Opengender

Unfortunately, as there is virtually no research on lesbian audiences it is necessary to fall back on sub-cultural 'wisdom' on lesbian identification with Hollywood Amazons. It seems that lesbian identification is focussed on the representation of the masculinised-active female body (often somewhat physically masculinised through weight-training). Lesbians express both desire for and identification with the bodies of Weaver, Nielsen and Hamilton. As Neale argues, there are two 'moments' in male looking at the cinematic representation of the male body: voyeuristic and identificatory. Lesbian looking at the 'phallic' female protagonist could thus enable both a lesbian identification with and 'homosexualised' desire for the spectacularised, masculinised-female body.

The male spectator inserts himself into the film narrative through the processes of 'suture'. This concept is based on Lacanian theory of how the subject overcomes the divisions of the 'I' by imagining a projected unitary 'ego', a fictional subject, which 'papers over' the divisions in the 'I'. The cinematic spectator overcomes the disunity of cinematic discourse (narrative constructions of space and time through editing etc) in a similar way. The representation of the (male) protagonist's body becomes 'as a relay to the body of the spectator within the already formulated institution of classical narrative films and their system of 'suture' [Williams, 1981].

The representational body of the male protagonist must, then, interfere with any satisfactory process of suture for the female spectator. She is constructed as site of sexual spectacle in the classical relay — or her identification is unstable, disseminated through 'transvestite' identification with the male position and the site of the feminine. Theories of lesbian identification offer either the possibility of 'transvestite' identification with the male position (in a relay interrupted by the spectator's sense of discontuinity between her body and that of the protagonist) or the complex process of feminine masquerade behind the representation of excessive femininity. However, neither would really offer the lesbian a satisfying 'suture' effect.

'Feminine excess' offers all kinds of 'camp' pleasures to the lesbian spectator, and no doubt has important subversive effects — but does not offer the crucial element of powerful subjective control located in the pleasures of bodily action which is so important to lesbians — and traditionally denied to women. 'Transvestite' identification gives an 'estrangement' effect combined with some of the male spectator's erotic pleasures for the lesbian spectator. However, 'suture' through the masculinised female body gives more satisfactory access to the dream-like pleasures of big-budget Hollywood for the male spectator — including an illusion of phallic omnipotence. The lesbian spectator is also offered the erotic 'pleasures of the interface' available in films such as Terminator and Robocop [Springer, 1991] which are also so central to the films under discussion here. (Such pleasures are already 'perverse' in their extension of sexual pleasure beyond the limits of the body; and are further transgressive for women who are normally excluded from mastery in the technological realm.) A stronger illusion of physical presence in the narrative opens up visceral and erotic pleasures to lesbians, uniterrupted enjoyment of which is usually reserved for the male spectator.

The Amazon protagonist offers both a jarring of patriarchal narrative conventions (a potentially subversive 'estrangement effect') — but also offers an effective 'suture' to the lesbian subject. (The intensity of the latter may override the former for the lesbian spectator.) The masculinised female body offers an effective relay between the lesbian spectator and fuller subjective identification with the unified ideal ego projected on the screen (the lacking female is effectively endowed by armouring and by her sadistic-controlling violence). The lesbian spectator is thus enabled to enter a satisfying and reassuring 'dream' of stability and potency normally offered only to the male spectator.

However, this does not necessarily mean that the lesbian subject steps into a heterosexual male identification. The lesbian spectator is also receptive to the element of 'homo-eroticism' (in the extra-diagetic, objectifying, moment of the look) as she looks at the phallicised-female body of the protagonist on the screen. In Neale's analysis of male looking at the male body [Neale, 1983], he discusses how the 'feminisation' of the male body (as object to be looked at by the male spectator) and resultant homo-erotic element is disavowed by violent action on the part of the protagonist. What is objectified/destroyed can be the body of a woman or of another man. The armoured body and violent action of the fascist is argued to be a defence against dissolution into 'the feminine' — the male opponent is transposed to the 'space of the feminine' (the feared dismemberment and reabsorbtion/ death).

The site of the feminine here is occupied by the body of 'the monstrous' (or the realm of the evil machines), possible identification with 'the feminine' is interrupted for the woman (that is, the female body through which the female spectator identifies with 'the feminine' is missing). The site of feminised aggression easily becomes the object of sadistic-punitive looking for the lesbian, relayed through the female protagonist. If there is a female person in the role of monstrosity, she is genre-coded as already destined for disempowerment and death. It is by this process of negating femininity (not necessarily coincidental with female persons) that the lesbian may be aligned with the narrative's misogynistic perspective — even when the 'site of the feminine' is occupied by an manifestly lesbian character (as in Red Sonja). This schema undergoes significant modifications in the different films which I have discussed, but I believe holds as a basic structure across all of them. Representation of 'strong' female warriors can only occur, apparently, at the expense of representation of forms of aggression designated 'feminine' as extremities of horror.

To a lesser degree in Alien than in Red Sonja, Aliens and Terminator II, lesbian identifications seem based in a process of cinematic 'suture' by which the figure of the masculinised female body acts as a relay through which the lesbian spectator may constitute an effective 'fictional' agency. Is this simply a 'mis-recognition' on the part of lesbians, through which we participate in our re-subordination to 'the male'? Or is lesbian pleasure in such images transgressive or subversive? If the non-heterosexual lesbian subject consists in a dissemination of subjectivity across destabilised gender positions, is lesbian identification with these protagonists simply the adoption of a heterosexual-male subject position which reproduces a heterosexual binary? Do Sonja, Ripley and Connor signify a postmodern, bi-sexed presence of a 'he-woman', or a lesbian reprise of the phallic insecurities of the fascist soldier?

It cannot be argued that all films with a female warrior-protagonist are 'always already' either subversive or entirely supportive of the existing order. Each of the films under discussion (which are a tiny sample of the many and varied films with fighting-female protagonists, 'baddies', or other characters in mainstream genres aimed at young male audiences) may produce very different effects for the lesbian spectator, some of which seem positive and some of which seem very negative. These representations certainly try to effect a separation effected between 'good' feminist aspirations to a token presence in a minimally revised male 'reality'; and 'bad' feminist aspirations to 'impose' a 'fanatical' feminine regime (where have we heard that before!) But are lesbian pleasures thus entirely vitiated as self-defeating, or even self-hating? Should lesbians identify more entirely with the 'subversive potential' of the monstrous feminine?

It does not seem that 'the' lesbian spectator is always aligned with the male position, nor necessarily disseminated between gendered positions, nor contained in the space of the feminine. In films such as Alien, lesbian subjective identification may shift from alignment with a male subject-position to dissemination between such a position and the space of the feminine — signified by the monstrous (or the monstrous-technological). This might be seen as having the most subversive potential for the lesbian spectator. In films such as Aliens and Terminator II, lesbian looking may be much more 'locked in' to a relay through the protagonist onto the space of the feminine. But this cannot be seen as solely a negative effect, empowering lesbians, as it does, with a pleasurable illusion of powerful agency and same-sex eroticism.

If you ask a lesbian why she enjoyed a film with pleasurable lesbian-erotic undertones but anti-feminist content, she will almost always reply with a classic form of fetishistic disavowal: 'Well, I know, but . . . ' Perhaps this gives a clue. Male fetishistic pleasure in disavowing castration anxiety involves the simultaneous experience of fear of castration. If this fear were entirely overcome (or forgotten), the basis of the fetishistic pleasure would disappear. Fetishistic pleasure actually depends on the objective embodiment of the fear which is to be allayed. For the male spectator, the body of the female protagonist embodies the castration anxiety and her phallicision (for example as protagonist) allays it. At the same time, in these films, the homosexual anxiety associated with (extra-diagetic) male looking at the, thus, eroticised male body is allayed by substituting the female body. In order for the image to 'work' for the male spectator, he must believe several things simultaneously.

As Williams points out, 'part of our pleasure in cinema derives from the contradiction between our belief in the perceptual truth of the image and our simultaneous knowledge that it is only imaginary — the discrepancy between the perceived illusion of presence created by the image and the actual absence of the object replaced by the image.' [Williams, 1984] The gaps, discontinuities, and contradictions in the constructed cinematic 'reality' are never entirely submerged by the processes of 'suture'. Oppositional reading practices must, in order to exist as such, be maintained in tension against dominant discursive practices. However neatly the lesbian subject may be stitched into the dominant discourse, lesbian subjectivity can never be wholly absorbed into heterosexual power relations, which depend on its exclusion. The suppression of the lesbian possibilities opened up in the dominant text (as it tries to control female resistance within acceptable limits) produces a subjective space for lesbian resistance.

It is not only the anomalous position of the lesbian spectator in the scopic regime of popular cinematic narratives, however, which permits her to negotiate a pleasurable identification with — but simultaneous estrangement from — heterosexist representations.

Lesbian 'sub-texts' are not necessarily intrinsic. The possible implications of 'phallic' identification are suppressed in these narratives — partly by presenting the female warrior as a-sexual. This a-sexuality is characteristic of the heroines of all the films under discussion (heterosexual orientations are implied rather than enacted). The active sexualisation of the Amazon would raise lesbian implications and her passive sexualisation would interrupt her credibility as protagonist. It requires a certain sub-cultural competence to recognise suppressed lesbian eroticism and to 'read in' lesbian identifications. The lesbian reader is a point of 'inter-textual' transmission. Deploying a sub-cultural matrix, she is able to resist the heterosexualisation of feminist appropriations of 'phallic' power by the dominant order, and to re-appropriate the pleasures of a suppressed lesbian eroticism.

It would seem that the lesbian reader is able to construct the meaningfully absent lesbian text partly through inter-textual connections to sub-cultural discourses. It does not seem that there is a single lesbian spectatorial position (or a definitive structure of lesbian subjectivity) offered by the text, readable in isolation from other 'textualities'. Lesbian identity and lesbian reading are active processes and not 'found' in static narrative or psychic structures. The sub-cultural 'language-game' of lesbianism is itself fabricated from such resistant reading of texts, and constantly reconstructed as opposing conceptualisations work themselves out.

There may be many reasons why lesbians would identify with the female protagonist in films which are, at best, recuperative of feminism to a revised male order or, at worst, blatantly gender-conservative. One reason may be sub-cultural codings. Certain stars, or physical types, etc, may become sub-culturally 'coded' as lesbian. The lesbian 'traditions' of cross-dressing and 'passing' for men (especially soldiers) may also feed into identification with the female warrior. Associations of the Amazon with feminism and/or lesbianism may also be a factor. Since the lesbian spectator of films such as Alien, Aliens, and Terminator II can hardly help but be aware of the lesbian-erotic elements of looking at the fetishised body of the female protagonist, textual suppression of lesbianism is not going to be effective. Overt demonisation, as in Red Sonja, is also something we have a long, shared sub-cultural experience of resisting and reappropriating. This is not to say that there is a timeless lesbian psychological structure or 'lesbian sensibility' at work here. The lesbian mobilises her critical readings by reference to the discursive spaces of lesbianism through which she constructs an identity.

There is a tendency to dismiss feminist concerns around sexuality as 'nothing to do with lesbians': as if sexism is the (boring) problem of heterosexual women. On the other hand, feminism is apt to dismiss pleasures which it designates 'male'. If the profoundly confrontational lesbian-feminist identity downgraded desire, then the politics of desire downgrade feminist resistance. At present, lesbian commentary often seems reluctant to analyse feminist resistances in favour of prioritising 'desire'. Heterosexual feminist analysis of horror focusses either on the subversive potential of 'monstrous' feminine excess, or on the male spectator, (or on the sexualisation of the female protagonist which is read as nullifying her impact as 'positive image'). Thus either lesbian pleasure or feminist resistance is being discussed, as though the two bore no relation.

It seems to me, however, that resistance is a condition of lesbian pleasure in the image of the female warrior. Feminists must resist objectification (as the form of exclusion and disempowerment of women in the patriarchal order) in order to act powerfully. On strategy (amongst many) for doing this is to take up a 'phallic' subject position. Having done this, a woman is excluded from the heterosexual order of desire. She cannot desire a woman because that would imply lesbianism; she cannot desire a man as a sexual object (from her phallic subjective position) because that would still imply homosexuality; and she cannot be desired without abandoning her 'phallic' position. In order to desire a woman, she must objectify a woman — who, as a lesbian, resists objectification. To stabilise this paradoxical tension, subjectivitity may be disseminated across the subject and object positions.

When the lesbian spectator looks at the body of the female warrior, the female warrior is sexually objectified for the desiring lesbian, but also identified with as 'phallic' (desiring) subject — opening up a lesbian subjective space. Paradoxically, therefore, it is the heterosexual feminist form of identification, which suppresses the element of desire in her looking at the female warrior, which is more likely to be sutured into a static male identification. This may be why heterosexual feminist analysis focusses, instead, on the male spectator and on the 'monstrous feminine'.

This is not to say that this is a definitive structure of lesbian identification, but a conceptualisation of how lesbian spectatorship might work in specific narratives. Nor is it to say that all mainstream representations of 'strong' women, lesbians, or bi-sexuality are necessarily recuperable for lesbian identifications and pleasures. Such judgments depend on context. Which representations of female protagonism (or female bonding) are seen as sub-culturally recyclable or as irredemably heterosexist — and by whom — remains a matter for the continuing discursive struggle. Lesbian oppositional discourses are transformed and renewed in the context of struggles between different oppositional sexualities and the discontinuous discourses of heterosexuality itself — including the struggle between heterosexual feminisms and 'progressive new-male' discourses of which these films are a representation.