White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory

Abstract

orn in Flames, a feminist science fiction film set ten years after a Social-Democratic revolution in the U.S., provides an abrupt reminder of the place of theory in the context of social change. Toward the end of the film, with the women's takeover of New York communications channels in progress, the voice of theory is heard over the image, insisting that women also need to take over the production of language. Although the film gives credence to the voice of theory (a white female British-accented voice), it is clear that the militant Women's Emergency Brigade and the martyred Black lesbian leader are carrying the revolutionary moment. What strikes me about the juxtaposition images of women hot-wiring U-Haul trucks and the voice of theory urging women to take control of their own images is that the voice sounds so crisply detached and arid.' What I want to discuss is not so much the scene as the tenor of the