Gazes and Cinematic Readings of Gender: Danzon and its Relationship to its Audience

Abstract

Gazes and Cinematic Readings of Gender:Danzón and its Relationship to its Audience Norma Iglesias (bio) Translated by José Pablo Villalobos (bio) Though Mexican cinema has been the object of numerous studies, few of these refer to the process of audience reception: to that intimate moment of cinematic communication in which the gazing subject discovers part of its identity while simultaneously appropriating the film. In this article I would like to share the findings of a research project that advances the study of audience reception from the perspective of gender. A project, in other words, that seeks to recognize the relationship established by diverse gendered subjects/audiences with a film made by a woman. In such an undertaking, the gendered subjectivity of the director, of the researcher, as well as of the audience that interprets both the film and its own reactions to it are all put into play. My point of departure is the recognition that women directors disclose their gendered subjectivity through film and that this feminine subjectivity motivates, stimulates, and questions the gender of the subject that interprets the film. Studies on the characteristics of women's film have shown that female creators commonly present a feminine—and in some cases feminist—gaze and perspective of the reality they choose to narrate. Thanks to the presence of female directors, the feminine subject narrates and the narrated subject has gone from object to subject, thus occupying [End Page 173] an active control over discourse (See all listings for De Lauretis, Kaplan, Kuhn, and Penley in "Works Cited"). Women directors have created the possibility that they be included as creative subject and not as objects of the traditional cinematic gaze. This subjectivity is expressed in various areas such as the use of themes related to women's everyday lives, the development of strong female characters that are more complex than those of traditional female roles, the fact that these stories and their narrative point of view tend to value feminine subjectivity, as well as the incorporation of new rhythms, narratives, perspectives, and forms. In summary, this is a cinema that attempts to be different by depicting the peculiar way in which life is experienced by women. It establishes in the cinematic code a gendered identity equipped with an awareness that allows it to question itself and whose film product is generated from within (Millán, 1996, 1997, 1999; Hershfield, 1995, Iglesias, 2004). Beyond modifying the horizon of representation, feminine cinematographic narrative also questions the audience's reading and appropriation process (Mulvey, 1990; Iglesias, 1994, 1998). In this article, I will present part of a larger research project whose objective is to understand how these transgressions of the order of discourse are read, reinterpreted, and appropriated by various audiences according to gender while considering the different discursive practices with which various identity positions choose to express themselves. In very general terms, cinema is one of the many instances that participate in the social and cultural creation and recreation of gender. In the cinematic realm, the contribution of women is precisely found in questioning and deconstructing established, masculinist practices in order to create "new femininities" that stem from new gender relationships. It is precisely these characteristics of feminine and masculine modes that are the subject of this study, but rather than approaching this subject in an abstract way, my method goes directly to the oral reconstruction of a film directed by a woman. Through a gendered cinematic work it becomes possible to understand part of the process of reception that constitutes the "talking about" a film, the telling of a reading-appropriation-interpretation of a specific film. I am not solely speaking of analyzing the act of watching a film, but of the plotting that takes place in its re-elaboration when talking about and discussing the movie in a group setting. The idea is to make a type of x-ray (in that it reveals aspects not seen to the naked eye and that it is selective) of an intimate moment in which underlying gendered power structures are brought forth in the exercise of interpreting a film and [End Page 174] its particular images. In this way I analyze...