In the 1960s and 1970s, Western countries, including the United States, staged a vigorous "sexual liberation" movement. During the Vietnam War, he called out the declaration of “make love, don’t fight.” The root of “sexual liberation” comes from the rise of “feminism” (or perhaps “feminism” is more appropriate at that time), and then the legalization of homosexuality And the proposition of "open marriage" is also a continuation of this movement. The story of this film takes place under this background; and the expressions of "sex" in the film also show repression and release On the one hand, it is only completed in the form of "somasochism." This reflects a unique "sexuality" in the transitional period between the old and the new. From a female perspective, she is both the abuser and the victim. The abuse of the party; from a male perspective, the same is true-the existing patriarchal system is being challenged by feminism.
The main female characters in the film all show a sexually depressed side. Charlotte, played by Nicole Kidman, is undoubtedly the biggest highlight in the film, and this is exactly what she brought to her by her precise pinch between the sexual repression and release of the characters. She had a relationship with three men-Hillary in jail, newsboy JACK and black writer Yardley. In the relationship with Hillary, the two initially kept in touch through letters, and the scene of the first meeting in prison constitutes a sadomasochistic landscape. Hillary asked Charlotte to spread his legs and tear apart the stockings, then the two masturbated each other, and finally reached an orgasm. This is a sexual act without the presence of a "penis". Limited by the prison visitation regulations, the two cannot have any physical contact, so it is impossible for the two to have a true sexual relationship. But the material absence of the phallus does not mean the loss of libido. The "sexual relationship" between Hillary and Charlotte was realized based on Hillary's password to Charlotte. "Now are you willing to do something for me?" "Open your legs", "tear the stockings", "open your mouth" and other commands like Charlotte followed suit to complete a "command-execute" power exercise. There is no doubt that Hillary, who is behind bars, has an extreme desire to have sex with women (the film does not show that he is gay); at the same time, charlotte, who "loves" Hillary deeply, also desires to have sex with him. . But the issuer of the order is the male hillary, which implies the fact that the existing knowledge system formed by the patriarchal discourse system represented by Freudian psychoanalysis maintains the fact that the male is the center of power. Here, charlotte is just a code that exercises a "prescribed" procedure in the existing disciplinary system. In this sense, Hillary formed a spiritual Phallus through the discourse power conferred by the collective unconscious, and dominated the entire sexual relationship process. After Hillary was released from prison, the difference was that the two realized a physical sexual relationship; the same is that sadomasochism has once again become a way to achieve sexual relations, and hillary is also the dominant one. In the process of the relationship between the two, the director also interspersed scenes of crocodiles in the river, wild boars foraging in the wild, and certain dead wild animals, using metaphorical montages to imply that this relationship seems to conform to the laws of nature—— The weak eats the strong; the ch who didn't want to have a relationship with the hillary at first
In the relationship with Jack, Charlotte appears to be "comfortable". Jack took the photos he took with his mother when he was a child and took back his mother's ring from his father's girlfriend, showing that the boy whose mother ran away at the age of 5 had an Oedipus complex in the subconscious mind. Then, this plot continued to his relationship with Charlotte. The "fantasy" scene used by Lee Daniels also appears in this film. While waiting for Charlotte, Jack imagined that she would marry him in a white wedding dress. When Jack wanted to have a relationship with Charlotte, Charlotte refused, and Jack did not resort to coercive measures like Hillary did. This fully shows that Jack's love for Charlotte is an emotional shift of his Oedipus complex. This is a unique emotion that boys have towards their mothers-they want to possess, but they dare not act arbitrarily. Even when Charlotte agreed to have a relationship with Jack later, it was more like the "son" wanted a toy and exchanged it in a coquettish way to the "mother". At the beach, Jack scolded the latter when he was told by Charlotte that he would not have a relationship with him, but Charlotte was not ashamed or annoyed. This kind of "acceptance" is also like a mother's contradiction to her child without holding a grudge. In the following scenes, Jack is stung by a jellyfish, and Charlotte pee on Jack to detoxify. This is very similar to "Bitter Moon", both of which are scenes of sadomasochism in which women excrete urine on men. In the social discourse rules of patriarchal androcentrism, men should act as the agent in the libido transfer equation, but here, women are superior to men in both form and substance. On the one hand, charlotte "rided" on Jack and excreted urine on him, announcing the rise of feminism in the form of male sexual behavior; on the other hand, the reason why Charlotte did this is to give Jack Detoxification, in the rescue/saved relationship, women also become saviors. However, it is worth intriguing that, in the first sense, the way women achieve their rise is achieved through the “imitation” of men’s power dominance. Furthermore, there is no reconstruction of a female discourse system here. It is still adopting male discourse to realize the rise of women. This is the same strategy adopted by Laura Mulvey in "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Movies"-through the recoding of the existing patriarchal discourse system, in order to realize the self-discourse system.
Similarly, the most important term in Mulvey's theory is "gaze", and the use of gaze in this film is also worth analyzing. Mulvey believes that there are three kinds of "gazes" in the film: the gaze of the camera, the gaze between characters and the gaze of the audience. These three gazes lead to voyeuristic identification with a male gaze towards a woman. In this film, the director uses different lens expression strategies in the performance of the relationship between Charlotte and Hillary and Jack. In the relationship with Hillary, there is Hillary's gaze towards Charlotte. For example, when the two met in prison for the first time, Hillary stared at Charlotte's private parts. Similarly, this segment also has the gaze of the camera and the gaze of the audience. When Hillary gazes at Charlotte's private parts, the director gives the audience his subjective shots. Through the identification with Hillary, it also satisfies the audience's voyeurism. Obviously, because Hillary is in a dominant position, he "has the right" to gaze at Charlotte's private parts, and by identifying with him, the audience also realizes the sharing of power. In the relationship with Jack, Jack's gaze on Charlotte appeared many times in the film, but he did not give his subjective shots. In other words, the director deprived the audience of the "right" of voyeurism in this way. This implies the director's intention-as a "son", we can only satisfy our possession of the "mother" spiritually, but we can't really realize this action.
In the relationship with Yardley, the film only implies that the two have a relationship, and does not show this process in detail. For Charlotte, as she said "Fucking a man is the most natural thing in the world." Charlotte only regarded this as an ordinary and normal sexual relationship. This can be regarded as the United States at the time promoting "open marriage." Practice. Compared with Hillary and Jack, the relationship with Yardley is more ambiguous-both radical and conservative.
In general, through the relationship between Charlotte and the three men, the film shows the temporary state of the United States caused by the "sexual liberation" movement triggered by feminism at that time. The long-existing patriarchal male power discourse still occupies a dominant position, but feminism is also constantly rising. Just as Molly Haskell and Marjorie Rosen believed that the movie "reflected" social reality, Charlotte’s female image and relationship with men may just reflect the accumulated sexuality in American society at the time. Distorted "behavior" when depression is released. In this transition period, people seem to have no idea how to achieve a smooth transition, and
sadomasochism has become the manifestation of this distortion and the path of transition. Wen/collinc5"
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