Feminisms

Email:

On page 8, Silverman says that a man in a film's audience "traces his suffering ... to his being out of touch with the breathing world about him, that stream of things and events which, were it flowing through him, would render his existence more exciting and significant. He misses 'life.' And he is attracted to cinema because it gives him the illusion of vicariously partaking of life in its fullness." In Silverman's films, the women are subordinate and dependent on men. They need rescuing and, lo and behold, the only brave soul that can do it is a man. But living vicariously through film implies that you are living a life that you do not have. So does this mean that in real life men are dependent on women and rescued by them? Maybe they are: Behind every good man is a great woman who provides stability and nourishment for her husband. And many women are attracted to "bad boys" with the hopes that they can change them and turn them into their own Pygmalion (another film that men live "vicariously" through). Maybe these films reinforce the patriarchy because men know that it's crumbling, that they're really not in charge, that they would be nowhere without the women in their lives. The head of my medical practice says, "Every doctor needs a wife. I would be nowhere without mine. I'm sorry that you as a women can't have a wife. You'll have to find a suitable substitute...maybe your mother."