Time Enough?

Has anyone noticed the news on e-sources like Yahoo lately? Our formerly internationally beloved Canada has became a target for hate, both from within and without. When tax dollars were diverted to pay for an Olympic infrastructure, Canadian social activists rightly cried foul. Our ailing healthcare and educational systems had to take a back seat. Canada responded by legislating against any negative postings levelled against the Olympics in downtown Vancouver or Whistler during the Olympics. Of course, we wouldn't want anything pesky like poverty, education, healthcare or our constitutional right to freedom of speech to get in the way of the rich getting richer, and a handful of athletes obtaining glory. Furthermore, right-wing American rednecks have posted a backlash of threats against all of Canada for those few who aimed threats at the idiotic American figure skater who somehow thought that a self-righteous response to the moronic decision to wear fur would help his already bad publicity. Ironically, the same American gun-toters who support this kind of fashionistic hunting would just as soon gay-bash the clearly metrosexual, if not entirely homosexual, figure skater in any other situation. But in America the rules seem to be clear: patriotism first, homophobia second. The death of a luger even before the games began has been blamed squarely on Canada for not allowing access to the course to international competitors. I must admit, I cannot fathom the logic behind Canada's Olympic decision in that regard, and perhaps the blame is ours. Now that a Japanese luger has been disqualified for having a sled that was too heavy, a rule that judges have no choice but to honour, relations with Japan are sure to suffer too. And the latest? A 'watchdog' from Quebec is taking note of the lack of french amenities at our Canadian Olympics - an almost inevitable side-effect of holding them in the most anglo city of our bilingual country. Every would-be politician with a controversial bone to pick is using the public spectacle of the Olympics as their own private soap box, including me it would seem. It is sad that Canada has chosen to take on the 'honour' of 'having the eyes of the world upon us' in a time of global paranoia when those eyes are usually looking through cross-hairs. The Olympics has done little for Canada but make it a target for hate. But the Olympics is a time-honoured tradition instituted thousands of years ago by the ancient Greeks, a society which gave us theatre, poetry, sculpture, and democracy, and a society whose primary metropolitan centres (Athens, Sparta) spent so many decades in conflict that most of those poets died criticising their own culture, and in tears. Maybe it is time to see this 'time-honoured tradition' laid to rest. Can't we all just get along?

See you in hell,
Shakes.

The 1980s? OH NO!

David Christopher
HA 510
Dr. Lianne McLarty
Wed. Feb. 3, 2010

Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead in the Shifting Forest of 1980s American Fear

The film Evil Dead (c.1983)1 perpetuated basic social fears - it was created by and received into a pre-existing social culture with deeply entrenched and psychologically powerful archetypes of fear: a society religiously protective of its definitions of what is horrific. The movie tested and defined the boundaries of how far society is willing to look into the depth of what is feared. There is a level of extremity that is acceptable, and then there is too much. While the film tested this boundary at one extreme (in a graphic depiction of rape which Raimi regretted as offensive and not fearful)2, it seemed rather mild at the other - the horror hero or villain in the film is a forest! But if the scary forest seems benign by comparison with contemporary horror icons like Leatherface or Michael Myers why revisit it with the cinematographic fervor that Raimi did? Placing the movie within the critical discourse and its historical context explores what it might reveal about the social and political environment of fear in which it was created and deployed. Primarily using ideas in Wood’s article, An introduction to the American horror film3, I explore the socio-political fears which the movie brilliantly and covertly identifies. From that perspective, the forest is one of various innovative versions of “the Other”4 in the movie that are significant representations of the changing tide of fear that was present in the 1980s in America and the evolution of the art-form of horror film that reflects it.
In her article, Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film, Carol Clover outlines a chronology and evolution of the horror film leading up to the 1980s. “The immediate ancestor of the slasher film is Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)”5. Clover states that in 1974 “a film emerged that revised the Psycho template to a degree”, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre6. In both cases the monster is humanized and de-foreignized. Dracula, the Mummy, and other now camp horror icons were all definitively foreign. “The process whereby horror becomes associated with its true milieu, the family, is reflected in its steady geographical progress towards America”7. Wood isolates this process as occurring between the fifties and the seventies. Leatherface and Norman Bates are both resident Americans and fully human. More important is the fact that they have or are taking part in post industrial revolution urban culture. Even the non-human slasher in Alien has arrived via technology and is imported into the urban (or technological) culture of the humans’ spacecraft.
The 1980s witnessed the horror film genre saturated with slasher flicks and their identifiable villains: Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and most iconic, Leatherface. Evil Dead follows conventions established by Massacre quite closely: five young victims traveling together through “uncharted territory” who form “two couples and a brother/sister family unit”8. Tony Williams, in his article Trying to Survive on the Darker Side: 1980s Family Horror, argues that the slasher film is primarily concerned with external assaults on the dominant social construct of family. In Evil Dead, the family is loosely represented in several ways: the proposal-like jewellery gift from Ash, the obvious couplings, the brother and sister presence and the racially and socially identical group of friends with an obvious amicable history. In fact, the overall construction is strikingly similar to Massacre with the exception of the specific evil slaughtering the ‘normal’ urbanites identified corporeally in Massacre and less tangibly in Evil Dead. But if Evil Dead is so similar and participates with the slasher genre so closely, how is it different, and how does it reflect a changing tide of fear? In Horror Films of the 1980s, Muir states that while “these narrative locales and elements play as a tribute to the great horrors of earlier vintage, the opening scene also reveals Raimi’s unique visual genius and ability to leap beyond convention” 9. Amongst other innovations, Raimi radically inverts the ‘last female’ convention to the last male, re-uniting the previously disparate male-female dichotomy under a common cultural banner against the invading foreign Other.
The threat of the foreign Other was a changing sensibility in the early 1980s. “The fifties science-fiction cycle of invasion movies is generally regarded as being concerned with the Communist threat”10. “While campaigning for President [Ronald Reagan] insisted that the Soviet Union was at the bottom of all trouble in the world, and in 1983 he famously referred to it as “the evil empire””11. “Yet by the time his presidency ended growing numbers of Americans were arguing that the real enemy was not the Soviet Union, but Japan” and American culture was “as wary as ever of their nation’s vulnerability to internal subversion or external attack”12.
While the 1980s may have been the climax of the cold war, rife with anti-communist sensibilities and a pervasive nuclear fear, history shows that cold war fears were coming to a close. “By the late 1970s . . . Japanese imports were undermining American manufacturers in the motor, consumer electronics and other industries”13. “In [1979] one academic book to become a bestseller was Japan as Number One”14. “By the 1980 presidential campaign the trade gap with Japan was a political issue”15. “[A]nti-Japanese sentiment deepened with the recession of the early 1980s, especially in 1982 when many workers who lost their jobs blamed Japanese competition”16. The opening scene of Evil Dead portrays the viewpoint of an unknown and ominous evil lurking in the woods and closes with an image of a half-submerged vehicle in a state of battered dilapidation. Immediately following is the same car in its operating state, before its demise, carrying its travelling victims to their cabin destination. It can be no coincidence that the opening scene depicts a distinctly American car travelling out of its urban safety zone into the unknown wilds. American society, drunk on anti-communist nuclear fear did not simply release the energy of that fear, but transferred it onto an economic invader rather than a military one. The nihilistic fear of a Communist nuclear attack was superimposed onto an emerging fear of a Japanese economic invasion.
At the time of the film’s release, the perception of a foreign threat was in flux, shifting from a Communist Russia to an economically relentless Japan. In this state of flux, symbols specifically depicting the Communist threat could be superseded with a wide berth of more general symbols of international Otherness moving towards Asia and Japan. Wood points out that “Irena in Cat People is from Serbia, Zombie is set in the West Indies, The Leopard Man in Mexico, etc.”17. Raimi innovatively locates a more elusive and hidden foreign Other squarely within American borders. In this way, Evil Dead is a perfect evolution and recombination of the foreign Other from outside American borders and the domestic threat of its own societal members. While America wasn’t looking and became preoccupied with resident evils, the foreign Other infiltrated the country and hid. From this new headquarters it became worthy of exploration again in movies such as Evil Dead . The Japanese threat, especially in the automotive industry, came all too close to home.
Wood defines a “basic formula” for the horror film. “[N]ormality is threatened by the Monster”18. Any critical analysis of a film, therefore fundamentally requires the identification of the Monster within the film. Wood defines eight categories of Other which include “Other cultures”, “Ethnic groups”, and “Alternative ideologies or political systems”19. In fact, Wood defines the Other in Marxist terms: “the concept of “the Other”: that which bourgeois ideology cannot recognize or accept but must deal with . . . in one of two ways: either by rejecting and if possible annihilating it, or by rendering it safe and assimilating it”20. The Other “functions not simply as something external to the culture or the self, but also what is repressed (but never destroyed) in the self and projected outwards in order to be hated and disowned. A particularly vivid example . . . is the relationship of the Puritan settlers to the Indians in the early days of America. The Puritans rejected any perception that the Indians had a culture, a civilization, of their own; they perceived them not merely as savage but, literally, as devils or the spawn of the Devil”21. The savage Other and the denial of their culture is clearly evident in Evil Dead. The evil of the religion from an ancient foreign culture is a foregone conclusion in the plotline. The fact of its impossibility is overlooked in order to relegate the culture to its necessary position as evil and dangerous. The writing of the book from which the incantations are drawn would be an impossible side-effect of a culture so aligned with evil that it would destroy itself (as are all of the urbanites except Ash) before any record could be made, unless it was written by some sort of demon itself, further aligning the foreign culture with evil and endowing its demons with uncharacteristic and unlikely literary capabilities.
Wood isolates the horror of the foreign to the Thirties. “In the Thirties, the monster was almost invariably foreign”22. “[T]he foreignness of the horror characters is strongly underlined . . . by the fact that nobody knows where [the monster] comes from”23. Wood lists Island of Lost Souls, Manitou, and Prophecy as movies that address the foreign Other24. I suggest that Evil Dead should be included on the list, although its depiction of the foreign Other is more subtle. “[F]ilms set on uncharted (and usually nameless) islands lend themselves particularly to interpretation of this kind”25. The nameless forest in Evil Dead becomes an island of just this sort when the bridge is destroyed and Ash and his companions are marooned in the insular forest.
The most obvious Other in the film, in stark contrast to the human slashers of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc. is a forest. “In any discussion of specific Evil Dead scenes, Cheryl’s rape by the woods is certain to be addressed. It’s Evil Dead’s most controversial scene, and remains a mesmeric trademark moment”26. After her rape, Cheryl will directly identify the forest as the body that attacked her: “it was the woods themselves. They’re alive”27. “Those pagan roots have emerged again and dragged the maiden, like Persphone into Hades, back to the jungle”28. Like 'the new twist on the old vampire story' trend of the eighties and nineties, Raimi presents the less obvious new twist on the old evil forest story. The unexpected subtlety of the forest as monster leaves the audience with the illusion of exploring uncharted and unexpected horror throughout the film. The mind cannot protect itself from a villain that is so elusive. The frightening labyrinthine nature a forest can have is seen in foliage mazes overtly depicted in classic literature like Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and movies including The Shining and later in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and less obviously in The Blair Witch Project. This cross-section of films demonstrates a universal fear of evil dark foliage across movies aimed at children and adults alike. In Evil Dead, the forest is pressing its ominous evil inwards and all around. Raimi’s ““shaky” cam”29 innovation fused the mobility of contemporary horror villains with the forest. The forest is rendered able to move and attack its victims. The soundtrack represents the centre of the mobile evil which mows its way through and over the forest. By juxtaposing it against more corporeal villains, Raimi slams the forest back into the relevant spectre of modern fears and criticisms. A terrifying reminder that it is still relevant and represents much that is still to be feared.
The forest and its motivating religion can only go so far in generating fear before it can no longer sustain the increasing visceral-visual reaction required in horror and the imagery must return to the horrifically mutated ‘demon-body’ of the infected urbanites to graphically depict evil. “[H]orror and pornography are the only two genres specifically devoted to the arousal of bodily sensation”30. Carol Clover and Linda Williams explore the relevance of the corporeal body in detail. Here it is sufficient to locate it as one of the visual manifestations of the Monster or Other. What is paramount is how these bodies of normality transform into the monstrous. Once infected, or possessed, by the ancient religion, the converted member, exposed to the evils of the Other, becomes an immediate and direct threat to those still repressed by the normality of their ethnocentric culture. The need for the forest to possess its victims bodily may also be a covert admission of the Other within the ‘us’ while maintaining an opposition against urban American culture. The repetition throughout the movie of the phrase “join us” by both the voice in the forest and the deadites themselves vividly underscores the notion of Other and its inherent fear. If the urbanites willingly embraced the Other and joined them, there would be nothing to fear. The movie uses the term “deadites”31 in order to suggest its zombies are somehow different. The term ‘urbanite’ was popularized in the 1950s and had become a standard part of American vernacular by the 1980s. “Deadite”31 is obviously derivative of the term and makes clear that the normality of the urbanite is corrupted once exposed to the evil Other in the forest.
But therein lays the ambiguity in the forest as Other. The physical forest rapes Cheryl but when the camera moves, it knocks trees over suggesting a deeper evil that is not actually the forest but an evil that haunts it. In Horror Films of the 1980s, Muir points out that the “invisible, unseen force roams the forest knocking down trees like King Kong”32. After the clock stops33, the first act of possession occurs. An ominous breeze blows across Cheryl from an open window and she is then compelled to scribble a horrific face on her art pad. The possession of Scott’s girlfriend occurs after a force from the forest rushes in upon her breaking the window glass to do so. She undergoes no other physical assault. Ash’s girlfriend becomes a deadite after being left alone in another room for a short period, but she had already been stabbed in the ankle with a pencil by the deadite Cheryl. The film is ambiguous as to whether her possession was a result of one or the other. The last possession (notably after all female bodies have been corrupted) is of Ash’s friend Scott. He is brutally physically attacked by his own deadite girlfriend but later rushes out into the forest where he is also physically assaulted by the foliage. While he is convalescent on the couch, he transforms at some unknown time off-screen. Once all four are infected, it evolves into a typical zombie movie with the last man protagonist, Ash, beset on all sides by his attacking zombified friends. However, the method by which the forest evil takes possession of its victims’ bodies is painfully vague.
The corruption of the urbanite body points towards stereotypical symbols of a deeply entrenched Christian society. “Within the biblical context, the corpse is also utterly abject. It signifies one of the most basic forms of pollution – the body without a soul”34. Extending Creed’s rationale beyond exclusively feminist criticism, the Christian ideology is strengthened while tying itself back to environmental issues: in a growing population (often seen as horrific in the zombie movie) the human body itself is a pollutant to the mother earth that spawned it.
Early in the film, Ash identifies a geographic location for the setting. “We just crossed the Tennessee border…”35. A near car accident diverts attention away from anything more specific. Tennessee has a contiguous border with eight other states, placing the setting pretty much anywhere in the mid-eastern United States. While Tennessee is probably best known as the home of Elvis’s Graceland, geographically it is also the central state in the so-called Baptist Bible Belt. While likely an unintentional coincidence on the part of Raimi, it does support the larger semiotic deployment of the film within its cultural context. In the film, Ash’s friend curses at some locals on the roadside by yelling “Ahh, go to hell” followed by his exclamatory “Jesus Christ”37. Both phrases are indicative of a vernacular couched in Christian doctrine. Heale quotes George Bush as having said “”cocaine was smuggled in on a ship,” a “deadly virus” eating at “the soul of our country”” in 198938. Even Bush was able to recognize the political sensibility aroused by linking foreign imports (admittedly illegal ones in this example) against a religious right. He deploys the terms “smuggled in” against “the soul”.
So the film deploys anti-Christian and anti-American urban economy symbolism. It depicts the monstrous Other as both an elusive evil in the forest and the corporeal bodies of the urbanites turned deadite. But hidden even deeper in the Other is not the monster itself, but its source. The academic whose voice is heard on the reel tape reveals that the search for knowledge of foreign cultures is the very cause of imported evil. The voice claims it was in the process of “excavating the ruins of Kandar” (which may have been a linguistic nod to Tolkien’s Gondor) and touches on all the depictions of the Other and its anti-American civilization tendencies39. It refers to the “myriad distractions of modern civilization”, “far from the groves of academe”, “those forces that roam the forest in dark bowers of man’s domain”, and claims that it is “through these incantations that the demons are given license to possess the living”39. Wood describes two films in which “science is initially responsible for bringing the monster into the community and thereby endangering the latter’s existence”40. For Evil Dead, we can make the exact same statement with academic research substituting for science. Muir describes a “resemblance to a little a little-known 1971 film called Equinox, which saw another adept demonologist take a book of demon incantations to his remote cabin in the woods, where things go wrong”41. The unidentified researcher/archaeologist’s studies into ancient foreign religions is brought home to American soil where it can infect the community. The academic’s choice to pursue his study of “ancient Sumerian funerary practices”39 is a repetition of the Pandora’s box myth. The very act of seeking knowledge – the Christian apple that Adam could not resist – damns its subject to hell. As a fundamental part of a capitalist-patriarch society, Christianity is deployed to defend and reinforce its organizational hegemony. Christianity is unmentioned but clearly placed in opposition to ancient and/or foreign cultures. In a final trope of anti-academic sentiment, it is only by burning the Book of the Dead (that contains the deadly incantations) that Ash manages to vanquish the demons that have possessed his companions. But they are dead and Ash remains irrevocably changed as well, having had to take part in the horrific culture of the Other by dismembering his girlfriend. In an inversion of Massacre, the protagonist becomes Leatherface.
The semiotics of symbols and conventions are unconsciously deployed into the artwork. “For the filmmakers, as well as the audience, full awareness stops at the level of plot, action, and character, in which the most dangerous and subversive implications can disguise themselves and escape detection”42. “Popular films, then, respond to interpretation as at once the personal dreams of their makers and the collective dreams of their audiences – the fusion made possible by the shared structures of a common ideology”43. Bellin in his introduction to Framing Monsters: Fantasy Film and Social Alienation, convincingly describes how a work of art (especially film, which is inherently collaborative) is constructed by and deployed into a pre-existing culture characterised by its own social and political ideologies. The artwork, in turn, either reifies or interrogates the very social and political ideologies that created it. “[T]o say that fantasy films are social constructs is not solely to say that they are constructed by their social contexts. It is, at the same time, to say that they are constructive of their social contexts”44. He quotes Eric Greene as stating “One of the characteristics of fiction is the ability to extract controversial problems from their social circumstances and reinscribe them onto fictional, even outlandish, contexts”45. Clover refers to the images of “cinematic play” as having “pronoun functions”: images that are smaller representations of a larger antecedent idea46. In this case, the “pronouns” are monstrous Others. They represent an “outlandish context” in which repressed fear of a foreign Other, formerly a military one outside of American borders, has shifted to an economic one that has infiltrated the country’s political boundaries and threatened its very prosperity.
In Evil Dead, the monster or Other follows a specific path; research of the Other, import of the Other, release of the other (via religious incantation) into an ancient archetypal fear (the forest), indirect and ambiguous (and therefore more frightening) infection or possession by the Other, direct assault by corrupted individuals who have become the Other. “[T]he fascination of horror is not to fix the images at their every appearance but, instead, to trace their migrations to the audience”47. By following these lines, Raimi places the forest and ancient religion against insular urban American culture, a definitive reflection of an uneasy shift from communist military fears to Japanese economic fears. Secondly, symbols of Christianity are opposed with advances in academic knowledge. The various and innovative depictions of the Other conflate to demonstrate a unity between the dominant social orders of Christianity and the domestic economy. Raimi uses conventions of the slasher film, but juxtaposes or fuses them with less corporeal villains and representations of a fear that was shifting away from the human urban violent criminal towards the foreign economic invader. Evil Dead is preceded by depictions in horror films of Others that are distinctly foreign and are ultimately vanquished and destroyed. It is contemporary with a series of movies in which the foreign Other is absorbed into a growing population which itself threatens to attack normality in sheer numbers (zombies) or environmental revenge of a planet whose stewards have failed utterly. No-one will be the Other and all will be destroyed. Wood describes horror films that immediately precede the c.1983 release of Evil Dead, particularly The Omen (1976) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), as worlds in which “annihilation is inevitable, humanity is now completely powerless, there is nothing anyone can do to arrest the process”48. Evil Dead participates in this convention. When the clock stops, there is no context for its occurrence and the question that arises is one of wonder. Will the horrific night go on forever? Many horror films offer an all-too-easy escape formula from the horror; Evil Dead is vague. There is no offer of an escape and time itself gives way to the unavoidable chasm of horror. Evil Dead lies at an historical cusp between the established human-slasher convention and the unavoidable evil of an unknown future. The film creatively and extensively covers all aspects of the shifting tenor of fear in America and the evolution of the art-movie genre in which fear was depicted and perceived.

Notes and Endnotes
1 Wikipedia dates the film release in 1981. In Fantastic Cinema Subject Guide, Senn and Johnson date the movie in 1982. In Horror Films of the 1980s, Muir dates the movie in 1983.
2 In a brief description of the film cataloguing it in Fantastic Cinema Subject Guide, Senn and Johnson feel the need to point out that Raimi “regrets including that scene in the movie” quoting him as saying “it was unnecessarily gratuitous and a little too brutal” (164).
3 Wood, Robin. An Introduction to the American Horror Film. Print.
4 Wood 199. Wood first introduces the term identifying semiotic interpretations of monsters in horror films, borrowed from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and it is repeatedly used by many critics throughout the discourse.
5 Grant, Barry Keith. The Dread of Difference : Gender and the Horror Film. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Print. 72.
6 Grant 72.
7 Wood 209.
8 Wood 212.
9 Muir, John Kenneth. Horror Films of the 1980s. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2007. Print. 320.
10 Wood 201.
11 Heale, M. J. "Anatomy of a Scare: Yellow Peril Politics in America, 1980-1993." Journal of American Studies 43.1 (2009): 19-47. Print. 2.
12 Heale 2.
13 Heale 2.
14 Heale 2..
15 Heale 3.
16 Heale 3.
17 Wood 209.
18 Wood 203.
19 Wood 200.
20 Wood 199.
21 Wood 199.
22 Wood 201
23 Wood 209.
24 Wood 209.
25 Wood 209.
26 Muir 320.
27 Evil Dead. Dir. Sam Raimi. Perf. Bruce Campbell, etc. Anchor Bay Entertainmenet, 1981. DVD. 29:37.
28 Muir 320.
29 Muir 51.
30 Grant 69.
31 Evil
32 Muir 319.
33 Evil 7:45
34 Grant 39.
35 Evil 1:30
36 Grant 39.
37 Evil 2:30.
38 Heale 2.
39 Evil 16:38-17:50.
40 Wood 219.
41 Muir 319.
42 Wood 203.
43 Wood 203.
44 Bellin, Joshua D. Framing Monsters. Sothern Carolina University Press. 2005. Print. 8.
45 Bellin 8.
46 Grant 71.
47 Grant 70.
48 Wood 211.

Bibliography
Athey, Stephanie, and Daniel Cooper Alarcon. "Oroonoko's Gendered Economies of honor/horror: Reframing Colonial Discourse Studies in the Americas." American Literature 65 (1993): 415-43. Print.
Bellin, Joshua D. Framing Monsters. Sothern Carolina University Press. 2005. Print.
Brummer, Alex. "The Men Who Put the Fear of God into America." Guardian 23 (1986): 21. Print.
Cheyfitz, Eric. "Balancing the Earth: Native American Philosophies and the Environmental Crisis." Arizona Quarterly 65.3 (2009): 139-62. Print.
Donziger, Steven R. "Fear, Crime, and Punishment in the United States." Tikkun 12.6 (1997): 24-7. Print.
Evil Dead. Dir. Sam Raimi. Perf. Bruce Campbell, etc. Anchor Bay Entertainmenet, 1981. DVD.
Grant, Barry Keith. The Dread of Difference : Gender and the Horror Film. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Print.
Heale, M. J. "Anatomy of a Scare: Yellow Peril Politics in America, 1980-1993." Journal of American Studies 43.1 (2009): 19-47. Print.
Horowitz, Gad. Repression : Basic and Surplus Repression in Psychoanalytic Theory : Freud, Reich, and Marcuse. Toronto ; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977. Print.
Muir, John Kenneth. Horror Films of the 1980s. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2007. Print.
Penner, Jonathan, actor, Steven Jay Schneider, and Paul Duncan. Horror Cinema; London: Taschen, 2008. Print.
Sapolsky, Barry S. "Sex and Violence in Slasher Films: Re-examining the Assumptions." Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 80.1 (2003): 28-38. Print.
Senn, Bryan, and John Johnson. Fantastic Cinema Subject Guide : A Topical Index to 2500 Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 1992. Print.
Thomson, Douglass H., Jack G. Voller, and Frederick S. Frank. Gothic Writers : A Critical and Bibliographical Guide. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002. Print.
Weatherby, W. J. "America's Horror Movie Brought to Life." Guardian 16 (1984): 15. Print.
Wood, Robin. An Introduction to the American Horror Film. Print.

Snapshots

Back in the late 1990’s, Bill Cosby aired a show entitled “Kids Say the Darndest Things” in which he would pose them questions to allow a studio audience to revel in the naivety of their answers. Cosby was trying to cash in on the innocence of childhood with an acceptably mild form of exploitation. Train wrecks such as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Miley Cyrus have since taught us that even the most benign commercial exploitation of a child can have irrevocably damaging effects. If memory serves, Cosby ran out of material after about one episode. Subsequent shows demonstrated awkwardly contrived questions designed to elicit the necessary type of response but the artifice was too transparent and overwhelmed the scant humour that remained. The problem is that the wonderfully humorous perspective of children can’t be scripted. It certainly can’t be packaged and sold like Cosby attempted. It exists only in their candor – perfectly unexpected candor – and it never loses its cache. Let me share some candid snapshots with you.

One-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater:
Milo: (huge grin) Look Dad! I painted my eyebrows!
Dave: Oh my god, Milo! Is that purple nail polish!? That's not like eyeshadow. It won't just wash off!
Milo: (smile dropping to fear) I don't want to be like this forever!

Sleeping with a One-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater:
Blair: (stumbling from his bed rubbing his tired eyes) Dad I can't sleep in there with Milo. His eyebrows are freaking me out!

Bedtime Hunger:
Dave: Okay, Aiden. I'll lie with you for a few minutes. Now, just close your eyes and feel yourself sinking into the mattress. Feel every inch of your legs and your back and your head softly comforted and cushioned. Keep your eyes closed. Now try to imagine yourself on the deck of a nice boat, lying in the warm sun, with the roll of the waves gently rocking you to sleep.
Aiden: I'm imagining I'm on a sea of meat and I can eat as much as I want!

How to know you're a bad singer:
Dave: Okay, Milo. I'll lie with you for a few minutes. (gently and melodiously) Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetops. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough....
Milo: Uuuuuh, Dad? Can you stop for a while?

Rural BC Dialect:
Marianne: Well, I hope Lily learns how to speak from you and not me.
Dave: Why?
Marianne: Because you have a better vocabulary and better grammar.
Dave: Yeah, I guess. We sure don't want her acquiring that Shawnigan Lake dialect and accent you have.
Marianne: (ingenuously) What accident!? I don't never had an accident!

Technological Humiliation:
Rory: No way, Tasha! My phone is way better than yours. I have voice recognition. Watch this! (holding his phone up in front of himself) Call Tasha.
Phone: (hyper-polite mechanical female voice) I'm . . . sorry. I didn't quite . . . get that. Can you please . . . try again?
Rory: (emphatically) CALL TASHA.
Phone: Thank you. Did you say, call . . . . . . . . . . ALLISON.
Rory: No. / Me, Megan, Tasha: Aaaaah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

Fairy-tales, Irony, Sexuality, and Tragedy:
Recently I bought a social "board" game called "what?". Ironically, it requires one player to pose questions to others to answer in any way they like. Competitors must try to guess who wrote a specifically chosen answer. Sometimes, at least with 'adults', I guess answers can be both candid and humorous.
Marianne: Disney has asked you to write a new ending to their classic fairy-tale version of Snow White. What would you change?
Stu: Graphic depiction of Snow White losing her virginity to Prince "Charming".
Lucy: Orgy with the seven dwarfs.
Marianne: She divorces him.
Dave: Everybody dies.

See you in hell,
Shakes.

The Barber of Springfield

David Christopher
Dr. Jennifer Wise
THEA 309a
03-December-2009


Operatic High Art vs. Operatic Popular Entertainment in the Simpsons' Homer of Seville


The Simpsons has long been a reflection of common North American sensibilities and has also been in touch with the institutions of popular art and entertainment. Episodes have included parodies of Shakespeare (as a Zombie), Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven, the media circus surrounding the candidacy of Bill Clinton for President, an insane asylum patient convinced that he is Michael Jackson, Star Wars, Star Trek, and more. The Simpsons' humour, like all humour, is dependent on the complicity of the audience. When someone expresses a preference against a type of comedy that they do not find humorous, it is often an indicator of a more fundamental sensibility. That is to say that they do not share the perspective that the target of the humour is risible, and therefore they are unable to appreciate the parody or satire. Like a touchstone to popular opinion, The Simpsons has satirized or parodied virtually every recognizable global institution. The recent re-popularization of opera motivated the ongoing television series to devote an entire episode to the art form, entitled Homer of Seville. Typical of the Simpsons, the humour is well informed and in this episode, it demonstrates a well-researched knowledge of the history of opera. The parody takes particular aim at the disparity between popular American entertainment and haute couture art in the form of opera, which has historically intended to be both.
Taking a holistic view of the chronological episode, a pattern of satiric themes emerges. The opening sequence is normally a simple variation on a theme of the family racing to their couch to watch television. In this episode, however, the animators take an entirely different approach and present the convention of the evolution of man, in the form of Homer. There is something particularly appropriate about the evolution of man that is animated in the opening sequence. The art of opera represents some of the highest achievements of the evolved human mind and it effectively sets the tenor for the ensuing parody of an art form that presently continues to evolve.
Early in the episode, Mr. Burns approaches Homer with an offer to sing at "The Springfield Opera House, of which [he is] founder, artistic director, and standing ovation starter" (8:22-8:26). Mr. Burns' control over all aspects of the production may well be a reference to the building and artistic control that Wagner held over his theatre at Bayreuth in which he staged the Ring Cycles. The comic mention of "standing ovation starter" is an obvious glance at nineteenth century Paris' Auguste Levasseur who instituted the claque. He would effectively hire audience plants to begin and sustain applause at key moments when it was desirable to bolster the audience's natural reaction and make critical acclaim more certain (Wise). This contrived aspect of Grand Opera became such a fundamental institution that ‘Auguste’ took on an iconic status. “Auguste’s art consisted of much more than just unleashing a storm of applause whenever he gave the signal: he was probably Veron’s closest advisor” (Somerset-Ward 155). In fact, his marketing skills were deemed so valuable that, without any formal musical knowledge, he took an active part in advising dancers and singers prior to their performances. The character of Mr. Burns fancies himself a bit of an ‘Auguste’.
In response to Mr. Burns' offer, Homer admits that he can only sing when lying on his back. The avaricious Mr. Burns simply replies with a dismissive comment that it can be covered with a "re-write" (8:33-8:34). The parody aims at the fact that opera, in its lack of realism, can be modified to accommodate the most ludicrous stage representation. Inherent to the parody is an attack on theatrical art that does not fall within the popular confines of realism. Evidently, realism is a mode of acting that has become so pervasively popular, it merits the risibility of all other forms of theatre in the sensibilities of the Simpsons audience. In his essay, Realism and the American dramatic tradition, William W. Demastes identifies the "tyranny of realism. This phrase summarizes the impression expressed in numerous critical analyses of twentieth century American drama [...] [S]uch playwrights as Eugene O'Neill and Sam Shepard [...] returned to this form if for no other reason than that American audiences have been more willing to accept realist drama more than any other form" (Demastes ix). Realism in drama has become the standard for American entertainment against which American audiences measure and parody all forms of entertainment outside of its regime.
During rehearsal, Homer is confronted by a hyper-emotional French director, complete with stereotypical beret (8:45-8:55). This may be another glance at French opera, but it is certainly indicative of the shameless way that the Simpsons will exploit stereotypes. However, the exploitation of stereotypes may be more than it seems. On the surface, the parody appears to be aimed at the French director, but the stereotype presented does not typify historical French opera. The stereotype might be more accurately representative of Broadway directors. Long ago, in season three, the Simpsons established a well-informed parody of the Broadway musical in an episode entitled A Streetcar Named Marge. The current parody is actually aimed at both the narrow perspective held by American audiences as to what constitutes entertainment, and the ignorance of the common audience at large as to what represents opera.
Audience patrons of Homer's first performance include his working class colleagues, Lenny and Karl. Standing in the rafters above the stage, they converse. "Homer's fantastic! / Yeah but these seats are terrible" (9:16-9:21). The obvious allusion to Citizen Kane is further evidence of the Simpsons' vast survey of American art and popular culture. More important is the social comment made about opera audiences. In contrast to the working class priced seats occupied by Lenny and Karl, their interaction is immediately followed by the image of audience members, in good seats, centred by an elderly woman sporting a beehive hairstyle and looking through stemmed opera glasses (9:23-9:24). Other audience members caricatured as staunch and elderly surround her. The message seems to be that opera is unaffordable except to the wealthy elite and that it only appeals to the conservative elderly patron. She wipes away a single tear. Considering the patrician facade that she represents, the humour seems to suggest that only lofty art such as opera can elicit even the slightest emotional response in her while the less financially well-off patrons are systemically compromised in their appreciation due to their poor seats.
Homer's ridiculous performance concludes with his rapidly alternating between lying and standing for the singing and dramatic parts of his performance respectively (9:29-9:40). The audience then stands and in a universal British accent, shouts stereotypical theatre interjections of appreciation: "Bravo! Bravo! Bellissimo! Encore!" (9:41-9:47). The parody here is a trope not established by the Simpsons but exacerbated in their repeated use of the British accent to symbolize wealthy Victorian elitism. For example in a Season Three episode entitled Lisa's Pony, the same accent is identified as part of a "patrician facade" by the stoic elderly female stable owner and trainer who sneers at Homer for his social standing and lack of wealth (20:50). In fact, the character suggests she is correcting Lisa's accent as she begins to enter the elitist world of horseback riding. The pretentious stable trainer says, "I'm teaching your daughter riding, grooming, and at no extra charge, pronunciation" (13:13-13:19). Lisa, astride her pony in fashionable equestrian garb responds with a ridiculous version of the British accent. In the episode at hand, the same stereotype of the generic British accent is used to caricature the American perspective of the opera patron demographic.
The most distinctive evidence of the contrast between American popular entertainment and lofty operatic art follows Homer's performance. The audience acclaim in the previous scene prompts Mr. Burns to comment, "Homer, you are a star." Homer responds with an exuberant "Woo-hoo!" Mr. Burns then completes his interrupted sentence by emphasizing, "...an opera star!" Homer's celebratory mood disappears and he plaintively groans in disappointment. "Oooh" (9:51-9:55). Homer's disappointment at the type of fame he has achieved is a parody of the narrow American vision of stardom being exclusive to popular entertainment. The lofty arts are of a much lesser appeal to the uncultured Homer. The following interlude with Bart and Lisa clarify Homer's ignorance further.
Bart: "Dad you were great!"
Lisa: "And you contributed to our culture!"
Homer: "I didn't mean to."
Lisa: "No-no. It's a good thing" (9:57-10:04).
In Homer's stupidity, he actually has to be consoled that fame by culture is positive.
The scene that follows jumps to an image of an elaborate system of pulleys rigged to elevate Homer's lying body into the air against an Egyptian background. The pulley system requires the strength of two elephants in a side-stage area to operate. The surface joke in the 'dialogue' of the elephants is leveled at Homer's weight (10:17-10:32). However, for the informed observer, it is easy to interpret a parody of the historical use of complex machinery to create stage spectacle typical in French Grand Opera and exemplified in Handel's Rinaldo.
In the "locker room" as the sign on the door identifies it, Homer is given an athlete's snap of the towel to the ass by a Placido Domingo caricature wearing naught but a towel (10:53-10:57). The image juxtaposes athletic locker-room camaraderie against the expected operatic changing room etiquette. Ironically, Placido Domingo expresses the complicit views of the common viewer: "There iss one thing about opera that hass alwayss bugged me. Everyone singss instead of talking, but you made me believe I wass in a magical world, where singing iss talking" (11:08-11:22). The comment reiterates how modern audiences privilege realism over other forms of theatre or drama that are aimed at arousing emotional responses in other ways. However, it also demonstrates a deep understanding of the fundamental problem with opera. "In opera, there is a constant tension between the music and the drama" (Wise).
Domingo's accent is very obvious. English opera has never been particularly popular and even less common. The fallout from the earliest performances of Rinaldo and the virtuosity of castrati performances in London was severe (Wise), and American culture is characterized by extreme ethnocentricity and the racist backlash against people who do not speak the language. This linguistic defensiveness openly extends into art forms that are not commonly presented in English. The lack of English opera, combined with the popularity of realism, has resulted in opera's absence from the late twentieth and twenty-first century mainstream of popular American culture. Given, however, the informed perspective on the tension between drama and music that is at the heart of the genius of opera (Mozart / Carmen), and the fact that Homer is both a buffoon and the paradigm representation of common American opinion, it seems clear that the parody is actually attacking the limited American range of artistic taste which is largely exclusive to popular film and music.
Homer demonstrates an irreverent buffoonery when he looks at Placido Domingo and says that of the Three Tenors, he is his "second favourite" (11:23-11:29). Then, after remembering "that other guy" he adds insult to injury by saying that he is the third favourite. Domingo is caricatured as incredulous and dumbfounded (11:30). The irony and juxtaposition continue to mount as Domingo then asks Homer, bearing an excitement in his face reminiscent of a child eager for approval, to evaluate a "new note he has been working on" (11:31-11:37). The note is expertly executed to which a puffed-up Homer instructs him to "Keep reaching for the stars, kid" (11:37-11:59). The expected hierarchical dynamic is inverted by placing Domingo in a subservient position, which satirizes how American culture maintains a perspective of humble reverence for those elite to whom we have ascribed artistic genius within the perceived 'haute couture' of opera. The truth of the humanity behind the elevated status of the Opera star is laid bare. Domingo is left standing exposed as humanly fallible, naked (literally, except for a towel), humiliated, deflated (12:00-12:02). In this instance, the self-important iconographic status that opera seems to embody is parodied and brought low.
The juxtaposition of opera and rap in the following scene comically demonstrates that opera is also a form of popular entertainment. Homer tries to marry his operatic fame into the pop-culture rap music stereotypes of the American common media. Marge suggests that their anniversary dinner would be more romantic without Homer's "entourage" (12:06-12:11). Wikipedia states that Homer's entourage, Lenny and Carl, specifically parodies the television series Entourage but I suggest it has broader appeal as a parody of rap-culture in general. Homer responds with vernacular stereotypical of the popular entertainment genre of rap. He vaguely claims he needs his posse to "keep it real" (12:15). Later two elderly groupies will extend the juxtaposition of young urban vernacular against operatic fame when one of these elderly women pines that she really wants to "hook-up with Homer" (13:34-13:36).
Although opera may not be characteristic of mainstream popular entertainment in the U.S., it has been characterized by fanatical reactions by its patrons. In the entourage scene, two elderly female groupies accost Homer during his dinner with Marge (12:29). They are followed by the approach and praise of a waiter who is stereotypified as gay in his demeanour and in the innuendo of Homer's response (12:51-13:03). For the second time, the audience to which opera appeals is presented as elderly women, to which the parody adds gay men. In the following scene, Homer and Marge are chased by a screaming and frantic mob of elderly female groupies (14:03-14:40). Juxtaposed against the reserved behaviour expected of their demographic is the insanely fanatical behaviour reminiscent of Beatles' fans. Most of the rest of the episode then follows a more focused parody of opera fanaticism. An obsessed fan that originally poses as the Simpsons’ saviour in the form of a manager stalks Homer and persistently offers him sexual favours. To extend the fan parody, particularly of those who identify with the intellectual elite, Lisa, while scanning the audience for a potential threat to her father during his final performance, complains only of someone "loudly unwrapping his candy!" (18:42-18:49). Clearly this is less important than her father's safety, but exemplifies a stereotype of the hypersensitivity of opera fans towards opera house etiquette.
The episode also includes a verbal parody of the often larger physique of operatic performers that became a stereotype after the popularization of the Three Tenors and perhaps with a glance at Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld who played Isolde in Wagner's Tristan in Munich in the summer of 1865. Somerset-Ward candidly describes him as "a massive man with a gigantic girth" (134). Marge insists that Homer's operatic fame has got him "out of control" with "late nights, and eating. You've actually outgrown your cape" (13:07-13:12). Marge notes only these two elements out of a litany of 'out of control' behaviours currently associated with fast-fame, which emphasizes the stereotype of weight ascribed to operatic artists. Furthermore, the presentation of Homer wearing a cape seems to satirize the stereotype of both operatic costuming and the eccentric fashion choices associated with the egomaniacal virtuosos of the twentieth century.
The Simpsons’ episode seems better informed in its parody than the famous Bugs Bunny parody of Wagner's ring cycle. The hilarious "kill the wabbit" rendition of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries is complete with Elmer Fudd wearing a Viking costume and a horned magic helmet. Bugs is later seen costumed with long braids from under another horned helmet. The stereotype of Norse myth as it appeared in Wagner's Bayreuth Ring Cycle is very specific. At the time of the cartoon's release, the stereotype of opera seems to have found a paradigm in Wagner. The Bugs Bunny cartoon uses this opera exclusively. The Simpsons, by contrast shows a broader range of operatic fares as though it is intending to demonstrate a better-informed survey of the art form as it is appreciated today. The only reference made to the stereotype paradigm of Wagner occurs when Chief Wiggum needs to go on-stage during a performance to protect Homer. While announcing that he's "going in" he replaces his police uniform hat with a horned Norse helmet (19:11-19:16). He then takes the clichéd tumble off the stage into the orchestra (19:17-19:19). Ironically, in a stereotype of Wagnerian opera, this tumble would not be possible since the orchestra was hidden in a space under the stage at Bayreuth.
Within Homer's satirical final performance, the episode finds the space to parody one last convention that represents a marriage of both popular entertainment and opera via the recent Broadway hit The Phantom of the Opera. Within that story line, the giant chandelier over the auditorium mysteriously and dangerously falls on the audience. Both the operatic venue and chandelier tragedy are parodied as Chief Wiggum implements safety measures that include "pre-crashing the chandelier" (18:18-18:20). Homer summarizes the contradictory popularity of the opera in an ironic statement in which he claims, "I'm retiring from the opera. It's just too popular" (20:40-20:46). Homer's final words make an ironic connection between the high art of opera and popular entertainment.
The last scene of the episode delineates the high arts in general as a unified ideology. Homer, while making romantic gestures towards Marge, states that he knows an activity that can be accomplished while lying on his back that is much more fun. Following, however, is an image of him painting baroque art on the ceiling of his home while lying on his back on a scaffolding. The image is the stereotype of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Homer states that somehow "singing opera" made him "good at painting". The connection of what is typically considered haute couture or high art, associated with classical styles and specifically baroque, is obviously intended to classify them in a singular category in particular opposition to lower popular entertainment.
The humour of the Simpsons moves so rapidly from one parody to the next in stychomythiaic dialogue that it is difficult to identify a singular form of humour. Comic visual representation with vibrant colours, accompanied by rapid verbal humour that demonstrate irony, burlesque, pun, and coincidence, are laid against a well-informed cultural knowledge of the larger institution being satirized. In this case, the focus is opera, and there is almost no aspect of opera that is not represented. In order to truly appreciate the depth of the humour, one must be well versed in the esoteric details of international opera history: Auguste's claque, Wagner's Bayreuth, the iconic status of Placido Domingo. The common threads with which all of the humour is imbued is twofold. In the Simpsons characteristic ability to parody both sides of an institution, the episode ridicules the narrow view of popular American artistic taste while simultaneously ridiculing the lofty and inaccessible position to which opera may have been relegated in an all-English culture that is hyper-loyal to its realism. There is a certain irony in the most ubiquitous popular-cultural television series bringing the most elite haute couture form of art into the popular spotlight. However, it may be argued that the parody of opera was inevitable as, prior to its topical coverage by the Simpsons, it had began to garner more popular appeal on its own. Either way, the parody is clearly aimed at popular entertainment and high theatrical art alike, through the institution of opera, which is conveniently both.


Works Cited

Demastes, William W., ed. Realism and the American dramatic tradition. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998.

"Homer of Seville." the Simpsons. Writ. Carolyn Omine. Dir. Michael Plocino. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2009. November 23, 2009.

"Lisa's Pony." the Simpsons: The Complete Third Season. Writ. Al Jean & Mike Reiss. Dir. Carlos Baeza. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc., 2003. DVD.

Somerset-Ward, Richard. The Story of Opera. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1996

Wise, Dr. Jennifer. Introduction to Theatre History 309a. Univeristy of Victoria. Phoenix Theatre Building, Victoria, BC. September - November 2009. Classroom Lectures.

Renaissance Porn

David Christopher
Dr. Erin Campbell
HA 545
December 2009

Gentileschi’s Lucretia: Visible and Covert Sexuality in Art for the Domestic Space

The role and pervasive presence of didactic imagery within the domestic space of Renaissance Italy has been well documented. Objects within the domestic space were heavily focused on marital ritual, childbirth and childrearing. But what happens in between? Moving from marriage to childbirth is a definitively sexual activity that ostensibly occurred within the domestic space. Artemisia Gentileschi’s circa 1621 Lucretia is an artwork that provides a clear voice to the silent narrativisation of Renaissance sexuality. Beyond its didactic exterior, the painting is rich with meaning in several of its aspects. The sexualized reputation of the author was widespread. The ontological piety of the myth was saturated with sexual ambiguity. The image itself is visibly sensual. The painting is pregnant with erotic energy! It would have been pivotal in defining a space as erotic, whether it was a bedchamber or a common room, as long as there was a settee handy. A locus of multiple meanings and influences conflate in the painting to give meaning to a space: an holistic ideology of sensuality. In defining the space, it may have acted as both an aphrodisiac and a sensual reminder to both the husband and wife of her sexual duty. In this paper I will argue that Gentileschi’s Lucretia was teeming with sexual meaning that directly prompted a call to perform sexual activity.
William Shakespeare, during the closures of the theatres in the late sixteenth century, took to writing epic poetry. He only wrote a handful of poems and on this short-list was the Rape of Lucrece. Evidently, the myth was powerful enough in romantic energy and mythical status to have commanded the bard’s attention. In her article Virtuous Model / Voluptuous Martyr, Carol Schuler states that Renaissance “texts are nearly unanimous in their admiration of Lucretia’s moral rectitude” (Schuler 7). “By the Renaissance, the name of Lucretia was virtually synonymous with the idea of female chastity” (Schuler 7). The story suggests that Lucretia's suicide brought down the Roman monarchy, circa 508 BCE. Lucretia had proven superior in virtue and beauty. Thus inflamed, the Roman prince Tarquinius stole into her chamber and raped her at knife-point under the threat of murdering her and a servant and falsely reporting their adultery. The next day she committed suicide after telling her story to her father and her husband, Collatine. Accompanied by Junius Brutus and Publius Valerius, they vowed to kill Tarquinius and exile the ruling Tarquin family. Their story was met with acclamation by the people to change from the tyranny of monarchy to rule by consuls.
But Gentileschi's Lucretia has a sexual, power connotation that might not be so ontologically evident in the connotation invoked by the famous story. Ajmar states "awareness of the symbolic meanings associated with the domestic space in the Renaissance is only now beginning to dawn among historians" (Ajmar 75). In this way historians are being invited to explore meanings that may have little extant voice. On the surface the didactic virtue of a woman who takes her life after being raped seems obvious. However, the meaning hidden within the myth is ambiguous. Lucretia was a virtuous wife whose beauty caused the sexual advances of her rapist. Inherent to the story is the suggestion of some causality between her virtue and her rape. Was she too virtuous and is this the lesson intended for the image to invoke? Is it intended to invoke the myth of power-drunk patriarchy that resulted in her assault and act as a warning against tempting the lusty power of the structure with virtue and beauty? If it is a warning that feminine sexuality is dangerous to the welfare of women and the security of the patriarchy, why is the image so provocative? The "awareness of symbolic meanings" that Ajmar is encouraging cannot ignore the blatantly sexualized image presented of Lucretia, nor the power of a woman to bring an empire to its knees with only an ultimate sacrifice.
The piety of the surface myth is openly complicated in the Renaissance period. Schuler states that Augustine cast doubt based on “the Christian view of suicide as sinful rather than heroic, and questions why, if Lucretia remained chaste and blameless, she needed to take her own life” (Schuler 7). Schuler boldly introduces speculation about the myth. “Lucretia’s decision to commit suicide may have resulted from an inadvertent pleasurable physical response at the time of her rape” (Schuler 7). Looking to tangible artworks rather than social sensibility, Schuler notes that “fidelity to the details of the story, as well as the straightforward interpretation of Lucretia as a paragon of virtue, are characteristics notably absent from artworks produced during the early sixteenth century. This period witnessed a virtual explosion of artistic interest in the suicide of Lucretia, concomitant with an increasingly eroticized interpretation of the subject” (Schuler 8). Nevertheless, “most philosophic inquiry debated Lucretia’s response to her rape, not her complicity in causing it” leaving her pious image relatively untainted (Schuler 7). But other renaissance images of Lucretia variously depict her being raped, or committing suicide, or both. So, the myth is filled with sexual ambiguity and the artist’s reputation coincides in her story of rape and ambiguous complicity.
Recent scholarship has tended to shy away from biographical interpretations of art and has relegated the artist nearly to irrelevance. Feminist criticism has made the interpretation of a female artist’s sexual persona virtually criminal to discuss. However, without any need to ascribe artistic motives to Gentileschi herself, it is the public reception of her reputation as it was associated with her artwork that is relevant. In Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, R. Ward Bissell refreshingly argues that “the reconstruction of an artist’s oeuvre must privilege considerations of style over interpretive strategies, without at all discounting the latter’s potential, when solidly grounded, for informing connoisseurship” (Bissell xxi). In Gentileschi’s Lucretia, it is difficult to overlook a biological read of the artist’s life in the provenance of the painting as it lends itself to a psychoanalytical exploration of the repressed sexuality, lust, and desire for sexual domination inherent to the image and the story it invokes. Echoing the myth within the painting is the substantial meaning of the artist’s own life which informed its reception. Many researchers into the life and times of Artemisia have been heavily preoccupied with the coincidence of the myth and the painter.
Artemisia’s rape trial was highly publicized and the social identity ascribed to her was irrevocably sexualized. Bissell reports that “it is highly unlikely that this case, although conducted in semiprivate, escaped the court of public opinion” (Bissell 14). Bissell quotes George Hersey as stating “personal tragedies of other artists have not conditioned their work but their art is not usually seen as a specific restaging of those tragedies. It seems that Artemisia’s pictures were admired in just this way” (Bissell i). The reception of her pictures discussed by Hersey is not ascribed to an audience of a particular era, but given the public nature of her reputation it is reasonable to include the audience of the period in which the painting emerged. In Mann’s book she includes an article by Elizabeth S. Cohen entitled, What’s in a Name? Artemisia Gentileschi and the Politics of Reputation. Cohen and Mann both reiterate a likely public reputation, if only from her artwork alone. “[T]hese women’s accomplishments were celebrated in their own time” (Mann 123). “The arts became a domain in which some numbers of women began to emerge in the limelight” (Cohen 123). Although Cohen argues that, “after Artemisia left Rome in 1612 after the trial, she was not haunted for the rest of her days with unusual sexual notoriety” (Mann 121), she also points out that “Artemisia’s assertive testimony and judgment against Tassi, sufficiently mended the blemish to her reputation” (Cohen 121). The fact that her reputation needed mending and that it called her to the unusual task of publicly speaking on her own behalf is clear evidence that the knowledge of her sexual transgression was widespread enough to require public defense. “Artemisia testified to resistance [which] in effect succeeded in making Artemisia’s virtue a central issue (Bissell 14). Artemisia complicates the rape dynamic with her own ambiguous complicity. “Artemisia kept hopes alive of marrying Tassi – certainly so that she might reclaim her honor […], but also, it seems, because of positive feelings towards him” (Bissell 15). Bissell paints a highly sexualized public reputation, richly ambiguous with her complicity in the rape. “The very fact that she remained unwed for several years after Roman culture would have deemed her sexually mature, more likely than ever to let her female passions rule, and fully ready for a husband would have set tongues wagging” (Bissell 17).
Whether or not the trial was staged by her father to protect the reputation of her virtue is unclear. What is clear, however, are common themes in Gentileschi's art. She tends towards hyper-sensualized depictions of women, themes of sexual assault by powerful men, violent revenge against tyrannical men, suicide and sacrifice. Cohen dismisses her trend as simply the work of “a woman artist who specialized in strong religious subjects as well as classical narratives and nudes” (Cohen 122). Bissell categorizes Lucretia in a population of early works that followed the success of her Susanna (image 1), which include both of her depictions of Judith (one of them displayed in image 2). The biographical psychology that might be psychoanalytically interpreted from this population would regard sexual conquest and feminine vengeance. The Lucretia myth is laden with both. One might be strongly inclined to think that Artemisia was using her art as a therapeutic outlet for emotional turmoil and guilt. Overtly, the painting depicts a strong, independent woman making the ultimate sacrifice after her rape and is popularly painted by a strong independent rape victim who has boldly chosen to pursue and challenge an entirely male-dominated profession.
“[T]he painter’s identity, like that of all human beings, [was] an amalgam of the social and the individual” (Cohen 122). Whether or not Gentileschi was complicit in her rape is not at stake. All that is relevant is that her public reputation was tainted with the idea. “In the calculus of reputation, rank and sexual propriety certainly mattered” (Cohen 123). In defense of the biographical interpretation, Bissell notes that “as a woman she was singularly able to project herself into the stories” (Bissell 14). The sexual ambiguity which imbued her life’s story was specifically and perfectly reflected in the Lucretia myth.
In her book, Sexuality in Medieval Europe : doing unto others, Ruth Karras states that "Medieval people […] did not see suggestive or explicit images glaring out at them from newsstands, billboards and computer screens" (Karras 150). I do not entirely agree. Although Karras is referring to an earlier medieval period, she describes it as "an era without photography, video and the internet" (Karras 150). This definition is also true of the early modern era but suggestive images were ubiquitous. They were not on billboards and computer screens but they were on cassones and in paintings. Bissell suggests that the Lucretia “painting is not beautiful by orthodox standards […] while not disallowing the erotic and sexually allusive which patrons had been conditioned to find in pictorializations of these themes. Certainly Lucretia’s right hand, for all its poignancy within the story, calls attention to her very full breast, and her bare leg crowds the picture plane. That the bed on which Lucretia was raped becomes now the site of her suicide imparts sensuality by implication” (Bissell 13).
The association of death with sexuality was an old trope, already established by a medieval preoccupation with corporeal needs. "Caroline Bynum suggests "while we may think today of bodies primarily in sexual terms, for medieval people other concerns were paramount [...] food, and the status of the body after death" (151). Jumping forward to the "Late medieval" period, she notes that "The relation between sex and death [...] is even more complex but equally ubiquitous" (153). As such, there is an elusive erotic connection between death and sexuality that is perfectly embedded in the erotic images of Lucretia at the moment of her suicide.
Have a good look at the face of Gentileschi's Lucretia (image 3). It ambiguously invokes as much of a sense of guilt and perhaps even ecstasy, as it does sacrifice. Bissell describes the image as “a figure frozen in the anticipation of guidance from beyond” (Bissell 12). Relegating the image to a strictly religious anguish and/or ecstasy seriously overlooks “the expressive range (from the reflective to the startlingly dramatic) of which Artemisia was capable” (Bissell xxii). “Works of art, speaking across the centuries, hold new meanings for successive generations but it can be hazardous to ascribe these meanings to the artist or period under review” (Bissell 10). However, I argue that some images hold meanings and generate physiological reactions that are more biologically fundamental, and have been present over a vast stretch of human history. Sexual imagery that appeals to the male mind and libido has changed very little. The poses and depictions of Gentileschi’s Lucretia and Cleopatra (images 3 and 4) are identical to those contrived poses of women in such current erotic magazines as Playboy and Penthouse. Furthermore, these paintings by Gentileschi, when compared to other nudes of her genre, and when compared against other depictions of the subjects, are extremely and unnecessarily erotic. There is no specific need to represent Cleopatra or Lucretia so blatantly sexually, nor to have the sexuality supersede the less noticeable accoutrements of suicide.
The sensuality of the image is obvious. “In a gesture clearly reminiscent of nursing, Lucretia proffers her left breast as if to the suspended dagger” (Bissell 11). The connection to breastfeeding may well have prompted a Freudian sexual response in its male viewers. Lucretia sensually elevates and presents her own breast, as if for viewing. Mann’s book also includes an article by Ann Sutherland Harris called Artemisia and Orazio: Drawing Conclusions in which she posits that “Women’s breasts are regularly placed too high in Renaissance and seventeenth-century […] images of nude and dressed women, apparently as a matter of male taste” (Harris 137). Bissell poetically unpacks the image of Lucretia. “No wound yet marring her flesh nor blood tinging her weapon, she teeters on a bed of turbulent drapery, trussed by her shift and gripped by psychic anxiety” (Bissell 11). The undamaged flesh maintains a specifically sexual image not yet marred by the didacticism of her suicide; that her trussed shift is evidence of a dramatic or performative invocation, as is her “psychic anxiety”, which I suggest may also be interpreted as sexual ecstasy. At least the image may have been unconsciously received that way.
Bissell specifically disagrees. “Although not devoid of sexual appeal, [Artemisia’s depictions of Lucretia, Judith] do not explicitly spur fantasies of sexual availability, nor does eroticism prevail over meaning. All of these women have minds” (Bissell 13). Here, I firmly disagree with Bissell. Juan Luis Vives’ works inherently recognize a female intelligence and I posit that, even in Renaissance Italy, it was part of the social dynamic of sexual attraction, even if it was ignored or unknown. The fact that these women have minds actually empowers the already sexualized images of them to spur sexual fantasies with greater potency.
Historians, feminists and aestheticists are unanimous in reporting that the expropriation of sex from women was celebrated in art of patriarchal Renaissance Italy. Geraldine A. Johnson, in Picturing Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, outlines the public sensibility held by men towards nude female statuary. “[T]he focus of this chapter will be primarily on the responses of male viewers to female public statuary” (Johnson 223). Although Johnson is exclusive to public and sculpture, from her observations on the male reception of these artworks, we can extrapolate and idea of the general ideology and reception that would have inevitably informed their private reception in the domestic space. “These female figures, which derived from the Bible as well as from allegory and myth, elicited responses from contemporary viewers that ranged from devotion and admiration to suspicion and outright fear. Such a variety of reactions suggests that the meanings of such works could be ambiguous” (Johnson 222). Piety was not singular in its interpreted authority. Johnson describes the dismantling of pagan nude statues of Venus and Judith. “In both situations, public images of women – the one an alluring idol, the other a dangerously triumphant heroine – were believed by at least some male viewers to be the cause of civic misfortune” (Johnson 232). “[T]he Venus’s aesthetic beauty, which had initially caused the Sienese to lavish so much praise on the statue, was apparently not enough to prevent its subsequent talismanic dismemberment and disposal” (Johnson 233). Clearly the sculpted images were perceived as sexual, so much so that they were dangerous!
Johnson quotes the words of “an early seventeenth-century visitor who observed that “in Florence women are more enclosed than in any other part of Italy; they see the world only from the small openings in their windows”” (Johnson 234). If the Lucretia was indeed housed in Florence, and women lived such tyrannically domestic lives, what motive would there be to adorn the domestic space with such a lascivious depiction as the Lucretia? In describing Giambologna’s sculpture, The Rape of Sabine, Johnson states, “Like the figure of Perseus, who proudly presents the head of Medusa, the young Roman man who abducts the Sabine woman demonstrates his power and virility by literally holding up a conquered female body as his trophy (Johnson 240). “According to Borghini, the abduction of the Sabines marked the historic beginnings of the institution of marriage in the Italian peninsula, an institution that was seemingly based from the start on men’s violent oppression of the opposite sex” (Johnson 241/42). As she proceeds to describe the male ideology, Johnson suggests that the entire professional identity of men may have been predicated on their domination of women. “This conclusion is telling, for it clearly links female sexual subjugation not only to the institution of marriage, but also to success in the wider historical political arena” (Johnson 243). Admittedly, there are differences in the reception and perception of a painting in the domestic space as compared against public statuary, but the male ego tied up with a need to sexually conquer women as Johnson describes it and the sensuality and nudity of an image would certainly not have been neutralized in the domestic space.
Moving from broad public male perception to focus more on erotic painting, Linda Wolk-Simon surveys Rapture to the Greedy Eyes: Profane Love in the Renaissance in which she identifies a “base lust […] that the vision of a naked goddess had the power to incite” (Bayer 48). In her article she offers a graphic of Giulio Romano’s Two Lovers (image 5). Both the presence of the voyeur at the door, and their positioning on the bed is very similar to Titian’s Tarquin and Lucretia (image 6). Even more striking is Romano’s Olympia is Seduced by Jupiter (image 7). The image of the two lovers is overtly sexual. Audiences could not have been able to overlook the bold similarity in other depictions of Lucretia. Johnson argues that “the seductiveness of the female form [was] implicitly linked in texts and images throughout medieval and early modern Europe” (Johnson 232). In this way, similar images informed the myth, which in turn informed other images, like Gentileschi’s, in a cycle of mythical-sexual reciprocity.
Based on the impossibility of painting from certain postures and the availability of mirrors, Harris argues that “Artemisia must have had a model and the model must have posed for her away from Orazio’s studio with its male comings and goings” (Harris 143). Turner argues that though “the Platonist Ficino taught that lovers should communicate through gazing alone, he recognized that the soul imprints images while men and women are “making babies”, and describes eyesight in quite sexual terms: a stream of “sanguine spirits” penetrates the heart like sperm” (Turner 179). However, the image that exemplifies this sexual gaze provided by Turner is a ca. 1523-24 painting called Diana Transforming Actaeon into a Stag which depicts the naked goddess gazing into the eyes of the naked woman. These three ideas (Artemisia as a female artist imbued with sexuality, the sexualized myth of Lucretia, and the feminine sexual gaze) converge and lend themselves to a lusty image of the male patron of Gentileschi’s Lucretia lasciviously fantasizing about Artemisia gazing steadily at the nudity of her model and further impregnate the image with a sexual narrative.
Conflating Artemisia’s reputation with the sexually ambiguous narrative of the myth and the sensuality of the image itself, we reach a point of intersection that cannot deny the sexuality of the image beyond its mere aesthetics. Bissell even suggests that Artemisia may have taken professional advantage of her compromised reputation and the meaning she knew would be attached to her art. Orazio’s “daughter’s now public vulnerability began to be exploited” (Bissell 18). “[T]he conception of Artemisia Gentileschi as a woman of dubious rectitude […] was to have an effect on the nature of the commissions she was awarded and upon how her pictures were to be received” (Bissell 18). Men surely viewed the Lucretia as sexualized.
But who were these men? Patronage data surrounding the Lucretia is scant. Bissell places the Lucretia in Venice in 1627 and suggests “Gianfrancesco Loredan, famous-surnamed literary man-about-Venice” as “the patron of the Lucretia and the Susanna” (Bissell 42). What Bissell lays down as fact is that “Gentileschi supplied paintings to rulers” (Bissell 42). It is well documented that male members of the ruling elite were substantially bolder in their sexual conquests and rakishness, almost to the point of pride. In light of Johnson’s suggestion of rape and sexuality being a matter of male ego, Tarquinius may well have been their secret hero.
Feminist theory has been preoccupied with the expropriation of sex from women by men. We learn from Juan Luis Vives’ works that the reputation of chastity and piety was paramount for women. His treatise, On the Education of the Christian Woman delineates the role of the woman into stages of her life entirely in relation to the husband: the first anticipating her marriage and remaining chaste, the second describing her marriage and role as a wife, and the third outlining appropriate Christian behaviour for the widow. Vives, quoting the words of Paul, describes the first two of these phases in the following way. "Unmarried women are occupied with things that pertain to the lord, how they may please him; married women are concerned with the things of the world, how to please their spouse". He states that a “married woman ought to be of greater chastity than an unmarried. For if that thou then pollute and defile thy chastity, as God forbid thou shouldest, hark, I pray thee, how many thou shalt offend and displease at once with one wicked deed” (Kaplan 324). His work is an openly didactic piece that is designed to put forth a Christian paradigm of the perfectly educated woman and her exemplary behaviour. Inherent to the text are examples of behaviour that must have been common enough to merit chastisement and remediation. Goldthwaite suggests that the Renaissance domestic space was social and professional to the point of being public. Therefore, there would be a real need for women to be covert in their sexuality.
In her article entitled, Toys for Girls: Objects, Women and Memory in the Renaissance Household, Marta Ajmar states her thesis clearly. "I shall attempt to show that [Renaissance women and domestic objects] informed each other and that they were mutually influenced by their individual changes of status" (Ajmar 76). Ajmar goes on to introduce both theoretical and artefactual evidence to give voice to the often-silenced role, authority, and vested interest women had in domestic art and objects. She points out that the "'ideology' of domesticity has traditionally associated the 'domestic woman' with values imposed by men, with a 'passive feminine conformity'" (Ajmar 80). She immediately challenges the dogma by asking, "Is Margherita's reaction, as depicted by Vasari, just a projection of the male Florentine writer, determined to depict her as a worthy example of civic pride, or should we take at face value her emotional involvement in something in which she does not possess? And if so, why?" (Ajmar 77). Ajmar offers answers in the rhetoric of her following question. "Was it for reasons of family pride, personal virtue or 'professional' identity, as a housewife?" (Ajmar 77). "During the sixteenth century I would like to suggest, domestic memory was constructed along increasingly matriarchal lines" (Ajmar 78). In this way the role in object-display that women may have needed to disguise in their patriarchal abjection is perfectly served in Gentileschi's Lucretia. It represents the style and taste of refined Baroque art and superficially invokes the notion of high virtue in a sensual image of a woman (both of which would appeal to the male mind) while simultaneously, and perhaps covertly, invoking meaning surrounding the strength of women on behalf of the household matriarch.
The didacticism intended by the patriarchal society is ostensibly reflected in treatises that "promoted an image of the mulier economica - the housewife - as someone who was in charge of the moral and material identity of the household" (Ajmar 83). "[T]he house was therefore proactive in creating and fulfilling the demand for a new 'professional' figure: the housewife" (Ajmar 87). When examined against other research into the symbolic meaning and deployment of space and objects within the domestic space, a more complete view of its potential meaning, especially within a potentially domestic space, takes on broader possibilities. Judith Butler argues that women voluntarily participate in the social ritual of their culture. There is no evidence to suggest that women did not wholly concur with Vives’ views and welcome the conquest sexuality of their male counterparts. Beds stood in public areas of the house and sleeping occurred simultaneously with social activities which included individuals outside of the family. Given the notion of women as professionals within the domestic space who informed and had agency in that region, participation in the sexual ritual, and a social need to hide sexuality behind piety, it seems very likely that women would be complicit with men in the sexual interpretation of the image.
So powerfully imbued with sexuality, it is inevitable that the Lucretia defined whatever space in which it was housed. The University of Victoria DIDO database lists the Lucretia painting as having dimensions measuring 137 x 130 cm. Certainly that is sizeable enough to overpower pithy images on spalliere and cassone, and to contend with other larger paintings within a space. In Richard Goldthwaite’s Wealth and Demand for the Art in Italy 1300-1600, he describes how the earlier years of this Renaissance period suggest a domestic decor that included the patriarchal chamber as “the intimate core of the household” around which the entire space was organized (Goldthwaite 225). The space was multi-functional with most furniture and valuables concentrated there while the rest of the house was “sparsely furnished” (Goldthwaite 225). Even more interesting, for a culture stereotypified by its rich and lavish baroque renaissance art, is the fact that the “typology of furniture does not extend beyond basic functions of eating, sitting, sleeping and storage (Goldthwaite 225). Finally, the evolution of these household goods brought about interesting cultural corollaries. “[G]oods evolved into more complicated forms” (Goldthwaite 225). These more complicated forms resulted in the redefinition of the household spaces in which they were housed.
While “commerce was seen to have infected nearly every aspect of modern life, the realm of art was deemed free of its contagion” (Bermingham 5). At least it was free to maintain sexual meaning in the new household of the young married couple. In Hareven’s article The Home and Family in Historical Perspective, the “nuclear household structure has predominated in England and Italy since the twelfth century” (Hareven). Two major social characteristics of these archaic homes were that marriage “meant the establishment of a separate household by the new couple” and that the space served for domestic activities such as eating, sleeping and childrearing, as well as more social functions such as production, welfare agency, correctional institution and religious worship.
In Mary Douglas’ article, The Idea of Home a Kind of Space, she suggests that “home starts by bringing some space under control.” “[T]he home is the realization of ideas.” She focuses on art in the house and how it interacts with the perception of time and space. In Henri Lefebvre’s article The Production of Space, he describes the sociological notion of space as being “produced” rather than merely appropriated and filled with things (Lefebvre). He considers that “If space is a product [...] The ‘object’ of interest must be expected to shift from things in space to the actual production of space” (Lefebvre). He admits that in certain historical era/economic dichotomies, “the active groups did not ‘produce’ space in the sense in which a vase, a piece of furniture, a house, or a fruit tree is produced” but that space is produced in a less tangible and more perception-based way (Lefebvre).
In The Madonna and Child, a host of saints, and domestic devotion in Renaissance Florence, Jacqueline Musacchio states that "Dominici discussed what he considered the only justification for having art in the home: to aid in the education of children" (Musacchio 147). In the passage that follows she lists examples of art for that purpose. What is obviously lacking is the inclusion of pagan icons, or any of the images that might have the suspect sexuality so obvious in the depictions of Lucretia. Dominici did not include Lucretia in what he deemed suitable for children. Furthermore, Musacchio notes, "many of the paintings and sculptures associated with the domestic environment had intimate iconography” (Musacchio). When she notes that "the estate of Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici contained seven Madonna images as well as nine other sacred paintings and sculpture", the reader cannot help but be inclined to ask what these 'others' were (Musacchio 149). Were any of them pagan icons? Might any of them have been Lucretia? If such is the case, and Lucretia was not considered appropriate for children, then what iconographic purpose could such an image have had? The inherent sensuality of Lucretia’s likeness is the only verifiable evidence. "As Kent Lydecker has observed, marriage prompted extensive purchases of all types of domestic art to outfit the personal chamber" (Musacchio 148). Not only does this statement relate to the accoutrements of marriage and marital gifts discussed in Randolph's article, it is reasonable to assume that the "personal chamber" may include some more sexualized images like that of Lucretia: "Marriage [...] focused attention on the continuation of the lineage through the conception [...] of children" (148). Once again, marriage and conception are linked through art for the bedchamber.
In James Grantham Turner’s article entitled Profane Love: The Challenge of Sexuality, he quotes Leonardo da Vinci as saying, “Painting moves the senses more readily than poetry does. . . . Painters have depicted libidinous acts, so lustful that they have incited the spectators to play the same party game” (Bayer 178). In Ian Woodward's The Material as Culture, he provides examples of "how apparently inanimate things within the environment act on people and are acted on by people, for the purposes of carrying out social functions, regulating social relations and giving symbolic meaning to human activity" (Woodward 3). Any room decorated with Gentileschi’s Lucretia would be overpowered by its sexual message and the energy, or at least the purpose of the room would be clear. According to da Vinci, the call to action would be equally clear.
In Bill Brown's article Thing Theory, he introduces the idea of “actants”, objects designed to perform some human function on behalf of humans. Although he is referring specifically to objects such as cellular telephones that conduct some specific action, if we consider that art defines a space, surely it must perform some semiotic function on behalf of the human occupants "They are questions that ask not whether things are but what work they perform" (Brown 142). The work of an image to prompt sexual interaction is globally ubiquitous.
Bissell describes four of Artemisia’s paintings as “marked by a heightened theatricality, of which a new conception of the viewer-painting relationship is the first indisputable sign” (Bissell 69). Although these four postdate the Lucretia and Bissell does not include it amongst them, I suggest that it was an obvious progenitor to this recognizable characteristic. Theatricality is already apparent in Gentileschi’s image of Lucretia and is preceded and proceeded by a theatrical history of the myth’s presentation. “The viewer now becomes the member of an audience, rather than someone who finds him/herself confronted one-on-one with reality” (Bissell 70). Bissell is careful to include both male and female viewers. Where it might seem that the intimacy of one-on-one sexuality is compromised by the perception of a larger audience, it is important to note that the audience perception was not tangible. In Artemisia’s work, “human drama is reduced to the core and presented close up, where idealization is rejected in favour of truth, where frankness counts more than beauty” (Bissell 10). The viewer took part with an absent audience in appreciating the art, but individuals were confronted by its sexual realism within the potentially intimate privacy of the space it defined. The perception of an audience by the viewer inherently suggests a theatricality which would have specifically resulted in a call for acting. The participation of the audience with the performer is a common tenet of theatrical performance.
In terms of the domestic space, Adrian Randolph’s position on the performance of the bridal body might be extended to that of the wife in general. His article follows a Marxist slant in an economic perspective that views marital gift-giving (especially of jewellery to women) as an equation that needs balancing. "[T]he exchange of women is a conversation between men and is the basis of all symbolic exchange". The article suggests that often a woman's only ability to balance the equation was by 'owing' her body to the marriage bed, and indeed how the system may have been biased in its design to require women to unconsciously recognize this debt and to ensure that it was in place. "I would like to question whether equilibrium was returned to this system of presentations or whether, instead, the balance was left skewed". "[T]he extralegal presentations to the bride from the bridegroom (and his family) functioned, unofficially, as a Maussian counter-gift, returning equilibrium to an unbalanced economy of exchange". "A gift results in a debt which must be repaid, repayment returning equilibrium to the system". "The mancia was a traditional payment made to the bride after consummation of the marriage [which] emphasized the conjugal pair and the sexual act". "The jewels functioned, too, in a symbolic sexual economy, one in which --despite the reciprocity of the Pauline notion of mutual corporeal authority of husband and wife -- the bride was sexually subjected". "In this Florentine 'potlatch' the bride loses. She cannot return the gifts; or rather, she pays for them with her body". The sensuality and iconography of Lucretia may have acted as a reminder to the wife of what is 'owed' to the husband: sexuality (in her suggestive posing and nudity), loyalty (in the invocation of her story), and morality (in the invocation of the requirement of death (or suicide) if another man enjoys her sexually, which is a debt of ownership belonging to the husband).
Ajmar outlines “new possibilities for the interpretation and meaning that […] objects may have represented”. In this way, exciting new meaning may be interpolated into Gentileschi’s Lucretia. Theory and fact conflate to present an undeniably sexualized depiction of the Lucretia. The public nature of Artemisia’s trial and the sexual stigma which was attached to her reputation are largely accepted as historical truth. Changing Renaissance perceptions of the Lucretia myth further impregnated the painting with sexual meaning that was amplified by dramatic coincidences with Gentileschi’s life. The sexual sensibilities of men and their inevitable perception of the painting must have been seconded by a complicit female population participating in the sexual culture. The definition of space, call to action of the painting, and motivating nature of sexual images would all have worked in concert to define a space endowed with the Lucretia as highly erotic and called to action the sexuality that a wife owed her husband.


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