Visual Pleasure, Fetishism and the Problem of Feminine/Feminist Discourse: Ulrike Ottinger's Ticket of No Return

Abstract

According toJ. Hoberman, Ticket of No Return is funniest, most formally intentive, and totally befuddled attack on demon rum in the 50 years since D. W. Griffith's much misappreciated swan song, The Struggle.' Social realism, lighted by an experimental and even humorous touch; avant-garde comedy, redeemed by social consciousness, either way, and praise and irony notwithstanding, male film critic once again integrates woman's work into the Great Tradition,not accidentally as represented by minor work of major director, Angela McRobbie, on the other hand, emphasizes precisely the film's distance from such tradition when she describes Ticket ofNo Return as a celebration of lesbian punk anti-realism. Where traditional criticism invokes an establishment precedent, the feminist critic focuses on the possibility of an alternative tradition, tradition that aims to subvert the gender-specific hierarchies inscribed in patriarchal cinema. Thus Ottinger's films, according to McRobbie, represent landmarks in the development of women's erotic cinema.' Not all feminist response to Ottinger's work shares such enthusi-