Disciplining Sex in Hollywood: A Critical Comparison of Blue Valentine and Black Swan

l^cztie L. SioSon Be.ac/i C a/I fat nia State tniVfitSity, ^'^^ Beac/l

The films Blue Valentine and Black Swan depict the same sex act but received different ratings from the MPAA. We draw from theories of the male gaze and the panoptical male connoisseur to argue that Blue Valentine challenges the power of patriarchial surveillance by producing a resistant cinematic gaze that privileges a female vantage point and aflirms female sexual pleasure. Conversely, we contend that Black Swan reinscribes patriarchal power by following traditional conventions of the male gaze to emphasize themes of lesbian-spectacle, sexual pleasure as madness, and the good-girl-gone-bad. We demonstrate how cultural knowledge of female sexuality is disciplined and argue that it was Blue Valentine's challenge to patriarchy and not the explicit nature of its sex scene that earned it a punitive rating by the MPAA. Key Words: film, sexuality, male gaze, feminist criticism, disciplinary power

The dramatic films Blue Valentine and Black Swan were released almost simultaneously in late 2010. Both films won national and international critical acclaim, both featured a female lead who would be nominated for an Academy Award, and both films included a sex scene depicting cunnilingus. In Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling's character Dean performs oral sex on Michelle Williams' character Cindy during the early stages of their relationship, a scene that demonstrates Cindy and Dean's growing intimacy and commitment to each other. In Black Swan, Mila Kunis' character Lily performs oral sex on Natalie Portman's character, Nina, after a night of excessive partying, a scene which signifies Nina's loss of her inhibitions and the emergence of her dark side. Neither scene shows explicit nudity. However, the films received different ratings from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)Black Swan was rated R (viewers under the age of 17 require an accompanying parent or legal guardian) and Blue Valentine was rated NC-17 (no one under the age of 17 is admitted). The impact of the MPAA rating on a film's commercial success is significant: NC17 rated films get severely limited distribution in movie theaters and DVD retailers/ rental stores, they receive limited advertisement in the media, and only once has an

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NC-17 rated film been awarded an Oscar for Best Picture.' Therefore, the decision to apply different ratings to Blue Valentine and Black Swan by the MPAA contributed to a media frenzy in which film critics, journalists, producers, directors, and actors publicly criticized the MPAA for the alleged arbitrary nature of its criteria, for its conservative bias, and for its hypocrisy. The Weinstein Company, the producers o Blue Valentine, appealed the NC-17 rating and aimed for an R-rating without cutting the film, which they eventually received.' Most importantly, this controversy raised an important public debate about the discourses of sexuality in American film and the policing of sexuality by the MPAA (Block, 2010; Rosen, 2010; Zeitchik, 2010). Indeed, we propose that an NC-17 rating functions to discipline the rhetoric of sexuality in film and the broader cultural discourse of sexuality. ^ This paper analyzes the visual and narrative rhetoric of sexuality in the films Blue Valentine and Black Swan. We argue that Blue Valentine challenges the power of patriarchial surveillance by producing a resistant cinematic gaze that privileges a female vantage point and aftirms female sexual pleasure. Conversely, we contend that Black Swan reinscribes patriarchal power by following traditional conventions of the male gaze to emphasize the disciplinary themes of lesbian-spectacle, sexual pleasure as madness, and the good-girl-gone-bad. In the end, we contend that it was Blue Valentine's challenge to patriarchynot the explicit nature of its sex scenethat earned it a punitive rating by the MPAA."*

The iViaie Gaze and the Panoptical Male Connoisseur

The male gaze occupies a central role in the literature investigating the rhetoric of sexuality in film. In her groundbreaking article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey (1975) theorized that a dominant male gaze structures mainstream Hollywood films and invites the viewer to identify with male protagonists and to marginalize and objectify women. From the camera work to the movement of the plotline, Mulvey argued that the narratives of mainstream film feature an active and controlling male ethos that renders women as passive objects of desirecoded to connote "to-be-looked-at-ness." A number of rhetorical scholars have turned to Mulvey's theory of the male gaze to drive their feminist criticism of a variety of mediated texts (Cooper, 2001; Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2001; Daughton, 2010; Foss & Foss, 1994). Mandie Brandt and Adelia Carstens (2005), for example, analyze how words and pictures are manipulated in the Sports Illustrated segment "The Beauty of Sport" in order to undermine the subject position of sportswomen as physically strong and able professionals and to encourage the reader to view the women as objects. Although a large body of valuable analysis followed from Mulvey's original theory of the male gaze, a wave of more critical reaction also followed as scholars aimed to extend, challenge, and complicate Mulvey's conceptualization of male spectatorship. The work of Richard Dyer (1990) and bell hooks (1993) for example, seeks to understand how differences in spectatorship may be shaped by sexuality and race, a question left unexamined in Mulvey's original theory of the male gaze. Critics also

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challenged the binary of the active male spectator and passive female object that defined Mulvey's account of spectatorship for undermining the possibility of an active and resistant female gaze (Kaplan, 1983; Silverman, 1980; de Lauretis, 1984). Mulvey's later work (1989) acknowledged the limitations of her original theory and pointed to the possibility of a female spectator position. Since then, a variety of feminist scholars have sought to understand how alternative spectator positions, including a "feminine" gaze, can function to resist patriarchy and aftirm women's perspective and experiences (Gamman. 1989; Foss & Foss, 1994; Cooper, 2001; Daughton, 2010). Sonja Foss and Karen Foss (1994) offer important clarification, explaining, [it] is not meant to suggest that it is a vantage point that can be assumed only by women, that its characteristics are natural or essential attributes of femininity, or that women always see differently than men. The term suggests, instead, a repertoire of culturally constructed characteristics likely to be possessed by and/or ascribed to women under present cultural and political arrangements, (p. 411) Scholars have since demonstrated how a feminine vantage point in television and film can introduce marginalized experiences and perspectives that may challenge patriarchal modes of representation. In her article "Chick Flicks' as Feminist Texts: The Appropriation of the Male Gaze in Thelma & Louise." Brenda Cooper (2005) examines how the film Thelma & Louise uses a female gaze to undercut and appropriate the traditional male gaze through a mockery of patriarchy. Cooper argues that this mockery evokes a strong female gaze that challenges, resists, and defies patriarchy and offers pleasure to female viewers. Other feminist scholars have drawn from Michel Foucault's (1980) notions of surveillance and disciplinary power to articulate a broader understanding of the male gazeone that reaches beyond the screens of Hollywood cinema to discipline our knowledge of gender roles and female sexuality in cultural discourses writ large (Susan Bordo, 1989; Sandra Bartky, 1988). A phallocentric gaze, these theorists argue, is embedded throughout our systems of representation, reinforcing patriarchal power relations and asserting women's "to-be-looked-at-ness" in all realms of public and private life. While Foucault's notions of panoptic surveillance and disciplinary power failed to consider the position of women under patriarchy, many feminist theorists have adapted these ideas to provide illuminating accounts of the ways in which women are subjected to an inspecting patriarchal gaze that disciplines the performance of femininity and the expression of female sexuality. As Sandra Bartky (1988) explains. In contemporary patriarchal culture, a panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women: They stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgment. Woman lives her body as seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other, (p. 72)

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Bartky argues that the mass media contribute to this patriarchal panopticon, "constructing as [they do] an image of the female body as spectacle" (p. 82). Bartky's theory of the panoptical male connoisseur is much broader than Mulvey's theory of the filmic male gaze. Bartky speaks to the way that women are disciplined to see themselvestheir bodies, their sexuality, their agency, and their valuethrough a patriarchal gaze. The filmic male gaze, embedded in much of our popular culture, can be understood as one site of such disciplineone site in a network of cultural discourses that constitute a panoptical male connoisseur. Our study of Blue Valentine and Black Swan draws upon these distinct but overlapping theories of the male gaze and the panoptical male connoisseur to investigate the cinematic gaze embedded in each film and to understand the broader role of the films and the ratings by the MPAA as a form of disciplinary power. Sonja K. Foss and Ann Gill (1987) explain Foucault's conception of disciplinary power as, "power operating through conformity to norms or standards for correct behavior. It exerts control that is continuous, subtle, automatic, generalized, taken for granted, and present in all aspects of the discursive formation" (pp. 389-390). The work of normalizationpower operating through conformity to normsoccurs not only in schools, prisons, therapists' offices, churches, and factories, but also in front of television, computer, and movie screens. In his later work, Foucault described sexuality as an "especially dense transfer point for relations of power" (1980, p. 103). Foucault conceptualized the body as a site of struggle and argued that the human body, including human sexuality, is always subjected to disciplinary power. We believe that coupling our investigation of cinematic gaze with Foucault's notion of disciplinary power and the feminist articulation of the panoptical male connoisseur provides an important opportunity to understand the visual and narrative rhetoric of film as one site in a network of disciplinary discourses that regulate the expression of female sexuality. Attending closely to the visual and narrative dimensions of each scene, our critical inquiry is driven by the following set of flexible questions: How does the camera frame the actors? From whose perspective is the spectator invited to view the scene? Who controls the narrative? How does the camera work contribute meaning to the narrative? How is the conventional W A^e i//u/yiinae the subject/object relationship narratively or I te/ationship ettoeen visually resisted or reinforced? How does cine/yjic qaze and th^ the scene defy Or reinscribe phallocentric J toadet nettootks of understandings of sexuality? Does the ^ disdp/ine that Shape out f'"' introduce the possibility of a I cu/tuta/ ^noto/edqe alout ^^'f"" vantage point? Our analysis .. y closely examines the visual and narrative I and out/.ne the oundar.eS ^,^^^^3 ^^^^^^ scene-from the camera ^ ofnot^at.ve SexuaJ.ty. angles, lighting, and costumes, to the character development and storyhne. We turn to Foucault's notion of disciplinary power and Bartky's theory of the panoptical male connoisseur to explore the relationship between cinematic gaze and the different ratings the films received from the MPAA. In the end, we illuminate the relationship

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Blue Valentine: Challenging the Panoptical Male Connoisseur

The representation of female pleasure in Blue Valentine affirms the experience of women as sexually desiring subjects and challenges hegemonic constructions of women's sexuality. The visual and narrative framing of oral sex constitutes a resistant cinematic gaze that introduces a feminine vantage point and challenges the power of the panoptical male connoisseur. A Resistant Cinematic Gaze and the Affirmation of Female Pleasure The visual rhetoric of the Blue Valentine sex scene is strikingly absent of spectacle. While the representation of sex in Hollywood film is usually accompanied by fast cuts, zooming lenses and alternating angles, the simple camera work that frames the Blue Valentine oral sex scene lends a degree of authenticity to the scene and provides the spectator with an uninterrupted and focused depiction of female sexual pleasure. The sex scene takes place in a roompresumably at Cindy's homeafter the two protagonists have spent the day together. The room is lit by daylight and sparsely furnished. Both characters are fully clothed in casual attire. The on-location setting, the non-artificial lightening, the absence of additional sounds such as music, the ordinary wardrobe, and the hand-operated, un-filtered and un-retouched camerawork in this scene exemplify the realist approach of Blue Valentine. The sequence begins with a close-up of the two on the bed looking into each other's eyes and caressing one another with Cindy lying on her back and Dean lying on top of her. While still looking at each other silently, they start to kiss tenderly. The couple's gentleness and affection displayed in this first scene of the sequence illustrates their emotional bonding and growing intimacy. The next scene shot in a medium close-up from a lower angle shows Dean slowly taking off Cindy's boots while she's still lying on her back, then lifting up her skirt and pulling down her underwear. While he is removing her underwear, the camera gradually moves up to Dean, and then back down to Cindy's lower body. Throughout this scene, the characters' eyes are locked on one another. Moreover, the scene is completely silent; we hear nothing but the quiet sounds of Cindy's slight moves on the bed. In the following scene. Dean is performing oral sex on Cindy, both still appearing fully clothed. The camera is again positioned next to the bed, showing Dean and Cindy in a medium close-up from a lower angle. We first see only Dean gently thrusting his head between Cindy's legs from the side with Dean's head and upper body partly hidden by Cindy's legs. As the scene progresses, the camera slightly moves to the right, placing Cindy in the center of the frame. She begins throbbing more heavily while grabbing Dean's hair and moaning until she climaxes. The camera remains still the entire time until it cuts to a close-up reaction-shot of Cindy laughing.

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The visual rhetoric in this scene involves the absence of spectacle and the nearly static camera work that focus the spectator's gaze on the experience of female pleasure. Cindy occupies the center of the frame, the majority of her body is visible, and the reactionshot privileges her point of view. Moreover, the scene presents Cindy's entire orgasm without cutting away, which is very rare in mainstream cinema (Williams, 2008, p. 129). Although one might argue that Cindy is the female object of the male gaze here particularly considering that watching this intimate scene has a strong voyeuristic connotationneither the narrative nor The visua/ rhetoric in the visual framing invite the viewer to this scene in/o/veS the identify as male and to objectify Cindy asence of spectac/e sexually. Instead, the scene "speaks female and the near/y static '^^^''^" (Gamman, 1989) and privileges camera cuor/<: that focus ""' experience of a woman as a sexually the spectator's aaze on '*''*"^ Subject. Mulvey (1975) explained ,, . -;!, _ , that filmic gaze is communicated not only
tne experience ot te/>ia/e ^u v. i u l i l l

through camera work but also through the relationship between the characters on the screen. Here, the spectator is invited to witness the male protagonist as solely concerned with satisfying the female protagonist. In addition, the relationship between the characters adds to the scene's resistant gaze. Krassas, Blauwkamp, and Wesselink (2006) explain that the male gaze is routinely inscribed into texts through a focus on women's body parts while their faces are hidden or obscured. The result is that women are depersonalized and framed as mere objects of sexual desire. The spectator position that is created through this NC-17 rated sex scene resists this conventional technique of objectification. Instead, the still framing of her entire body, the focus on her face, as well as the reaction-shot, affirm Cindy's experience and privilege her point of view. In film, reaction-shots move the narrative forward, instructing the viewer on how to interpret the action on the screen. In this way, the reaction-shot assigns power and privilege to a particular point of view. While the male gaze invites the spectator to see the narrative through a male protagonist, here we are invited to understand the sex act through Cindy's eyesa close up shot of Cindy laughing captures her joyful reaction to the sex act and assigns privilege to her experience of sexual pleasure. The sexually explicit content in this scene occurs in the narrative context of intimacy, trust, and female pleasure. The narrative framing of cunnilingus, as an embodiment of love and a complete sexual experience, resists traditional depictions of sex that privilege a phallocentric point of view. This scene is part of a retrospective that teaches the viewer how the two characters met and fell in love. Because the film begins with their year-long relationship falling apart, the sex scene demonstrates the love and intimacy the two characters once shared. Anthony Enns ( 1999) argues that the space of love and the surface of the body conflate in contemporary cinema. He explains that in order for the spectator to testify to the love between characters, the viewer is invited to witness the bodily act of love (p. 258). The oral sex scene in Blue Valentine serves this representational modeit symbolizes Cindy and Dean's love.

'^ F'^'^'-^^-"''^

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In addition, the narrative frame surrounding this oral sex resists traditional phallocentric scripts of sexuality. The sexual act symbolizing love in Blue Valentine is not genital intercourse in missionary position, although this is how "making love" is usually portrayed in mainstream film. Instead, the characters' love and intimacy is demonstrated through the act of oral sex received by a woman. The act is not framed as foreplay for "real sex" as it is often understood, with a focus on male penetration and male pleasure. Instead, the oral sex act is offered as a complete sexual experience and the entire sequence, visually and narratively, privileges female sexual pleasure. Foss and Foss note that "construction of a feminine vantage in a text, then, is the structuring into the text of activities, experiences, and qualities more likely to characterize women's then men's lives" (p. 411). Therefore, the Blue Valentine sex scene invites a resistant gazeone that challenges phallocentric scripts and modes of looking to privilege a female vantage point. Surveillance by the MPAA: Disciplining a Challenge to the Patriarchal Panopticon The representation of women's sexual desire in Blue Valentine stands in opposition to patriarchal discourses of sexuality that dominate our cultural landscape and shape mainstream film. For example, Jonathan Schroeder (1998) notes that film can often be an "instrument of the male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view" (p. 208). Consequently, Blue Valentine's affirmation of a female vantage point challenges patriarchal modes of looking that are typical in mainstream cinema. Understood more broadly, the film's resistant gaze stands as a site of challenge to an entire network of cultural discourses that constitute a patriarchal panopticon and demand that female sexuality be understood from a heterosexual masculine point-of-view. This patriarchal gaze discourages women from fully experiencing their sexuality on their own terms (Holland, Ramazonoglu, Sharpe, & Thomson, 1998). Instead, the gendered scripts of the patriarchal panopticon define women as objects of male sexual desire and discourage the consideration of women's sexual needs, experiences, and pleasures. In fact, Michelle Fine (1988) argues that American culture is marked by a "missing discourse of female desire." Ihis absence is constitutive of an inspecting patriarchal gaze that disciplines women with a "male in the head" (Holland et. al., 1998). Lynn Nead ( 1984) summarizes a central disciplinary message of the patriarchal panopticon. Rooted in Victorian morality, she explains: "The respectable woman did not experience sexual drives, and her pleasure and desire for sex (if at all) was for the pleasure of reproduction and satisfying her partner" (1984, p. 26). Blue Valentine represents female sexual pleasure as an end in itselfseparate from the possibilities of reproduction or male climax. This privileging of female desire threatens the logic of the panoptical male connoisseur. While Bartky explains that women are disciplined to understand their bodies through the eyes of "an anonymous patriarchal Other" (p. 72), Blue Valentine represents a site of resistance to this disciplinary power.

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Katie Gibson and Melanie Wolske When the MPAA assigned Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating, they explained that the film would receive the desired R-rating if this particular sex scene was cut. In this way, the MPAA, consciously or not, endeavored to discipline Blue Valentine's affirmation of female sexual pleasure and its concomitant challenge to the patriarchal panopticon. The reaction of the MPAA to the film reminds us that although mainstream film may provide an avenue AJhen the /^PAA aSSianed g/ue f " " " challenging patriarchy,

{
86

Va/entine an VC-1? ratina, they

/ / ^ / _i ^ / ni I,

"^^^ are powerful systems

of surveillance in place to

Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment (1989) argue that popular culture remains a site of struggle 'l^^t provides opportunity ^""^ meanings to be contested, """''^ '^^"'^^ that might not be free of contradictions, but exp/ained that the t)/^ ioou/d , , . which do signify shifts in counter threats to dominant regimes of representation" (p. 4). The discourse of popular culture then, while often contradictory, is a significant voice in the network of power that is constitutive of our cultural knowledge. Considering this constitutive function of popular culture, Gamman (1989) argues that the facilitation of a dominant female gaze may represent a "route whereby feminist meanings can be introduced in order to disturb the status quo" (p. 12). While Blue Valentine challenges the status quo, gives voice to feminist meanings, and demonstrates the potential of popular culture to shift "regimes of representation," the disciplinary rating from the MPAA signifies the omnipresent pull of hegemony to counter voices of resistance and restore dominant power relations.

. ,, , . ^ receive the deS.red ^^ratin^ if thiS particu/at Sex scene toas ci.it. Xn this ujasy, the f^PAA, Conscious/y or not, endea/ored to disdp/ine B/ue Va/entine S affr/y?ation of fe/y?a/e SexuaJ p/easure and its concomitant cha//ena^ to the patriarcha/ panopticon.

counter threats to dominant ^^^^^ relations.

Black Swan: Performing for the Panoptical Male Connoisseur

In contrast to Blue Valentine, the representation of female sexuality in Black Swan follows conventional scripts of the male gaze to code women's bodies as objects of male desire and to discipline the expression of female sexuality Although Black Swan depicts the same sex act as Blue Valentine, the following analysis will demonstrate how the visual and narrative framing reinforce the power of the panoptical male connoisseur by presenting female-female sexuality as a spectacle, by conflating female sexuality with mental illness, and by punishing the expression of female sexuality. The Male Gaze: Lesbian Spectacle, Madness, and the Good Girl Gone Bad In line with standard cultural expectations, the visual rhetoric of the sex scene in Black Swan invites a phallocentric gaze. The two female characters are scantily clad and seductively made up at the start of the scene, having just returned to Nina's home after a

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wild night of dancing at a rave and taking ecstasy. A previous scene depicted foreplay in a taxi, so the sexual tension between the ballet dancers is established before this scene begins. After Nina closes her bedroom door, the characters gaze at each other for a few seconds until Nina runs toward Lily and the two start kissing and undressing each other passionately. This passionate urgency is enhanced through the camera work: the camera films their actions in close-up and rapidly cuts from one shot to another while simultaneously zooming in and out and going up and down. Furthermore, the camera angles change frequently, and we see different body parts of the women from different perspectives. The music score in this scene progresses synchronously with the action: the music begins quietly while the women gaze at each other, rises dramatically when Nina runs to Lily, and accelerates gradually as they kiss and undress each other. This tension-filled performance is highly titillating for the viewer, as is the costuming Nina is seen in a white lace bra and panties and Lily in a black bra, panties, and garter belt. Finally, Lily throws Nina onto the bed and removes her underwear. The camera then shows Lily from a straight medium-close up and cuts to an overhead close-up of Nina's face expressing both anxiety and arousal. They kiss again briefly, captured by a shot from the side, until Lily moves downward. The next shot is filmed from Nina's perspective, depicting Lily's face between her thighs and running her hands down Nina's body. Lily gently presses her legs apart and licks her thigh while looking up to Nina in a provocative way. The camera cuts to a close-up of Nina's face again, still expressing both fear and desire. Fast cuts, alternating angles, and the soaring music underline Nina's simultaneously erotic and uneasy experience. An overhead close-up shot is used several times throughout the scene to position the viewer on top of Nina. The camera cuts back to Lily who looks up and appears to have turned into Nina. The actual Nina, now again in the frame, cries out in shock, but as the camera cuts back, we again see Lily. Nina leans back and as the music rises, we witness Nina having an orgasm through a close-up of her face. The camera moves back to Lily who gets up, wipes her mouth off, shakes her head, and says: "Sweet girl." The camera then cuts to Nina whose eyes open to reveal her terror. The next shot shows Lily turned into Nina, 2>eSpite the fact that who smiles viciously and presses a pillow -he Sex occurs etcoeen against Nina's face. The spectator learns later ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ -he visual fra/yjina that Nina might have hallucinated the sexual ^ v ^^-/ <^ ^ v ^/ o reiterates Con/entiona/ encounter as she becomes increasingly ^ ^ ,, ,
. J u u TTi 1 l^>-'^^ o^ t h e /yjaJe aaZe

paranoid and schizophrenic. Ultimately, , , , i .i ,. ., . .,, ,.,. , that Code the tjo^en aS this striking sex scene illustrates Ninas ' transformation into the Black Swan. ojects of desire. Black Swan's depiction of oral sex follows conventional representations of sexuality in American film. The fast camera movements, the short cuts, and the various angles not only underline Nina's excitement and confusion, they also make the sex act much more sensational. Together with the dramatic music, the theatrical setting, and the actresses' seductive styling, the scene presents the viewer with a phallocentric spectacle. Despite the fact that the sex occurs between women, the visual framing

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reiterates conventional forms of the male gaze that code the women as objects of desire. Diamond (2005) explains, Observing sex between otherwise heterosexual women has long been a staple of male fantasy, but only recently has this fantasy graduated from the shelves of pornographic video stores to mainstream movies and television shows, (p. 105) The exaggerated sexual performances, the erotic underwear, and the short cuts focusing on particular body partsbreasts, stomach, thigh, lips, abdomenall contribute to a fetishization of the female body in this scene and highlight the women's "to-be-lookedat-ness" (Mulvey, 1975). Instead of affirming an alternative expression of sexuality. Black Swan presents the viewer with a lesbian spectacle that frames female-female sexuality within a heterosexual male gaze.

2>espite the fact that

the Sex occurs etcoeen VA . , Ir i^o/yien, the ViSua/ tranina ., , - / Representations of woman-on-woman sex , acts are generally acceptable in , , popular culture as long as they feature

reiterates

ConVentiona/

/or^S o/ the ^a/e gaze that Code the ioo^en aS

ojectS of deSire.

, !^ , . , heterosexual or bisexual women who normally engage in sex with men. This is especially true for mainstream Hollywood

where "girl-on-girl-action" is frequently used to "spice things up" in an otherwise heteronormative narrative (for example. Neve Campbell and Denise Richards in Wild Things). According to Diamond (2005), such images implicitly convey that the most desirable and acceptable form of female-female sexuality is that which pleases and plays to the heterosexual male gaze, titillating male viewers while reassuring them that the participants remain sexually available in the conventional heterosexual marketplace (p. 105). This type of pseudo-lesbian sexuality pleases the male gaze in two ways: the sight of two women engaging sexually with each other is arousing to a male audience, especially when the women are framed as performing objects; and second, the women's homosexual performance does not pose a threat to patriarchy because it is represented as situational and, thus, the women remain available, as Diamond states, "in the conventional heterosexual marketplace" (p. 105). Although there are no male characters on screen, the lesbian spectacle depicted in Black Swan undoubtedly plays to the male gaze; The sexually explicit content in this scene also occurs within a disciplinary narrative that fuses female sexuality with mental illness and moral downfall. The fusion of madness and sex in Black Swan not only evokes a sense of peril, it also locates (allegedly) lesbian and female-pleasing sex in the realm of mental illness and deviance. Nina's transformation into the Black Swan requires her to lose her inhibitions and explore her sexuality However, Nina's transgressions not only aflfect her sexual awakening but also

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her mental health. In the sex scene, the viewer is invited to witness the growing madness that accompanies Nina's burgeoning sexuality. Although the viewer's identification with Nina is impeded by her madness, the camera work invites the spectator to bear witness to the conflicting emotions of fear and desire that are captured on her face. Standing in stark contrast to Blue Valentine's reaction shot that captures Cindy's joyful pleasure. Black Swan highlights Nina's anxiety, merging her sexual awakening with fear and mental instability. Additionally, the lesbian spectacle in Black Swan is framed within a conventional "goodgirl-gone-bad" narrative. Lea Jacobs (1997) explains that the Fallen Woman archetype has an established presence in the history of American film. Jacobs cites Anna Karenina (1935) as an example of this archetypal narrative, where a virtuous female transgresses normative notions of womanhood to pursue sexual pleasure and is harshly punished for her transgression (p. 5). Although Nina is the perfect, immaculate White Swan, her choreographer insists that she must discover her dark side in order to dance the Black Swan as well. Lily, a sultry, tattooed, ecstasy-popping dancer from San Francisco embodies the characteristics of the black swan. She literally pulls Nina over to the dark side, taking her to a rave, providing her with drugs, and encouraging her to have sex with strange men. In the oral sex scene, the oppositional representation of Nina and Lily is quite obvious with the former wearing white, feminine underwear and the latter donning black, racy underwear. Lily is the driving force in that scene, tossing Nina on the bed and performing oral sex on her. Following the "script" of the conventional narrative, the consequences for Nina exploring her dark side are fatalshe becomes insane and eventually kills herself This ending is very '^'^^^ ^ ' ' ^ ^ ^^"^ depiction of common in the "good-girl- ^ - ^ ^ ^^^ '^ Black Sujan, the
gone-bad" narrative since the virtuous woman must ultimatelybepunishedforher sexual transgression. Nina's spectacular breakdown, as captured in this sex scene, is visually and narratively . . . ' presented in a way that J, .u adheres to the conventions of Hollywood film and authorized discourses of female sexuality. ^^o/ie paSSed the MPAA e-oith an i^ ratina. "This iS lively due to the fact that the repreSentc^ion of ^^^aJity, a/thouah ^ y ^^^^^ti^^^ ^ the Surface, ^ ,, , ,.,. , ,. -folloioS traditional Con/entionS

the /yia/e qaZe to Code the actorS J , ^^ ^ "^^ ojects of phallocentric ^-^-^//-e and to discipline the expression of fe/y?a/e SexuaJity.

Surveillance by the MPAA: Sanctioning Patriarchal Power Even with the depiction of oral sex in Black Swan, the movie passed the MPAA with an R rating. This is likely due to the fact that thefilm'srepresentation of female-female sexuality, although seemingly unconventional on the surface, follows traditional conventions of the male gaze to code the actors as objects of phallocentric desire and to discipline the expression of female sexuality. As noted. Black Swan follows the gendered

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scripts of the patriarchal panopticon to encourage an understanding of female sexual pleasure as dangerous, abnormal, and immoral. It is important to note, however, that the panoptical male connoisseur disciplines much more than our cultural knowledge of female sexuality. The lens of patriarchy through which we are invited to understand ourselves and others carries other powerful scripts of normalization. The disciplinary narrative of the Fallen Woman, for example, is underpinned by cultural scripts that privilege whiteness and stretches far beyond policing female sexual behavior, to police knowledge of race, class, and heterosexuality (Howard & Prividera, 2008, p. 295). Raka Shome (2001) reminds us that the policing of white woman's purity is concomitantly a policing of national identity and a disciplining of otherness. Shome writes, "In fact, it is possible to argue that every spectacle of white femininity is ultimately a mechanism through which to write white national patriarchy" (p. 328). Recalling Foucault's (1990) observation that sexuality is an "especially dense transfer point for relations of power" (p. 103), we recognize a complex system of domination and control emanating from the Black Swan spectacle of female sexuality. Indeed, the sexual fantasy reinscribes an entire network of hegemonic power relations. The representation of oral sex in Black Swan and its sanctioning by the MPAA demonstrates how cultural knowledge of sexuality is produced and policed. Foucault's insistence that power is not only repressive, but productive and creative as well, lends insight into the MPAA's sanctioning of the Black Swan sex scene and the nature of disciplinary power in society. He explains: If power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn't only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. (1980, p. 119) The Black Swan sex scene induces pleasure in its depiction of female sexuality. Its disciplinary message however, is undoubtedly clear. The spectator, perhaps finding enjoyment in the spectacle, is also encouraged to witness the severe consequences of female sexual pleasure and to internalize the inspecting patriarchal gaze. Even so. Eddie Schmidt and Kirby Dick (2006) explain that gay sex scenes generally receive NC17 ratings while straight ones that are shot and framed in almost the exact same way generally receive R ratings. Black Swan complicates this observation. What seems to be more important here is whether or not the scene challenges dominant power relations. In the end. Black Swan demonstrates how a seemingly counter-normative sex scene between women can actually preserve and protect the dominant patriarchal order.

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Resisting the Gaze: Knowledge, Power, and the Audience

"If a film scene lasting a little more than a minute depicts oral sex performed on a woman without showing nudity, does the movie in which the scene appears merit an R rating or an NC-17? Both, apparently." - Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times Although Blue Valentine and Black Swan depict the same sex act, this analysis argues that the films received different ratings from the Motion Picture Association of America because each one produces a different knowledge of sexuality. Blue Valentine resists disciplinary surveillance by affirming female pleasure and challenging the conventional male gaze. On the other hand. Black Swan plays to the panoptical male connoisseur by reflecting a phallocentric gaze and reinforcing the disciplinary themes of madness, lesbian-spectacle, and the good-girl-gone-bad. Consequently, Blue Valentine's articulation of oral sex was initially rejected, while Black Swan's depiction of oral sex was sanctioned; Blue Valentine was subject to harsher disciplinary sanctions by the MPAA than Black Swan. This study contributes to our understanding of the panoptical male connoisseur and highlights the role of the filmic gaze in resisting or reinscribing its disciplinary power. Considering the disciplining of women's bodies in contemporary society, Sandra Bartky (1988) explains: As modern industrial societies change and as women themselves offer resistance to patriarchy, older forms of domination are eroded. But new forms arise, spread, and become consolidated. Women are no longer required to be chaste, or modest, to restrict their activity to the home, or even to realize their properly feminine destiny in maternity: Normative femininity is coming more and more to be centered on woman's body-not its duties and obligations or even its capacity to bear children, but its sexuality, (p. 81) The disciplinary power of patriarchy increasingly targets female sexuality. Bartky draws special attention to visual media for its growing significance as a site of this disciplinary discourse and calls for more critical attention to the power of images in television and film (p. 229). This analysis responds to Bartky's observation and explicates how Hollywood film and the MPAA target female sexuality to reaffirm the power of the panoptical male connoisseur. This analysis also contributes to the considerable body of work on female spectatorship. While scholars have demonstrated the liberatory potential of a feminine vantage point, our analysis of the MPAA's different responses to Blue Valentine and Black Swan illustrates how disciplinary power may be wielded to undermine the shifts in power and knowledge threatened by a resistant feminine gaze. This analysis also contributes to research on Hollywood cinema as a powerful network of meaning and demonstrates this network's role in disciplining our cultural knowledge of sexuality. Pennington (2007) reminds us "Sex, in its complexity, unites and divides people. Some of sex's most commonand divisivecultural manifestations are

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its representations in cinema" (p. ix). Our analysis underscores the importance of demystifying the dominant sex discourse perpetuated by mainstream filma heteronormative sex discourse that privileges male pleasure, objectifies women, and marginalizes female sexuality. In This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated (2006), Kirby Dick and Eddie Schmidt propose that explicit and/or graphic films are much more likely to receive a lenient MPAA rating if they show heterosexual and male-centered sex. This study demonstrates how the "lesbian-spectacle" falls squarely within this Hollywood tradition of sanctioning malecentered representations of sex. The comparison of the visual and narrative rhetoric of Blue Valentine and Black Swan also suggests that sensationalized depictions of sex are favored over more realist and authentic depictions. In fact, portrayals of sex that conform to heterosexual male fantasy are more likely to be rewarded with an R-Rating by the MPAA and they are also more likely to be embraced by a wide audience. Additionally, the success of explicit comedies like American Pie (1999), Team America (2004), or Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)all rated Rimplies that explicit sex is also acceptable in the contexts of humor, absurdity, and ridicule. In contrast, independent films such as Kids (1995), Requiem for a Dream (2000), or Brown Bunny (2003)all not ratedthat portray explicit sex in the context of social realism and explore the consequences of unprotected sex and sexual abuse, have had limited commercial success in America.

Awhile spectacles

of ^aje

0^^ Cianfrance,

director

fantasy and port refais of

absurdity often , , ^ include explicit _, I ,

^ '^'"'^ . ^

Valentine, . f, . .,

provides

^o'^'^ent^ry that is instructive here. He explains, 'We tried to treat sex in the movie with ereat responsibility and realism-like the rest of the movie is a realistic

portrayals of sex that are

^ J , , , . ^^ Sc-^ctioned Ay the MPAA, they do not threaten the dormant

patriarchal order and our analysis de/y^onstrates that this is cohat really Counts.

portrait of two people, so the sex is very realistic in our movie. It's not eroticized, it's just life" (Qtd

in Rosen, 2010). Cianfrance identifies exactly what we believe the MPAA sought to penalizea "realistic" approach to sexseparate from male fantasythat validates the perspective and pleasure of a woman. While spectacles of male fantasy and portrayals of absurdity often include explicit portrayals of sex that are sanctioned by the MPAA, they do not threaten the dominant patriarchal order and our analysis demonstrates that this is what really counts. 92 I study of Blue Valentine and Black Swan encourages Women < S Language We hope that our a more actively critical consumption of Hollywood film. Foss and Gill (1987) explain what is at stake: When discursive influence the system, we of formation, are and the armed how power to we with in loosen are the knowledge more system, the hold able how to of ofthat choose to how garner power power whether more over relations power or us. not (p.to operate as 397) accept rhetors in the in a

Disciplining Sex

This essay demonstrates how critical feminist analyses offilmmay serve an emancipatory functionexposing and unmasking discourses of power to "loosen their hold" over us. In the end, we believe that citizens can be more active contributors to the construction of sexual representations. As consumers, we can refuse to support films that reinscribe hegemonic sex-power relations and we can demand films that legitimate alternative vantage points and affirm marginalized perspectives. Clearly, vigilant attention to patriarchal discourses, within and beyond the screens of Hollywood cinema, is needed to expose the disciplining of female sexuality embedded in our cultural knowledge.

Notes
' Midnight Cowboy won Best Picture in 1969. ^ The Weinstein Company made their appeal public and hired a high profile legal team including David Boies, Alan R. Friedman and Bert Fields, who advised Weinstein and Ethan Noble, a TWC marketing executive. TWC senior executive David Glasser told The Hollywood Reporter that Harvey Weinstein "assembled a three-inch thick binder of material from which he drew his arguments for the board. It included comments from people who attended screenings, comments from Twitter and comparisons to other movies that received an R." (http://www.hollywoodreporter. com/news/mpaa-overturns-blue-valentines-nc-57891 ) ' Kirby Dick {This Film Is Not Yet Rated) and Ron Leone ("Contemplating Ratings") explain that explicit and/or graphic scenes containing sex are much more likely to be the reason for a NC-17 rating than those that contain violence. Leone's content analysis of 210 sequences of 13 unrated or N-17-rated films that are not present in the R-rated versions of the same films has revealed that far more sexual than violent sequences were removed from the films to get the desired R-rating. ' The documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) demonstrates that the ratings system is untraceable: the criteria are seemingly arbitrary and the raters are undisclosed. Furthermore, the MPAA does not offer explanations for their decisions.

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Brandt, M., & Carstens, A. (2005). The discourse of the male gaze: A critical analysis of the feature section 'The Beauty of Sport' in SA Sports Illustrated. Southern African Linguistics & Applied Language Studies, 23, 233-243. Carstarphen, M. G., & Zavoina S. C. (Eds.). (1999). Sexual rhetoric: Media perspectives on sexuality, gender, and identity. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Cooper, B. (2005). 'Chick Flicks' as feminist texts: The appropriation of the male gaze in Thelma & Louise. Women's Studies in Communication, 23, 277-307. Cooper, B. (2001). Unapologetic women, 'comic men' and feminine spectatorship in David E. Kelley's Ally McBeal. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 18, 416435. Daughton, S. M. (2010). 'Cursed with Self-Awareness': Gender-bending, subversion, and irony in Bull Durham. Women's Studies in Communication, 33, 96-118. Diamond, L. M. (2005). 'I'm straight, but I kissed a girl': The trouble with American media representations of female-female sexuality. Feminism and Psychology, 15, 104-110. Dick, K., Dir. (2006). This film is not yet rated, n.p.: Independent Film Channel. Dyer, R. (1990). Now You See It: Studies in Lesbian and Gay Film. New York, NY: Routledge. Enns, A. (1999). Sexual imagery and the space of love. In M. G. Carstarphen, & S. C. Zavoina (Eds.), Sexual rhetoric: Media perspectives on sexuality, gender, and identity (pp. 257-268). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 29-53. Foss, S. K., & Gill, A. (1987). Michel Foucault's theory of rhetoric as epistemic. The Western Journal of Speech Communication, 51, 384-401. Foss, S. K., & Foss, K. A. ( 1994). The construction of feminine spectatorship in Garrison Keillor's radio monologues. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 80, 410-426. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of a Prison. London, England: Penguin Books. Foucault, M. (1980). The eye of power. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviewsand Other Writings 972-1977(pp. 146-165). Sussex, England: Harvester Press. Gamman, L. (1989). Watching the detectives: The enigma of the female gaze. In L. Gamman & M. Marshment (Eds.), The female gaze: Women as viewers of popular culture (pp. 8-26). Seattle, WA: Real Comet Press. Gamman, L. & Marshment, M. (Eds). (1989). The female gaze: Women as viewers of popular culture. Seattle, WA: Real Comet Press. Hammers, M. L. (2006). Talking about 'down there': The politics of publicizing the female body through 'The Vagina Monologues'" Women's Studies in Communication, 29(2), 220-243. Handel, A., Franklin, S., Medavoy, M., Messer, A., & Oliver, B. (Ps.), & Aronofsky, D. (D.). (2010). Black Swan. USA: Fox Searchlight, hooks, b. (1993). Male heroes and female sex objects: Sexism in Spike Lee's Malcolm X. Cinaste, i9(4), 13-15. Reprinted in R. R. Warhol &D. P Herndl, (Eds.), Feminisms: An anthology of literary theory and criticism (pp. 555-558). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Williams, L. (2008). Screening sex. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Williams, L. R. (2005). The erotic thriller in contemporary cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zeitchik, S. (2010, December 4). The MPAA's 'Black Swan'-'Blue Valentine' double standard? The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://latimesblogs.latimes. com/movies/2010/12/black-swan-blue-valentine-natalie-portman-mila-kunismichelle-williams.html

Katie L Gibson is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach. Her research examines representations of gender and sexuality in various forms of public rhetoric, including the law, political communication, and the mass media. Melanie Wolske is an MA student at California State University, Long Beach. She earned her undergraduate degree in Germany. Wolske's research investigates performances of gender and sexuality from a critical rhetorical perspective.

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