Feminism Film Art History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Feminism Film Art History - Essay Example Blackmail (1929) is a story of a shopkeeper’s daughter Alice and her detective fiancà ©. At a wider perspective, the plot of the film can be well viewed from a feminist perspective as well. Blackmail is also a story of a women fighting against law and the issues of deconstructing a body of a women to a mere commodity and finding an alibi of art for the gratification of sexual appetite. It is the violence that has been taken into consideration repeatedly in the film through cinematic aesthetics. Also for Modleski, the interpretation of various scenes in the film can be interpreted from various dimensions. The studio incident with Alice and her assault is viewed in the light of sexual violence inflicted upon women where as a male critic can view it from an aesthetic of a body and its intricacies. Blackmail is a story with a women and her consciousness at the central plane and a delicate problem as well as relation of a woman and law. On one hand, the film’s central projection is on the punishment of woman for the reason of subordinating the law for her own desire and also for flaunting the bond that ties her with it which is her engagement with a member of the police force. On the other plane, we are presented with a more complicated relationship between the law and woman and also its abrupt failure to accommodate an experience of lady in patriarchal society. Modleski strongly raises the issue of attempted rape and silencing of women. Modleski contends that Alice is not provided with a voice rather she is objectified. She indicates that the painting of the Jester is used deliberately to put women on the realm of an inferior sex. Jester becomes the icon, the archetypal of male dominated society representing himself as a laughing male to both Alice and her fiancà © Frank. Jester again stops Alice and condemns her from laughing at the end of the film. He also reminds Frank of his deceiving fiancà ©