I recently attended a screening of the Murnau's 1927 silent film, Sunrise! at the Edmonton Film Festival. Murnau claims the story to be a "song of two humans"; that it is not a depiction of any two specific individuals, but a general series of events that occurs to some extent in any romantic relationship. Because it is a silent film, every action and gesture is extremely hyperbolic and excessive in order to "speak" to the audeince. In the movie, a married farm boy falls in love with a woman from the city who convinces him to kill his wife so that he can escape his life and start a new one with her. He attempts the murder but fails, comes to the beautiful epiphany that he loves his wife after all, and begs for her back. She, being the typical "normal", docile woman she is, takes him back with open arms and they live happily ever after (after she nearly drowns and is miraculously saved). It is quite interesting that attempting to murder your spouse is a normal occurance in every relationship. Definitely not something to be alarmed about. Its normal! And it's even more normal to forgive and forget (if you're the woman) and live happily ever after. The funny thing is, I highly doubt that it was Murnau's sole intention to hypebolize the inherent patriarchy in every single relationship that ever there was in order to expose and stick it to the norms. Anyways, it's just a thought.
On another note, this summer I had the pleasure of visiting the Louvre, home of the Mona Lisa, in Paris. Having been actually shoved out of the way by an elderly woman so that she could get a better view of the masterpiece, I stand by my theory that the reproduction of Art does not "shrivel the aura" of the original. The mass amounts of people who waited in line for three hours in the blistering heat, paid twelve dollars and aggressively moved their way through the swarms of tourists surrounding Leonardo's work could have simply purchased a refrigerator magnet from the gift shop downstairs. But that was not the case. They all felt the need to be in the presence of it; to be absorbed by it. And I have to say, it did feel like a very asocial environment to be in. Probably because everyone was simultaneuosly contemplating the art, distancing themselves from everything around them. But mainly because I was shoved.
Moving on to the disturbing scene from The L-Word. I think its awesome that ideas that really make us question dominant discourse in our society are now being shown on real live TV. Like, say for instance, a woman being raped? by her lesbian lover. While the thoughts that ran thorugh my head were disturbed ones, not once did I comtemplate whether it was a rape scene. To be completely honest, I actually felt some sympathy for the one who was in Flash Dance (raper?...) . Was it because she was a woman? I highly doubt that if her character was a male, I would have felt bad OR questioned for a milli-second whether it was rape or not. It's amazing how many norms and discourses are exposed by that 3 minute scene.
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Heloooooo!
I empathize with your asocial moment in the Louvre, getting shoved and all. I had a similar experience, only I received an elbow while on my tip-toes trying to avoid the line, completely lost my balance and wiped out, adding to the exhaustion that had set in that day. What struck me most is that no one really noticed. Asocial to the point that people could literally push others to the ground and not nocie. Due to my embarassment,it was both a relief and an annoyance...am I invisible? Why doesnt anyone love me? But we will save that for therapy.
Onto the L-Word scene...I have watched that scene probably ten times, because I feel it is necessary for everyone I know to watch the L-Word, and it still makes me feel somewhat confused/uncomfortable. Right from the beginning I was horrified at Bette (the initial 'rapist') for forcing herself upon Tina, and I wonder if my homosexuality has anything to do with that, or if I was just ridiculously emotionally invested in the show and was taking it all very personally, haha.
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