Carolee Schneeman

When she was first introduced to me earlier in class, I imagined she would be the type of female filmmaker that I would look up to, maybe even idolize. She seemed like a feminist that didn't hate men but rather wanted to stand up for woman, show the world what we can do, not to be compared to men, but rather stand out as an individual. Then I started reading interviews and articles.

I respect her for being very open, and she without a doubt cut boundaries, having her films be events, even though in the end, everyone seemed to cut her down and saying her work was 'unacceptable' and felt it didn't help push the feminist statement, but rather go back. And I have to agree. In B. Ruby Rich's article she said that Carolee was 'rejected by a philistine public,' while I think, she was the philistine artist, to a point of course.

I definitely don't think Fuses was pornographic by any means, and she didn't objective herself compared to other sexual films, porn or not, made during that time, but she did glamorize the penis in my mind. She's on screen showing herself pleasuring her boyfriend, and rarely is it shown being recipricated or mutual. Personally, I do not understand why many people, not just feminists, find it degrading for a woman to give filacio, that wasn't the problem for me, I feel a woman is more in control than degraded when in that position. But what was the problem, was again, how she glamorized the penis. Throughout the film she had closeups of Tenney's genitals in good angles, colored perfectly pink, multiple times. Whenever there were wide shots of them on the bed he was always on top which shows him in control. I don't want to just summarize the film, but I did want to show examples of how I don't think she is much of a 'feminist' when it comes to sex.

And as I mentioned earlier, I believe she is much more of a philistine than some of her viewers. Much of what I saw on screen and read about seemed forced, borderline trying to hard to be 'artistic' and 'avant garde.' I am not one for meaning, I hate disecting art and put meaning into it when it shouldn't, but for someone like Schneeman, who includes such purposeful imagery and language, how can we not look at it without figuring out WHY she put it there.

I feel like stopping here because otherwise it is just me complaining about her contratictory motives, but I basically just wanted to express my opinions as someone who is sexually open as Schneeman herself, and although I do not find her work degrading or even anti-feminist, I do feel like her work does not coincides with her supposed intentions.