and then they continue this stare again. An example of such a moment is when they are meeting each other for the first time in a diner. The scene starts with Therese staring outside the window waiting for Carol to arrive. At this point of the scene the spectator is following her point of view, we see what see is seeing. However, this changes when they sit down at a table in the diner. We follow their conversation with an over the shoulder view the whole time, which is very distant from the beginning but eventually moves in closer when their conversation becomes more intimate and personal. Notable here is that even though the spectator is placed outside of their booth, by the over the shoulder camera position, we are still getting involved in their conversation. They are not positioned in the center of the frame but more to the left with a distinct amount of negative space.

Image 4: When the conversation starts to get more personal the camera Image 3: Shot from the diner, the focus is only on them, the waiter is intentionally left out of the frame. Spectator is positioned outside the zooms in, only seeing Carol and Therese now. booth.

Image 5: Close up of Therese during this conversation, not really showing any emotion. 21

However, because we are not seeing what is happening around them, not even the face of the waiter is shown, we are positioned in this bubble that they created. The shot-reverse-shots are long and lingers on their expressions and gestures which enhances their every look and move. The shot-reverse-shots create this intimacy which for the outside world might not be visible but is shown to the spectator. These glances and stares are thus their way of showing their desire to each other when they cannot say it out loud, which is most of the time. In much of their time they must hide these desires, but their gaze reveals these to the spectator almost as if the spectator is the only person beside Carol and Therese who is let in on this secret. What this does is that the camera puts the spectator in the position of that exists inside this bubble that they have created between them, this secret they both share, it almost compels a desire to the spectator that he or she might not have ever experienced. The whole movie is shot and narrated from the point of view of Therese and we follow her gaze and, in this way, also her awakening of her sexuality, although this is never very explicit. Her gaze seems to be closely linked to her relationship with photography. When she is dating Richard, a very cold relationship that feels forced, she is not interested in taking pictures of people and she explains that she believes that people do not move her. This is why she has no interest in capturing them on film but also refers to her almost sterilizing relationship with Richard. Although during a conversation with her friend Dannie, he advices her that she should start taking pictures of people which she immediately does so by taking pictures of Carol when they meet again. This camera is at first an object that separates her physically from her object of desire, Carol, so that she can safely observe her. This is the reason for the emphasis on the film camera and her making pictures of Carol. In the scene where they go and buy a Christmas tree, we see a shot of a close up of the film camera when Therese puts in a new film role in the camera. Because in this scene the focus is so much on the camera the spectator is positioned inside the camera, thus in-between Carol and Therese. The spectator is, in a way, forced to be take a queer position for a while. The use of the camera, and Therese photographing Carol, could also emphasize a new start in her life where she starts to see things differently. However, after the trip when they no longer speak, these pictures are a lasting representation not only for her desire for Carol but also her female gaze. Thus, the film is shot from Therese’s gaze, a female gaze but also a queer gaze which is at times amplified by the use of photography. Photography is used here as a reference to photographs of women in the fifties with the works of Saul Leiter being a huge influence. Saul Leiter is a photographer from the fifties who photographed a lot of women behind glass windows, in cars and in the reflections of mirrors. Some of these pictures are sometimes also 22

very intimate showing a naked woman in a vulnerable state. These pictures are showcasing the beauty of women outside the male gaze.45 These photographs are sometimes even parallel to what is what we see happening onscreen. We constantly see Therese and Carol looking through windows and in mirrors. When they are buying a Christmas tree and she starts making pictures of Carol, these pictures as well share resemblances to the works of Saul Leiter. Other works of Therese, for instance the intimate picture she has taken when Carol was asleep during their trip also resemblances the intimate work of Saul Leiter.

Image 6: Example of Saul Leiter's photography. Image 7: One of the many intimate shots Therese made of Carol during their trip. (Source: Google Images)

As mentioned before, the film plays with the gaze having a constant focus on the looks Therese and Carol share. And even though it is mostly a Therese’s gaze, there seems to be a shift in the gaze of the film, because it seems to go from Therese’s gaze to Carol gaze at the end of the film which is emphasized by the recurrence of the scene in the Oak room which is at the very first scene of the beginning and recurs at the end of the film. This scene in the Oak room is where they reconnect again after months of not having seen each other. This off course we don’t know in the beginning of the film, however we do already see something important happening in this scene, their looks, and the point of view. In the start of the film we follow Therese at the end of the Oak room scene, who follows Jack to a party. When Carol says goodbye she softly touches Therese’s shoulder, a touch of desire and love, and we see the sadness in Therese’s eyes. When Carol leaves, the camera slowly zooms in on Therese’s face as we follow her. The rest of the film thus follows Therese but at the end it seems we follow

45 Website Howard Greenberg Gallery that had a Saul Leiter exhibition in 2008 and shows his work. http://www.howardgreenberg.com/exhibitions/saul-leiter-women; Anne Leszkiewicz, “Behind Carol: the photographers who influenced Todd Haynes’ award winning film,” website NewStatesman, published 27 November 2015, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art- design/2015/11/behind-carol-photographers-who-influenced-todd-haynes-award-winning-film.

Carol’s point of view. This switch happens when the Oak room scene recurs at the end of the film, where thus the first scene starts again. This also correlates with the transformation that both Carol and Therese undergo throughout the film. In the fifties there was an emphasis in society about the structures of life and the relationships between men and women. This is mostly because it was out of balance after the war, where women suddenly had a lot of power when their men where away and they had to work to earn money. When the men came back they had to regain their dominance in the family and become the head of the family again. The standard in the fifties became domestication and normalcy, which is the opposite to the non-heterosexuality desires of Therese and Carol for each other. Carol’s marriage is based on appearances which becomes very clear when she is together with her husband Harge who keeps commenting on her looks, saying she is the most beautiful woman in the room. Carol is a very feminine women and dresses exactly as how she is expected to dress by society, but she also does not defy this. Her make-up and hair are always neat and you will never catch her with a chipped nail, which are always painted red. This in comparison to Therese who in the beginning still seems to have to find herself, she doesn’t dress in a feminine way like Carol and almost seems a bit ‘girly’ still. However, this changes at the end of the film where she is very dressed up when she is meeting Carol. Carol also goes through a little transformation after the trip when Abby comes over, most of her make-up is off her face, she looks tired and she is just wearing a sweater. At the end of the film she has recollected herself and although she dresses the same, she is more outspoken and has a different aura around her that speaks confidence. She transformed into the woman she wanted to become, without losing that what defined her. These are just a few specific aspects in Carol that define the use of the female gaze, Therese’s gaze. Although it is a love story their desires are not shown as wild lust objects for each other but lies in a simple stare or touch. This is also amplified by the fact that they are always shown in the frame above their waistline and never under. They are not objects of desire to the spectator, or other characters onscreen. They are only objects of desire towards each other. Which manifests in a sex scene which is very implicit and does not show a lot. It does not serve the purpose of awakening a desire towards the spectator. What it does do show a desire that everyone can identify with. This sex scene is the first scene where they get physical for the first time. The scene starts with Therese brushing her hair while looking in the mirror, and Carol who joins her, standing behind her. From this point we only follow them from a distance again, over the shoulder and looking in the mirror. What happens is that their dialogue does not really matter anymore, the focus is solely on their looks to each other. We follow these 24 looks, towards their hands and ultimately them touching each other, kissing and diving into the bed. The lingered stares and emphasis on fabric and touch is as if we’re almost touching the fabric ourselves. Nothing else seem to exist, the spectator is neither someone who joins, but is watching still over the shoulder, neither distant nor close, but is encapsulated in this bubble they created. The effect this has on the spectator is raise this desire of being loved and touched the way that Carol loves Therese. This is a desire that everyone can identify with and not just someone with the same sexuality. We as people all desire to be looked at the way Carol looks at and loves Therese, like nothing else in the world matters or exists. Another aspect that amplifies this is the fact that their sexualities are never explicitly stated. Even though we see Therese finding herself and admitting that she has fallen in love with a woman it is not defined as a coming out story. It’s just two women who fall in love in a period of time where they are not able to show it to the rest of the world, so instead they only show it to each other by looking at each other. There is a clear desire in their every touch and look, and their directness and enthusiasm to each other clearly defines their intent to each other, and to us as the spectator, however the spectator can only speculate as to how far this desire goes. Their gaze tells their love story.

Carol shows us a story about love and the struggles of the taboo of same-sex relationships in the fifties. By using the notion of Laura Mulvey’s gaze I was able to analyze the gaze and its influence on the spectator. However, not Mulvey’s gendered heterosexual notion of the gaze was used in this analysis, because we are not dealing with a male gaze where the female character is being projected as a lust object. The film has a queer gaze which we follow through the eyes of Therese, a young female who falls in love with an older female. The film has two narratives which we follow in two different ways, the chronological narrative of the film and the narrative we follow through the looks Therese and Carol exchange. This second narrative is a secret narrative, not visible for those around them, because they have to hide their true desire for each other. There is a reciprocity in their direct stares and broken stares which are emphasized by the camerawork in the film. Their lingering looks are emphasized by the use of close-ups and the long shots. However, this emphasis is not only on their looks but also the way they lightly touch each other in public. What highlights this forbidden love even more is the fact that the spectator is never fully included in their desires and motives, but always watching from a distance. The effect this has on the spectator is that of desire as well, the desire to be looked at the way Carol looks at Therese, all because of a lingering look. In this way it tries to achieve a queer gaze in the spectator as well, even if the spectator identifies as heterosexual. 25

Chapter 2: To Desire or to Identify? The Female Body in The Danish Girl (2015)

It's hard for a man to be looked at by a woman. Women are used to it, of course, but for a man to submit to a woman's gaze - it's unsettling. Although I believe there's some pleasure to be had from it, once you yield.46 - The Danish Girl (2015)

Introduction: The Danish Girl and Transgender Representation

The Danish Girl, which was released in the same year as CAROL, 2015. The film was directed by Tom Hooper and is starring Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander who were both nominated for Academy Awards for their roles in this film. It is a fictitious love story that was inspired by the Danish married artists Lili Elbe, portrayed by Eddie Redmayne, and Gerda Wegener, portrayed by Alicia Vikander, and is set in the twenties in Denmark. This film is also a novel adaptation, which was written by David Ebershoff, who changed a lot about the characters and events which is the reason why it is thus a fictitious story. The story follows Einar, later Lili, who realizes through the art of his painter wife, Gerda, that he is a woman trapped in a male body and desires to transform into a ‘complete’ woman. In the film it is said that she was the first to ever undergo such a successful operation, however she was among the first ones. At the end of the film Lili passes away due to the complications from the second surgery, the vagina reconstruction. In reality, the real Lili had the reconstruction together with a uterus transplant which caused an infection that lead to her passing away. Even though this film was praised by Hollywood, receiving four Academy Award nominations and even winning one, it has also been criticized by the public about the wrong use of historicity. The historicity of this story is off, mainly because it is fictitious, but they also criticized the film for the use of a cisgender actor for the portrayal of a transgender character. As mentioned before in the introduction his portrayal of the character was seen as ‘Oscarbait’ and was seen as a setback for transgender representation. What they leave out is his role as an actor and thus performance in this film. He was praised by the Academy and Hollywood for his performance in this film, however the LGBTQ was dissatisfied with this representation and

46 Quote from The Danish Girl. 26 completely leaves out his performance. Another thing is that they said that using a cisgender actor for a transgender character is just as bad as whitewashing. This raises the question whether we should class sexuality representation as something that is cultural. Thus, in this chapter the focus will not be on how realistic the representation is but will focus on how the filmic elements emphasize the performativity of gender. The camerawork shows the spectator not only what Einar lacks as a man, because he desires to be a woman, but they emphasize this desire. The film and the characters, especially Gerda and Einar/Lili seem to lack emotional motivation, we are not really included in their thoughts. However, what this film does do is show in a few scenes this performativity of gender and how society influences how we see gender and thus reenact this. Judith Butler is specialized in this notion of gender performativity explaining that you construct your gender through your own behavior. She even goes as far as to say that the process of identification belongs to the imaginary, a phantasmatic staging of events. In the next paragraph this theory will be explained further before I will apply the theory of gender performativity to The Danish Girl to show how gender is performed in this film and how the camera work and other filmic aspects emphasize this.

Gender as a Social Construct or Performance? Judith Butler and Phantasmatic Identification

To be able to analyze the gender performativity in The Danish Girl, it is important to summarize where this notion of gender performativity comes from, which is queer theory. As mentioned in the introduction, queer theory is an important theory to use as an analytical approach in this research. Queer theory is a counter movement that thus includes people from other sexualities and genders. The term was founded by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.47 In this book she aims to open up a field of possibilities for gender without dictating the kind of possibilities need to be there to realize this.48 She argues in her 1999 preface that some queer theorists in the past have drawn analytic distinctions between gender and sexuality but refusing to see a causal or structural link between the two.49 In Gender Trouble, Judith Butler states that gender and sex are not completely different, as other theories

47 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. 48 Judith Butler, “Preface 1999,” Gender Trouble, viii. 49 Judith Butler, “Preface 1999,” Gender Trouble, xiv. 27 state, but that gender is different because it is performative. Gender performativity is the central concept of this book. She explains that we grow up with the general idea that someone’s gender is determined by their sex. Which would mean that a man is a man, and a woman just a woman and nothing in between is possible. This would also mean, she argues, that the general discourse in society is that a person’s sex is something stable, and in that way also binary. This discourse also base their judgements on the descriptions that they come across and they in that way make their ‘norm’.50 Which is why we are programmed to see a man as a man, and a woman as a woman, and everything outside that norm is judged as odd. Butler argues thus that gender, sex, sexuality and other axis of difference are generally constructed through repetition of stylized acts in time and that these are performative. “[…] performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and a ritual, which achieves its effects through its naturalization in the context of a body, understood, in part, as a culturally sustained temporal duration.”51 Thus, sex is seen as biological, however gender is a construct made by society which we perform. The basis of queer theory in Gender Trouble is that identity and gender can be as free and flexible as a performance. This would mean that no one would have specifying gender when they are born, because gender is a process that happens when we come across certain repeated norms. Gendered norms of how men and women act, or more like society says they should act. Queer theory explains that the gender of a person can, because it is not static but fluid, change throughout their lives when they come across these norms. We are ruled by society to think and feel a certain way about our bodies, we have very heteronormative constructed views on gender because of this. In this way, the heteronormative way, gender is seen as a society shaping organizing tool, everything that is masculine belongs to men, which in norms only applies to those who possess a phallus, and everything without a phallus is feminine and thus a woman.52 However, Butler argues that we can learn gender by doing, by repeating certain acts and make them our own, we mirror and imprint but also produce them again.53 For Judith Butler, this notion of queer theory is not enough and so she decides to go a step further in the next book, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex.54 In this book, essentially, she starts with clearing up the misconceptions that she received after publishing Gender Trouble. These misconceptions often misrepresent her theory, saying that

50 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, xxii. 51 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, xv. 52 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 65. 53 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 68. 54 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. 28 gender and sex and their performativity are a daily choice.55 She goes one to emphasize the importance of repetition in performativity, which she derives from Derrida iterability.56 However, more importantly, in this book she introduces a new concept, phantasmatic identification, which goes a bit further her concept of gender performativity. In her third chapter, “Phantasmatic Identification and the Assumption of Sex,” she explains that performativity cannot be understood outside of a process of iterability, the repetition of regulated and constrained norms which were already mentioned above. More importantly, however, she argues; And this repetition is not performed by a subject, this repetition is what enables a subject and constitutes the temporal condition for the subject. This iterability implies that ‘performance’ is not a singular ‘act’ or event, but a ritualized production, a ritual reiterated under and through constraint, under and through the force of prohibition and taboo, with the threat of ostracism and even death controlling and compelling the shape of the production, but not, I will, insist, determining it fully in advance.57 Repetition, is according to Butler, important for performativity and the shaping and production of a gender which follows her arguing that sex and sexuality are often assumed.58 With the notions of performing gender and iterability comes identification, and thus phantasmatic identification. Butler links identification with desire in this chapter instead of opposing them to each other, arguing that identification is a phantasmatic trajectory and resolution of desire.59 Following this argument she then explains that identification is something imaginary; “[…] identification does not belong to the world of events. Identification is constantly figured as a desired event or accomplishment, but one which finally is never achieved; identification is the phantasmatic staging of the event. In this sense, identifications belong to the imaginary; they are phantasmatic efforts of alignment, loyalty, ambiguous and cross-corporeal cohabitation; they unsettle the ‘I’ they are the sedimentation of the ‘we’ in the constitution of the ‘I’, the structuring presence of alterity in the very formulation of the ‘I’. identifications are never fully and finally made; they are incessantly reconstituted and, as such are subject to the volatile logic of iterability.”60

55 Judith Butler, Preface, Bodies That Matter, ix. 56 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 60. 57 Idem. 58 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 59. 59 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 64. 60 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter, 68 29

She thus explains a notion of identification as a process or event that is closer to an imaginary staging which never achieves a stability in direction or object. She explains that identification is something that will never be final, it will never have a full end result, because they are always subject to iterability. These subjects of iterability we can find everywhere, in family, friends, school and work, however also in the mass media. In TV and film, we come across these repeated norms numerous of times and are never able to fully create an identity without these influences, which is why, because of this, representation in TV and film is often criticized. As mentioned before, there is a lack of representation of the LGBTQ community in TV, film and the mass media. So, when we do come across LGBTQ representation every little detail is magnified and analyzed, often without regarding the contextuality of it all. The criticism The Danish Girl received is an example of this LGBTQ representation that has been criticized by many. They criticized the film for using a cisgender actor for portraying a transgender character, leaving out his performance and putting the emphasis on his personal identity. In this way they sort of deconstruct the actor and his identity from his performance as an actor. They criticize the representation of a fiction, and thus not true to reality, film. The Danish Girl focuses its story on the awakening of a transgender woman and the struggle to make the change from man to woman in a very conservative time, the twenties and thirties. In this film there is an emphasis on gender as performance, something I have mentioned Judith Butler discusses a lot in her work. I would like to suggest that this film uses gender as a performance in several ways; in the filmic elements such as camerawork and mise-en-scene, and the character development. I want to deconstruct the narrative of the story which at first sight seems like a straightforward transgender, transformation from male to female story, however the filmic aspects create a layered effect that suggest that there is more happening. The reason for this is because in the film we see Einar literally perform as Lili at first and making the transformation to fully becoming Lili much later. This film, naturally, uses gender as performance as its main storyline which is why it could also be stated that Eddie Redmayne, the actor portraying Einar/Lili, is performing gender.

Performing Gender onstage: Gender Performativity in The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is a film that centers around gender identification and the gender trouble of not being able to identify with who you are supposed to be according to the norms in society. The main character, Einar, was born in a male body, however he seems to not be in the position to fully identify with his male exterior, he desires to be a woman in female body. This revelation happens after he helps his wife Gerda with a painting where he has to pose in stocking and a dress. Throughout the film we follow Einar’s transformation into Lili. As mentioned above, this film complies with Butler’s notion of gender performativity. Following I will analyze two key scenes where we see gender as a performance and how the filmic aspects in these scenes create this layered effect, that it is more than a transgender coming out story. The emphasis in these scenes is on the body and the gestures emotions since these scenes do not contain any dialogue, emphasizing this effect even more. The reason for emphasizing the analysis on the filmic aspects is mainly because these are the moments when we see the pure gender trouble Einar is in, which the rest of the movie, in my personal opinion lacks. This first scene is happening after the very first public outing of Einar as Lili, which at that time was a joke between him and his wife Gerda, so that he would come along to a party. At this party he performs as Lili and takes up an interest in a man, Henrik, he meets there and they kiss. After this event he seems to be even more confused and turns into himself not really explaining what is going on inside his head to his wife. He appears sad and has headaches, Gerda is clearly getting annoyed by this behavior, also because she is still mad that he kissed Henrik. Einar, fleas the house and goes to the theatre. This is the start of this first key scene that strongly features gender as a performance. We see Einar going into the theatre and this is the moment where this gender performance starts. The scene starts with dramatic music and Einar rapidly walking backstage, on his way touching all the fabric from the dresses that hang there. Important to note is that Einar is fully dressed in formal male clothing, which is very common in the thirties. He walks towards the mirror and when he arrives, he suddenly stops and just looks at his reflection in the mirror, before he undresses himself until he is in his boxer, with the focus completely on his hands and his facial emotions. Up until this moment everything is dramatic, rapid and with a certain haste, in the editing with the quick shots, his movements and the music, however this all stops and changes from the moment that he undresses himself. This moment is a turning point not only for him as a character but is also visible in the filmic moments. What happens in this scene is a shot-reverse-shot with Einar and his reflection in the mirror and the spectator is positioned right in between these two. When he is undressed, 31

he looks again at himself in the mirror and slowly moves his arms and hands closer to each other trying to create a cleavage and feminine posture at the same time. At this moment the dramatic music has stopped and becomes gentler and softer, just like his gestures and the way that he touches himself. He slowly caresses his hands over his arms and his ‘cleavage’, clearly desiring something that is not there. His facial expressions change from desire, to sad and scared, but also he seems almost exhilarated. He takes a quick look back, to make sure that he is completely alone and then moves his attention back to his reflection in the mirror. Next up is a closeup of his crotch, still in his boxer which he slowly removes, looking more exhilarated while doing so. He then tucks his penis in between his legs, creating a vagina, all the while slowly caressing himself. The focus is continually only on his face and on his hand movements which are emphasized by the lack of dialogue and the soft music in the background. This creates a closeness between the spectator and the character, because of the use of closeups it is as if the spectator is there with him, seeing what he sees, what he allows us to see, his desire to be a woman. The last shot of the scene shows a different expression in his face, one that seems almost happy and without any discomfort, he showed the spectator his true self.

Image 1: Moment where Einar arrives at the theatre fully clothes in Image 2: After Einar undresses himself violently and quickly and his typical formal men clothing. expression is both anxious and elated.

Image 3: Einar softly touching himself, while at the same time trying Image 4: Einar's expression right before he tucks away his penis, to create a cleavage by putting his elbows close to each other. creating a vagina. He has tears in his eyes.

This scene is even more interesting when looking at performativity in gender and the parallel it shows with theatre, and thus performance in general. Before Einar enters backstage, he stops for a moment, as if preparing himself for a performance, and then enters the room, where his performance begins. It is dark but when he steps in to the room the lights are being turned on, just as in theatre. However, instead of performing an identity we see his true self emerging between these theatre walls, because outside of these walls he is performing as a male. The theatre space creates for him a sort of bubble where he can truly be his self without having to conform to the norms outside of these walls. The binary forms we see emphasize this even more, he is fully dressed in a formal suit when he enters, something society tells him is a norm for a straight male in the thirties. But later, when we see him naked in front of the mirror, as Lili, this seems untouched by society because he is in this bubble and looking at the true self he desires. The brief moment of the closeup of his face where he shows a silent smile and comfortable posture tell us that this is what he truly desires. Another key scene in the film is a little later and after the radiotherapy he received for the diagnosis of perversion. This radiotherapy and diagnosis leave him confused and hurt which clearly shows in his relationship towards Gerda which becomes more platonic. The reason for this is because he does not feel comfortable with his own sexuality as a male anymore, since she desires for him to be male and conform to the norms of a male husband. This key scene happens when they moved to Paris and Einar visits a brothel, which has the same filmic structure as the scene mentioned above in the theatre. This repetition also reinforces the idea of gender performativity in Einar and Lili. It is Einar who goes to this brother, but when there it is Lili we see coming out and mirroring the gestures of the prostitute behind the glass. This glass, even though it is a two-way glass, repeats again this mirroring moment from the theatre. There is a curtain that at first separates the performer, the prostitute, from the spectator, Einar, and when the curtain opens, the prostitute starts performing. There is an emphasis on this separation between the prostitute and Einar through the reflections of them in the glass. However, something else is happening which as well is a breaking of norms in gender performativity in the brother. The norm is that the prostitute performs in all her feminine ways and the spectator in his male sexual behavior. This is a continuous repeating of gender performative norms when it comes to a brothel. Something Judith Butler mentions an article; “The act that one does, the act that one performs, is, in a sense, an act that has been going on before one arrived on the scene.”61 This means that even though someone has never been to a

61 Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal, (vol. 40, no. 4, 1988), 526. 33

brother, it is clear when entering the way what the norms are to act in such a place. What Einar does nonetheless, is break these male norms. Instead of being the spectator in the brothel he becomes the performer when mirroring the gestures of the prostitute. At first, when he starts mirroring, the prostitute seems shocked and ashamed but quickly shows empathy towards Einar and continuous while encouraging him to do the same. This moment abruptly stops when she touches her vagina, and Einar mirrors this realizing that he in fact is not the ‘complete’ female that she is.

Image 5: Einar attentively watching and re-enacting the Image 6: Close-up of one of the moves the prostitute makes. prostitute's every move.

Image 7: Followed by a close-up of Einar re-enacting the exact same move.

Thus, what happens here is instead of Einar looking at the prostitute’s body with the male gaze, as an object of sexual desire, but he takes in, and copies, her movement almost idolizing her femininity. His look, in a way, is of desiring the female that she is, desiring her body as his ideal body, by mirroring her every move. He does not look at her as someone who is doing a performance but as a reflection of his own identity. Throughout the scene, the focus is on the hands, how they caress the bodies and the facial expressions of both Einar and the prostitute. At the same time the emphasis is also constantly on the window and their reflections in this window. This referring to not only the mirror-stage we know well from Lacan, 34 where a child mimics an adult every move before it forms its own identity. However, it also emphasis this fluidity of gender that they constantly play with in the film, the fact that in the beginning Einar goes from a formal dressed male to his real identity, Lili, a female. He does all this by constantly repeating the moves and gestures that he sees from the women around him. When looking back at the first key scene in the theatre, we see this parallel of Einar trying to find his identity by performing and looking at a performance. In the theatre scene he is getting in touch with his feminine side by undressing himself and posturing himself as female, and in the brothel scene this identity is being performed. This all the while being closed off from society and their norms, in his own performative space where he can perform, or be, his true and desired I. The mirrors in these scenes emphasize this transformation constantly for they show his true desire.

The Danish Girl is at first glance a film about a transgender coming out story and is a good example for gender performativity. We follow the story of Einar, who desires to be a woman, set in the twenties. Gender, according to Judith Butler, is not a construction but more a performance. We are not born with a specific gender but perform a gender by being subjected to different subject of iterability and then produce them as our own. This means that gender is not something static, but changes over time and is thus fluid. Identification is then something imaginary, a desired event or accomplishment we spend our whole lives trying to achieve, gender is not something one is but something one does. Analyzing The Danish Girl with this notion of gender performativity then means that we can argue that Einar is gender trouble and that this film disassembles this notion of identity that is something fixed and constructed. In several key scenes that have been analyzed in this chapter I’ve shown the way in which this performativity of gender is being achieved with the use of several filmic aspects. There is a constant shift in Einar performing as Einar or performing as Lili. In these scenes there is an emphasis on hand gestures and facial expressions. In the scene in the theatre these hand gestures show Einar getting in touch with his feminine side, the moment he is able to imagine himself becoming someone else. However, in the brothel scene these hand gestures are performing this feminine identity, the moment he is able to be someone else. The emphasis is constantly on how he mimics these feminine gestures, instead of creating his own gestures, still looking at how society views women. 35

Chapter 3: Other Ways of Looking at Representation and Performance

Stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us; and performers get to be stars when they act out matters to enough people.62 - Richard Dyer

Introduction: From Spectatorship to Stardom

What I have done and shown thus far is two different ways of analyzing how the spectator is positioned in two different films that center around LGBTQ characters. In chapter one, I have analyzed the gaze in Carol, and shown how this gaze positions the spectator in queer gaze, even though the spectator himself might identify as heterosexual. In chapter two, I took a different approach and analyzed The Danish Girl and the gender performativity of Einar into Lili and vice versa. Again, I showed how this performativity of gender positioned the spectator in a queer position. What both films do is that they use different kinds of filmic aspects to not only address the spectator but help this spectator identify with someone from a different gender or sexuality by explaining and showing desires that is unknown to them. Important to note here, is that this does ask a kind of fluidity and open-mindedness from the spectator in the way they interpret and judge this. In the introduction I explained that both films raised questions of LGBTQ representation and whether these representations were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The reasoning behind choosing these two films is for different reasons that I already mentioned. They are different stories, Carol is focused around sexuality and The Danish Girl around gender identity, and completely different films altogether. However, what they do have in common is trying to create a position and identification in the spectator that is not heterosexual. Of course, this identification will not happen to everyone who sees these films, it does need some open-mindedness on the spectator’s behalf as well. When reading reviews on these films however, this is not always the case, which is not weird, every brain works differently and not everyone is opening themselves up to these views. An example from Carol, a film that is widely loved by film critics and was even called the best LGBT film by the British Film Institute,63 but still has these ‘negative’ reviews from

62 Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies, 17. 63 “The 30 Best LGBTQ+ Films of All Time,” website British Film Institute, last updated 19 July 2018, last accessed 4 March 2019, https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/30-best-lgbt-films-all-time. 36 people who not allowed themselves to be as open-minded to give meaning to non-heterosexual story. When browsing around for reviews I stumbled across a review from an American YouTuber, The Reel Opinion, who clearly did not allow himself to be placed in this queer position the film tries to achieve. His opinion is that CAROL is not a love story but simply a story of one woman who takes advantage of another woman, even going as far to calling Carol a predator.64 What all these film reviews have in common is the focus on is how the representation towards a certain LGBTQ representation are judged by comparing them to certain norms. Or the reviews focus on the fact that a LGBTQ character is portrayed by a non- LGBTQ actor, not really focusing on the quality of their performance. It is true that there is still a lack of LGBTQ actors in the film industry and also the representation of LGBTQ characters, but we still put them in these boxes instead of solely focusing on the quality of the performance of the actors and the role filmic elements play. Thus, in chapter one and two I’ve focused the analysis around the performances onscreen and how camerawork and other aesthetical features influence the spectator’s experience. However, what I also mentioned above is that these analyses leave out the performances of the actors, and thus also their identity, and how they could have a possible influence on the experience of the spectator. Philip Drake argues that there is a gap between film analysis, thus that what we analyze onscreen, and screen performance. In an article that he wrote after “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance”, in “Reframing Television Performance” he states; “My central argument was that performance is fundamentally different from representation and that all media texts are essentially performative, constructing particular relationships between performer and audience.”65 Even though in this article he analyzes television shows, his statement about performance being fundamentally different from representation, his central argument from “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance” can still be applied to film performance. Saying that representation and performance are different comes close to what I’m trying to analyze in this thesis. He is saying that media texts are constructing a relationship between the performer and his or her audience. This means that everything around the film, thus contextual, has an influence on the spectator’s experience as well. In this chapter I want to show the different ways of analyzing performativity and stardom, because there are more approaches than that of Richard Dyer and Philip Drake. The

64 “The Reel Opinion – The Danish Girl and Carol,” website YouTube, uploaded 5th of January 2016, last accessed 20 May 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx8aexR2GU4 65 Philip Drake, “Reframing Television Performance,” Journal of Film and Video, 68.3-4, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016), 6. 37 aim of this chapter is to emphasize the importance of the struggles of analyzing representation and identification. Stardom theory shows not only the ways in which past performances can have an influence on future performances, but how a star is constructed in the media and how this influences the performance as well. That would mean that representation has an influence on the identification the spectator has with the character. In the first two chapters I’ve shown you how their onscreen performances influence the spectator in combination with how the aesthetic elements play an important role in this. Following I will give a more extensive explanation of Richard Dyer’s and Philip Drake’s star theory and the influence this has on the experience of the spectator. After that there will be a short mention of a few other approaches that also analyze representation in relation to performance but in different ways. With every approach I will give a short example of how these can be applied to Cate Blanchett and Eddie Redmayne, and their roles in Carol and The Danish Girl. My aim with this chapter is show how their past performances could have an influence on their onscreen performance in Carol and The Danish Girl and how different ways of looking influence a different kind of representation and thus identification. Although, what these approaches do not include is the importance of gender and how gender can be a performance, they only focus on a different performativity, that of the actor.

Analyzing Stardom and Representation according to Dyer and Drake

As mentioned above, the way a star’s performance is received is not only through the quality of their performance but how their star quality is constructed in the media. This construction is what Philip Drake and Richard Dyer both mention in their works on stardom and screen performance. What they both try to achieve is a map of the ways in which the construction of the image the star could have an influence on how their performances are being received by the spectator. They link this to representation but do lay an emphasis on the fact that performance and representation are different from each other. In Stars and Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, Richard Dyer explains exactly how stars are being constructed by the media. He says: The star phenomenon consists of everything that is publicly available about stars. A film star’s image is not just his or her films, but the promotion of those films and of the star through pin-ups, public appearances, studio hand-outs and so on, as well as interviews, biographies and coverage in the press of the star’s doings and ‘private life. Further, a 38

star’s image is also what people say or write about him or her, as critics or commentators, the way the image is used in other contexts such as advertisements, novels, pop songs, and finally the way the star can become part of the coinage of everyday speech.66 It is the intertextuality around the star that constructs a certain star image which the star mostly has no control over and is being controlled by Hollywood and its close relationships with the big media companies. They decide what is published in magazines, how films and their stars are promoted etcetera. This for both positive and negative media images of the stars. Richard Dyer explains that it starts with the creation of a star as a ‘real’ person, even though this is sometimes far from how they in real life are. Their identities are created publicly in the media, and we only see what the media lets us see of these stars. This means that when we say something about the identity of the actor in relation to a representation in a film, that we can never know this for sure, we choose to believe whether something is true or not. These star images are produced to create a profit, for the film and for the businesses around the film, merchandise, magazines, talk shows etcetera. They are constructed to be seen as ‘real’ people with real emphatic emotions, but with a paradox, they have to be both ordinary and extraordinary in their ways. If they support and represent a certain social group than this is part of their star identity as well. If these stars, then behave outside this constructed image of them they receive negative comments on that behavior. “A star’s image can work either way, public or private, and in part we make it work according to how much it speaks to us in terms we can understand about things that are important to us.”67 This means that the spectator as well selects the things he finds important to believe and disbelieve, that adds to this construction of the star image. Philip Drake takes Dyer’s concept of stardom a bit further and arguing that stardom problematizes the discussions around the performance. He explains that, referring to Dyer’s notion of the paradox of stardom, that “… a star is recognizable outside of a particular narrative but at the same time often must construct a performance that subordinates the star image to the demands of the characterization.”68 Which means that a star must have specific traits to which it will be recognized but this must not overshadow the characteristics of the character they portray. However, it is highly unlikely that an actor can fully obliterate all their signs of their stardom from the character they are portraying. What is problematic about this is that this means

66 Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies, 2-3. 67 Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies, 14. 68 Philip Drake, “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance,” 86. 39 that if they are not able to do so, their performance is assumed as ‘bad’ and that their acting qualities is not good enough.69 Another argument he adds is the fact that, in comparison to live theatre for instance, there is a distance in between the production of the performance and its consumption. With live theatre the consumption is at the same time of the production and revolves around the presence of the audience, which gives the audience the power to influence the performance, but a film presents a past performance and can thus not be influenced by the audience.70 His central argument about screen performance is that the discourses around it almost always assume that the presence of the performer is uncomplicated. He notes that in the discourses around screen performance there is a lack of incorporating the act of acting itself, which often left out of personal interviews with actors. The theory behind the performativity of acting is thus left out, however the actors themselves often use these theoretical terms when talking they talk about their performances. “Star performances must always be recognizable as the products of stars, of individuals whose signifying function exceeds the diegesis (this is an economic imperative of stardom). It is by varying the ostensiveness of their performance, as well as external reframing signifiers (such as publicity and reviews) that they can manage this without disrupting the representation mode of the performance as a whole.71 Every bodily and facial expression has a coded meaning linked to emotional states.72 A screen performer is often aware of the way the camera frames them and they adjust their performance according to this. They have to find a way to keep the balance between these encoded ostensive sings, that are connected to them as a star, their ‘idiolect, and the characteristics of the character they are portraying. It is thus important that when analyzing performance, not just acting has to be taken into consideration, but there has to be looked at a broad spectrum of performance as well. This means that we have to look further than the onscreen performance, and analyze the contextuality of their performance, and analyze how for instance their past performances and the intertextuality of the star has had an influence on this.

69 Philip Drake, 85. 70 Philip Drake, 86. 71 Philip Drake, 93. 72 Philip Drake, 87. 40

Other ways of analyzing representation and performance

What Richard Dyer and Philip Drake achieve with their approaches is to contextualize the stardom and analyze that what makes the actor a star. It is a contextual approach that not only looks at past performances, but also how the actor is represented in the media. This star image not only constructed by Hollywood and the mass media but also by the spectator. The spectator makes an assessment of the things he wants to believe or disbelieve. Jackie Stacey, a feminist film theorist, also analyzes stars and how they are received by the spectator. In her book Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship she combines film theory with ethnography and tries to put back the female spectator in spectatorship theory. 73 She does this by investigating female spectatorship in historical and national context. Her research focuses on the female spectatorship in the forties and the fifties. In relation to representation and a stars ideology she suggests that specific context is important in this process, which she calls temporal specificities and spatial locations.74 Her central argument is that to understand the process behind representation, we need to put in context the meaning of the star in relation to a specific time and place. However, when analyzing a star in a certain place and time, and only focusing on this, could lead to the possibility that this analyzed context can be interpreted inaccurately. This approach does not focus on the performance itself, but on the contextuality of the performance and how this influences a star’s ideology. Another film historical approach is by Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery in their book Film History: Theory and Practice.75 This approach is almost the same as Stacey’s approach, but they incorporate more variables in their analyses, using a technique the call the ‘open system’. What they mean with this open system is that; “It is not just a set of components forming a whole, but an interrelated set of components that condition and are conditioned by each other.76 They suggest that when analyzing film history technological developments, economic factors, and other systems, such as the popular entertainment industry, mass communication, national economies, or other art forms, can never be separated.77 This indirectly all constructs a meaning in a film text, and when using a psychoanalytical approach a star. In this way you do not analyze in a linear way but incorporate everything you can find on the specific star and create a meaning around this star. This approach is however very time

73 Jackie Stacey, Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, New York: Routledge, 1994. 74 Jackie Stacey, 232-240. 75 Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, Film History: Theory and Practice, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1985. 76 Robert C. Allen and Douglas Gomery, Film History, 16-17. 77 Idem. 41 consuming and can also takes certain events out of context, and, just as Stacey’s approach, does not include the onscreen performance. Another approach that does include the performance is a dissertation by Daniel Leberg called The Moving Parts: Screen Acting and Empathy, which is very different from the last two approaches.78 In this dissertation he makes the distinction between acting and performing and the overlapping empathetic relationships; “[…] an Intrasubjective relationship between the actor and her character; the Intersubjective relationship among performing actors and among actors-as-characters; and, a Performative relationship between the actor and her audience.”79 With this dissertation he wants to create, as an alternative to Performance Studies, a new theoretical way of looking at film acting, one which speaks from the actor outwards towards the spectator. This is different from Dyer’s Star Studies he argues because in Star studies the actor only exists as a ‘by-product’ of the text in which the actor performs, and the quality of acting behind the performance is left out. His approach then, includes the perspective of the performer when analyzing screen-acting. In this way the performance creates an important part of the work the actor instead of analyzing a single performance of the actor.80 Thus, instead of focusing on a single performance, we have to incorporate all the performances to give meaning to the acting style of an actor, which then includes the intentionality of the actor and.

Performativity of Gender versus Performativity of Acting

Each abovementioned approach focuses on something a different aspect of the performance of an actor, however these aspects are mostly contextual. These contextual approaches show how the reception of a performance can be influenced by numerous things around the film. Which means that when looking at a film, in order to identify with a character to representation, we apply all this knowledge we already acquired before watching the film instead of distancing ourselves from this knowledge. This all has an effect on the reception and thus representation and identification. Because these approaches are different they could have a different outcome as well, and even if the outcome would be the same they can still be received differently. How we receive a performance and representation is personal and, in a way, subjective, because the receiver has the ability to filter the information he deems important in order to give meaning to

78 Daniel H.M. Leberg, The Moving Parts: Screen Acting and Empathy, PhD Dissertation, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2018. (access made possible by thesis supervisor who is co-promotor of this dissertation) 79 Daniel H.M. Leberg, 12. 80 Daniel H.M. Leberg, 26. 42 the performance. When analyzing LGBTQ representation in film we have to make a decision on what we deem important in this representation. This could be the quality of the performance of the actor, the way the camera and different filmic aspects position the spectator towards the character, or how the narrative addresses this representation. When analyzing the performance of the actor we often leave out these filmic aspects that have a huge influence on the spectator in addressing a topic. Especially with analyzing LGBTQ representation, gender is an important subject that cannot be left out. However, gender is a difficult subject to address in a film or an analysis because people give different definitions. Some say that gender is the same as sexuality, which is nowadays not the case. What all these approaches and different types of analyses have in common is the fact that they still try to label someone’s identity, that of the actor, the character or the spectator. To be able to give meaning to a performance we still try to pin an identity to the actor or the spectator, the focus is still on their gender. We still add value to someone’s performance because we need to identify their gender in order to identify as a spectator with the character. However, in order to achieve a full queer gaze would mean that we would need to stop labeling these performances according to someone’s gender identity. If this ‘identity’ is achieved that it is seen as a success, if not than it is a failure. Jack Halberstam mentions in his book The Queer Art of Failure: From the perspective of feminism, failure has often been a better bet than success. Where feminine success is always measured by male standards, and gender failure often means being relieved of the pressure to measure up to patriarchal ideals, not succeeding at womanhood can offer unexpected pleasures.81 Halberstam explains that queer success is always compared to heterosexual standards that society has made our norm. He introduces low theory in this book, explaining that low theory is a way to deconstruct these norms that have established these success and failure norms in our society by trying to locate the in-between spaces.82 This is just a short explanation of this theory but it shows that our judgements of a performance can never be fully objective, because we always base them on these norms, whether they are about gender, success, sexuality, quality etcetera. This means that in order to achieve a full queer gaze in a film, or as a spectator, that we would need to deconstruct these power dynamics that society has based on these gendered

81 J. Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011, 4. On the cover Halberstam is mentioned as Judith, but he also goes by the name and identity of Jack, does not have a preference of pronoun, but lately goes through life as Jack. 82 J. Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, 15-18. 43 and heteronormative norms. This would then create a gaze that would be free from these binary notions and open a space where we do not define identities on these heterosexual gendered norms but allow to include plural identities as well.

In today’s society, it is difficult to make judgements on a performance that are completely objective. Judgements are, especially in film reviews, based on opinions that we indirectly base on these societal norms we life by every day. In order to step away from these often gendered norms we need to create a position, a gaze, that is different and outside our comfort zones. What this chapter has shown is that there is a multitude of possibilities to analyze a film and its performance. The performance and the acting qualities of the actor can be analyzed, but there is not really a definitive acting or performance acting theory that we can use. If we base our analysis on star theory than we see that all this outside contextual influence can create different opinions for different people. A star is often a construction of the film industry, which means that to base your opinions of a star performance on its identity can never be certain. What these approaches all have in common is that we still try to label a performance with success or failure, that we base on these norms, instead of deconstructing them and not applying these norms. What they also have in common is that they leave out the importance of the filmic elements that influence the spectator’s experience while watching a film. In chapter one and two, I have tried to analyze the performativity of gender and the queer gaze by mostly looking at these filmic aspects, not focusing on the contextuality of these films and the identities of the actors. By isolating these key scenes, it is possible to create a temporary queer gaze in the spectator, which is just a small representation but it is there.

Towards a Queer Society; A Conclusion

Representation that influences identification is a something that will never be easy to analyze, however when reviewing a film, we always come back to whether a representation is truthful or realistic, a failure or a success. But is there a way we can actually analyze this when identification is something that is personal and subjective. If we take Judith Butler’s notion of identification, something that is fluid and is more a desired event or accomplishment that one tries to achieve but which can never be fully achieved. When looking at LGBTQ representation in film there is a huge emphasis on the successes and failures of these kind of representations. Studies confirm that in film the LGBTQ community is highly underrepresented, but these studies are mostly focused around the quantity of representation and show how these representations are often stereotyped. This lack of representation of the LGBTQ community also shows in award shows, for example the Academy Awards, a ‘high-profile’ Hollywood award show which is worldwide covered in the mass media. This underrepresentation is onscreen, there are not many LGBTQ characters, but there are also not many LGBTQ actors who portray LGBTQ roles. This often spikes debates when for instance non-LGBTQ actors are praised for portraying LGBTQ characters. When non-LGBTQ actors portray LGBTQ characters, there is a lot of emphasis in whether their performance is representational for the LGBTQ community. If this representation then is not ‘good enough’ the film and performance are seen as controversial and a failure. However, what this leaves out are the past performances of the actors and whether this applies to a collective or are personal responses. What they also leave out is that they are still based on norms, not really allowing plural possibilities of judgements and identities. What I have tried to achieve in this thesis is to show different ways in which representation can be analyzed in relation to performance. In the first two chapters I have analyzed the onscreen performance while using a reworking of the gaze into a queer gaze and gender performativity. The gaze can be used to analyze the way of looking in a film and how this then influences the way the spectator sees the film and its characters. In Carol this is a queer gaze and with this queer gaze it tries to implement this gaze, just for a moment, in the spectator, even if the spectator would identify as heterosexual. The combination of the acting and other filmic aspects it creates a desire in the spectator that he or she might not have known. The Danish Girl, in a way, tries the same with the same kind of technique, but with a transgender gaze. However, the focus in the analysis is on the performativity of gender in the 45 film and how they influence the position spectator. These two films give perfect examples of showing a desire that is not known to the heterosexual gaze, but which a heterosexual spectator could identify with because the filmic aspects and performance isolate them from what they know and feel. They are immersed into a desire, that is not their own that they are able to identify with for just a brief moment. They do so with using the same kind of filmic techniques that emphasize the desires of the characters. In chapter three, I gave a few examples of other possible ways to analyze representation in film by looking at the context of the film, mostly linked to the actor. Instead of applying these to the case studies, I have shortly explained how they are executed and what they aim. What these other approaches show is not only that there are different ways of analyzing but also that they can have different outcomes. How we receive a performance and give meaning to this performance is already influenced by numerous inputs outside the film and the performance of the actor. If we would have analyzed Cate Blanchett’s or Eddie Redmayne’s stardom, we would have to look at every past performance, interviews, reviews etcetera. What is problematic with such an approach is that it is not only a personal and subjective outcome, it is also a quick snapshot. What I am trying to argue is that what I would deem important for such an analysis, someone else maybe deems unimportant. Such an analysis is a snapshot because it the outcome of the analysis could be different in five years, because we would have more material to analyze. With all this in mind, thinking back to the discussions of LGBTQ representation in films and how these spark debates in the media do we really have the power to deem something successful of a failure if we base them on different norms. If identification is fluid and personal, then that would mean that our perception of representation can also be fluid and change over time. I want to propose that we need to find a more neutral way to view LGBTQ representation in film that includes everything. This means that saying a representation is a success or a failure should not be solely based on the characteristics of a fictional character in a fictitious film. This also means that we should leave out the importance of the identity of the actor when portraying a LGBTQ character. When watching a film, we have no control over what we see and are always guided and manipulated by camerawork, the narrative and other filmic aspects. We have to remind ourselves that we will never be able to view a film without projecting our own views and beliefs to them, and that we are influenced by everything around us. Just as Judith Butler’s notion of gender, we have to try to be more fluid in our position as a spectator and be able to subject ourselves to different views and representations in order to identify with them, which is the first step to creating a binary free judgement. 46

Sources

Films

Carol. Directed by Todd Haynes. 2015. Cinemien, 2016, Blu-Ray.

The Danish Girl. Directed by Tom Hooper. 2015. Universal Pictures, 2016, Blu-Ray.

Literature

Allen, Robert C. and Douglas Gomery Film History: Theory and Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies. 1985.

Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York: Routledge. 2011.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. 2006.

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal. Vol. 40, No. 4. 1988.

Drake, Philip “Reconceptualizing Screen Performance.” Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 58, No. 1/2. 2006.

Drake, Philip. “Reframing Television Performance.” Journal of Film and Video, 68.3-4. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2016.

Dyer, Richard. Stars. London: New York Film Institute. 1979.

Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: Routledge. 1986.

Elsaesser, Thomas, and Malte Hagener, “Cinema as Eye – Look and Gaze.” Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses. New York: Routledge. 2015.

Erigha, Maryann. “Race, Gender, Hollywood: Representation in Cultural Production and Digital Media’s Potential for Change.” Sociology Compass, 9:1. 2015.

Evans, Caroline, and Lorraine Gamman. “The Gaze Revisited, or Reviewing Queer Viewing.” A Queer Romance: Lesbians, Gay Men and Popular Culture. London: Routledge. 1995. This edition was published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

Halberstam, J. Jack. In a Queer Time and Place, New York: New York University Press, 2005.

Halberstam, J. Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 2011.

Jagose, Annemarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press. 1996.

Manlove, Clifford T., “Visual “Drive” and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock and Mulvey.” Cinema Journal. Vol. 46, No.3. 2007.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Visual and Other Pleasures. New York: Palgrave. 1989.

Leberg, Daniel H.M. The Moving Parts: Screen Acting and Empathy. PhD Dissertation, Universiteit van Amsterdam. 2018. (access made possible by thesis supervisor who is co-promotor of this dissertation)

Smelik, Anneke. “1. What meets the Eye: An Overview of Feminist Film Theory.” And the Mirror Cracked: Feminist Cinema and Film Theory. London: MacMillan Press, 1998.

Stacey, Jackie. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship. New York: Routledge, 1994. 48

Websites

“Academy Awards, 2016.” Website Internet Movie Database. Last accessed 6 March 2019. https://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2016/1?ref_=ttawd_ev_1.

“All voters and votes: The 30 Best LGBT Films of All Time.” Website British Film Institute. Last updated 21 February 2018. Last accessed 4 March 2019. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news- opinion/news-bfi/lists/all-voters-votes-30-best-lgbt-films-all-time.

“Carol,” website Metacritic, last accessed 13 June 2019, https://www.metacritic.com/movie/carol.

“Feminist Film Theory,” website Oxford Dictionary of Film Studies, last accessed 16 January 2019,http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199587261.001.0001/acref -9780199587261-e-0265?rskey=UUYHBm&result=267.

“List of LGBT Academy Award Winners and Nominees.” Wikipedia. Last accessed 4 March. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBT_Academy_Award_winners_and_nomine es.

“Lili Elbe Biography.” Website Biography.com. Last updated 23 August 2018. Last accessed 6 March 2019. https://www.biography.com/people/lili-elbe-090815.

“The Danish Girl,” website Metacritic, last accessed 13 June 2019, https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-danish-girl.

“The 30 Best LGBTQ+ Films of All Time.” Website British Film Institute. Last updated 19 July 2018. Last accessed 4 March 2019. https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news- bfi/features/30-best-lgbt-films-all-time.

“The Reel Opinion – The Danish Girl and Carol,” website YouTube, uploaded January 5 2016, last accessed 20 May 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx8aexR2GU4.

Anderson, Ariston. “Rome: Cate Blanchett Defends Straight Actors Playing Gay Characters.” 49

Website The Hollywood Reporter. Published 19 October 2018. Last accessed 6 March 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/rome-cate-blanchett-defends-straight- actors-playing-gay-characters-1154008.

GLAAD Media Institute. “About.” website GLAAD.org. Last accessed 4 March 2019. https://www.glaad.org/about.

GLAAD Media Institute. “Studio Responsibility Index 2018.” website GLAAD.org. Last accessed 16 January 2019. https://www.glaad.org/sri/2018.

Leszkiewicz, Anne. “Behind Carol: the photographers who influenced Todd Haynes’ award winning film,” website NewStatesman, published 27 November 2015. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/art-design/2015/11/behind-carol- photographers-who-influenced-todd-haynes-award-winning-film.

Jill Gutowitz, “This Year’s Oscars Will Be the Queerest Ever. But There’s a Bigger Story Behind the Numbers,” website Time, published January 23, 2019, last accessed 13 April, 2019, http://time.com/5510371/2019-oscar-nominations-queer/.

Smith, S.E. “Why The Danish Girl’s Oscar loss is a satisfying win for trans women.” Website PRI. Published 12 March 2016. Last accessed 6 March 2019. https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-12/why-danish-girl-s-oscar-loss-satisfying-win- trans-women.

Website Howard Greenberg Gallery that had a Saul Leiter exhibition in 2008 and shows his work. http://www.howardgreenberg.com/exhibitions/saul-leiter-women.