| Certain blanks can be found in the translation,interpretation,evaluation and theoretical elucidation of feminist film theory in domestic academia.This lack of theory makes it difficult to cope with the domestic feminist film-making practice in recent years and to promote the interaction among film theory,movie-making and criticism from the theoretical level.Therefore,it is necessary to sort out the rise,development and main characteristics of foreign feminist film theories(mainly in Britain and America)systematically,and to discuss and evaluate these theories,so as to provide theoretical resources for the development of domestic feminist film research and criticism.Social and political movement of women and feminist ideas are the important social and cultural background for the birth of feminist film theory.Feminist film theory originated from different political and cultural ecology in Britain and America.The former was influenced by the new leftist cultural criticism theory,while the latter was closely related to mass cultural criticism and the rise of professional film magazines.Feminist film theory was influenced by film criticism and film-making practice in the early stage of its development,which benefited each other.Feminist movement gave birth to feminist film criticism,while feminist film theorists’ criticism and movie-making practice provided source for theoretical construction,which were all integrated into feminist movement.However,feminist film theory was born in the early stage of its development,and its defects and limitations in the cognition of female subject are obvious,such as its essentialism,holistic tendency and universalism.Psychoanalysis feminist film theory is the most important and influential school of feminist film theory.Concepts of femininity in feminist film theory are deeply influenced by Freud’s theory of sex,self-development theory and theory on femininity.Lacan’s "mirror stage" and research on femininity provide theoretical inspiration for Laura Mulvey,Mary An Doane,Teresa De Laurentis and others to study female spectator-subjects."spectator position" is an important concept in psychoanalytic film research.Laura Mulvey put forward the viewing position of masochism/sadism,and she built a spectator theory based on voyeurism and exhibitionism by relying on the dualistic opposites of "male/female" and "active/passive".Although Laura Mulvey put forward the concept of "transvestite" in her 1989 paper to make up for the deficiency of her previous theory,the applicability of this term is limited to "woman’s film" and melodramas with transvestite plots,so its theoretical defects are obvious.Mary Ann Donne put forward the concept of "masquerade" in movies and tried to establish a more active female spectator position in Film and Masquerade.She criticized the excessive determinism in Mulvey’s theory of spectator position,and put forward theoretical questions about female spectators by analyzing the roles and narrative modes in woman’s films.These theories are deeply influenced by European ideological criticism theory,structuralism and psychoanalytic subject theory.They are not only applicable to specific old Hollywood films,but also run the risk of fixing meaning and identity in the text or ideological determinism,and ignore agency of viewer as the social and cultural subject.Feminist film scholars introduced "audience",considered as the subject of social history into film theory,which opened up the research direction of feminist culture study on film.The terminology of female subject in feminist film culture research mainly comes from Stuart Hall’s "Encoding/Decoding" theory and Homi K.Bhabha’s "mimicry" theory of post-colonial discourse.The "pleasurable negotiation" in film research and the study of colored women are inspired by cultural studies,and the relationship between stars and audiences,the study of subjectivity of feminist theorists and the interpretation of audiences as events are important manifestations.Feminist film theory was revised from the 1980 s to the mid-1990 s,and the research on differences represented by sexual orientation,class and race promoted its theoretical reconstruction.Feminist film theorists in 1980 s reflected and reconstructed the previous theory.The psychoanalytic feminism of film research began to reflect on Freud and Lacan’s theories,and introduced the theoretical achievements such as "fantasy" research and "abject" which had not been paid enough attentions to before.After the influence of cultural studies has spread to the field of feminism,feminist ethnic minorities,marginalized groups and third world theories are more influenced by cultural negotiation theory,ethnography and sociological methods.When revised in this period,the major challenge it faced was how to link these theoretical issues with culture studies,so as to make its theoretical vision more open and inclusive.Generally speaking,the theoretical source and philosophical origin of feminist film theory come from three theoretical systems in European philosophical thoughts,such as structuralism semiotics,psychoanalysis and Marxism(mainly Louis Pierre Althusser and Gramsci Antonio).By combing the important research branches,core concepts,research topics and development history of feminist film theory,we can divide the complicated and long-standing feminist film theory into dominant schools and non-dominant schools.Ideological criticism,sociology,psychoanalysis and structuralism played a dominant role in feminist film theory from 1970 s to 1980 s.The dominant schools of text-oriented theory faced with disadvantages of ahistorical and anti-experience.Their theories on female subject did not take audience as social subject into account.The determinism,dualism and universalism in their research make it difficult to apply it to the analysis and research of social and realistic audience.The feminist cultural studies school challenged the views of the leading schools,forcing them to revise their opinions.Cultural studies introduced the concepts of social subject and negotiation into feminist film studies,but as it overemphasized the agency and interpretation ability of "good audience",it was also difficult to solve the theoretical problems caused by the opposition between textual subject and social subject,and it was easy to fall into a misunderstanding of relativism and populism.At the end of the 20 th century,when the concepts of "white privilege","heterosexualism" and even "gender" were challenged and questioned,the study of differences dispelled the previously preferred concept of undifferentiated female subject to some extent,disintegrating the "sisterhood" which once maintained and provided faith for feminist movements and academic sphere.Women groups are faced with difficulties in reorganizing their power and solidarity. |
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