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Fest of Belles and Queens: Actresses European and Hollywood

Looking at Looking: Sexuality, Liberation and Feminism

Sam Ho

This program is about looking, being looked at and looking at looking.

It’s been 47 years since Laura Mulvey changed the way we look, publishing in 1975 her seminal essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Written at the height of second-wave feminism, Mulvey’s work introduced the notion of “male gaze”, arguing that women are viewed in mainstream cinema through the eyes of men, which reduce them to passive objects of desire.

Second-wave feminism and Mulvey’s thesis were responses — at least in part — to the sexual revolution that had been simmering quietly in the western world after World War II and blossomed in earnest in the free-loving 1960s. Ironically, the spirit of non-conformity that gave rise to sexual liberation at once intensified gender inequality but also called attention to it, as indulgence in the newfound freedom resulted in men exercising and exploiting their dominance over women, who, taking advantage of that same freedom, pushed back. Mulvey’s identification of the male gaze’s power to objectify, that the simple act of looking is a loaded weapon perpetuating gender prejudice, was one of the most profound discoveries of our time.

Although Mulvey’s thesis was based primarily on Hollywood films, it can be applied to European cinema just the same. While the European film industry had historically been less burdened with the puritanical attitude towards sex the way America was, it was still very much dominated by men. Hedy Lamarr (appearing in her maiden surname Kiesler) did not streak and orgasm herself into history in Ecstasy (1933) without following instructions from the male director Gustav Machaty. Brigitte Bardot might have helped usher in the sexual revolution by sashaying her way into human consciousness with her breakthrough performance in Et Dieu… créa la femme (1956), but she did not accomplish that without being guided by the loving gaze of then husband Roger Vadim.

Did Bardot enjoy being looked at? She went on to become an iconic embodiment of sexual freedom and even hedonistic indulgence. But are being objectified to generate voyeuristic pleasure for men and constructed to reinforce the patriarchy part of her legacy? Since Lamarr and Bardot, European cinema had never stopped exploring the possibilities of adult themes and using sexuality to examine larger issues. Sexual depiction went from softcore titillation to graphic shock while also oscillating between pandering to primal or exploitative urges and the questioning or challenging of norms sexual, social and political.

Such is the greatness of intellectual pursuits that Mulvey’s provocative insights triggered debates and criticisms. One of the most significant reproaches was that the views in her initial essay were based only on white sensibilities. Black American activists, especially those involved in feminism’s third wave, spoke up against views defined and dominated by white thinkers and writers, which perpetuated racial prejudice while pursuing gender equality. Author bell hooks, for example, proposed employing an “oppositional gaze” to augment the black person’s right to look.

What about the Asian gaze? Or, more specifically, the Hong Kong gaze? What happens when an Asian male looks at the objectified image of a white woman? Or when an Asian woman looks at the objectified image of a white woman? What kind of oppositional gaze should be assumed by Asians – women, men, transgender and otherwise? And what about the white woman’s gaze – on Asians female, male, transgender and otherwise? What kind of gaze results when gender prejudice is loaded with racism? Can white feminists harbor racist sentiments when they look at Asian patriarchal practices? If so, should Asian men assume an oppositional gaze against white racist feminists while coming to terms with our own patriarchal prejudices?

European cinema and western thoughts in general had greatly inspired the people of Hong Kong and the Asian people. But that inspiration had been complicated by one of modern time’s disquieting atrocities, that of the west looking at Asia and Asians through jaundiced gaze. This in turn led to an even more appalling atrocity, when Asians started looking at our own land, our own culture and our own people through western gaze, eager to objectify ourselves while striving to become faithful replicas of westerners.

Here in Hong Kong, watching European sex goddesses had been – and still is – an extremely complicated endeavor. Alternative cinema, with its tradition of challenging established morality, had always attracted voyeurs, especially heterosexual men. This is especially true of European films, which, in addition to the casual display of nudity, often couple those challenges with continental sensuousness. Our patriarchal gaze is therefore often loaded with white-envy, peeking not only at the exposed skin but also at the values and culture deeper than skin. And when that gaze is guided by white-male sensibilities, the plot thickens even more.

It’s an experience of the good, the bad and the beautiful, the latter referring not only to the beauty of the human form but also the beauty of art.

The history of art is punctuated with wonderful works informed unfortunately by morally apprehensive sentiments. The silent film Birth of a Nation and the opera Turandot for example. D. W. Griffith’s 1915 movie and Puccini’s final work are both masterpieces. They are also racist. It is humanity’s fortune that we can now look back at them, embrace them for their artistic triumphs, criticize them for their moral failures, ponder and discuss the context with which they were produced, and forge ahead with the lessons learned from them.

European belles exercising their sexuality on film were acts of liberation, part of the sexual revolution that was itself an integral part of the evolution of human civilization. But their liberty was, at least initially, partly animated by the men behind the cameras, projecting prejudices shared by spectators through time and space. Yet, with progress in gender politics, the male gaze had taken on complexity. Asians watching European women through the gaze of European men add an extra dimension to the complexity.

Brigitte Bardot in Et Dieu… créa la femme (1956), Anna Karina in Une femme est une femme (1961), Sophia Loren in Matrimonio all’italiana (1964), Françoise Dorléac in La peau douce (1964), Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion (1965), Laura Antonelli in L’innocente (1976), Juliette Binoche in Rendez-vous (1985), Emmanuelle Béart in La belle noiseuse (1991), Isabelle Adjani in La Reine Margot (1994), Monica Bellucci in Malèna (2000). Directed by Roger Vadim, Jean-Luc Godard, Vittorio De Sica, François Truffaut, Roman Polanski, Luchino Visconti, André Téchiné, Jacques Rivette, Patrice Chéreau, Giuseppe Tornatore.

This program on European actresses started as a presentation from a distribution perspective, an important but often neglected angle, especially when it comes to alternative or semi-commercial cinema. Longtime distributor Wong Hoi, based on his rich experience in the field, came up with the topic. Sonia Au and myself were then invited to co-curate. We discovered during the selection of films that European cinema was too wide a scope to cover in just a few films and decided to limit our sight on French and Italian actresses. Other European cinemas that had featured wonderful actresses while offering insights into the complexity of sexuality – those of Germany and Sweden, for example – will have to be examined in a separate forum.

Films in this program were chosen for their confluence of art, politics and morality. It is our hope that this endeavor can elicit thoughts, discussions and debates.

Co-curators: Wong Hoi, Sam Ho, Sonia Au