JMC writes:
> Jeremy's reading of _Shane_ plays to
> this Freudian model, which is the same
> model that Bob uses. Bob reads in line
> with Fiedler's homoerotic model while
> Jeremy reads in line with the normal
> Freudian family. There's not that much
> difference in the readings when one
> sees them in this light. Bob, Jeremy,
> what do you think? Should we continue
> to use this Freudian model as
> explanatory, or does it raise too many
> unanswered questions?
I don't think my reading plays to any model except common sense. I see a
happily married man (Starrett), whose family and way of life is threatened
by (more or less ambivalently) evil forces from without. When the hero
enters, apparently from nowhere, the threat from without begins to dissolve,
but a new threat from within begins to emerge. The hero's magnetism, courage
and skills are hypnotic, and it appears that Starrett's wife is in danger of
falling in love with him. Not only that, but it appears that Starrett's boy
is in danger of seeing him as a substitute father...
What's Freudian about any of that? I don't have to adopt a Freudian
perspective to disagree with some of Bob Sitton's claims about _Shane_:
I don't think that Starrett's wife was "discontent" prior to Shane's
arrival. I don't think Shane decided to stay because of any "mutual
magnetism" between them (it was hardly mutual). I don't think "it is clear
who the real father-figure is" -- in fact, the very lack of clarity adds a
lot of
tension to the story. I don't think Grafton (the store owner) has a
suggestive name, and I don't think he's "the one unqualified villain" of the
film -- that's Wilson. So I don't think the latter is "viewed more as the
professional opposite of Shane".
Above all, I don't think "the boy's reverence for the exotic older man has
distinct homophilic undertones". But I'm not completely sure, because I
still don't know what the word 'homophilic' means. If 'homophilic' means
"homosexual" why not simply use the word 'homosexual'?
The safest (and least informative) assumption seems to be that the word
'homophilic' refers to the boy's interest in Shane as a person of the same
sex as himself. It might be the sort of interest a boy tends to feel towards
a man he admires in a non-sexual way, who provides instruction or guidance,
the sort of person a boy is likely to see as a "role model" or "father
figure". Or it might be a homosexual interest. On the assumption that these
are distinct, it seems to me that we should understand the boy's interest in
Shane as strictly of the former sort. It is a mistake, in my view, to see it
as a homosexual interest.
JMC also asked:
> Jeremy, have you considered your
> depiction of the love triangle in _Shane_
> in relationship to Conrad Lorentz's tale
> of the geese in _On Aggression_?
-- No. I'll look it up though.
> One other question: Jeremy, what do you
> mean when you say the idea of the male
> gaze comes from Women's Studies
> Departments?
-- Well, I refer you again to the distinction, assumed above, between a boy'
s non-sexual interest in an older man (such as I would characterise the boy'
s interest in Shane) and a homosexual interest (as Bob Sitton, Kevin John
and Edward R. O'Neill might characterise it). Some people seem to think that
those sorts of interests are not distinct. The extreme version of this idea
supposes that all *strong* interests are *sexual* interests. This is to
suppose there is no difference between strong friendship and erotic love, or
between the lust for power and the lust for sexual intercourse. The
inquiring mind (or
searching lens) is understood as a tool for sexual rather than intellectual
(or artistic) penetration. Logical fallacies have something to do with
"phalluses"...
You can probably guess that I abhor the blurring of categories like that. To
my mind, it's a weird combination of (1) the Bambification of erotic love
and (2) sexual paranoia. Perhaps I am being unfair, but I associate that
sort of thinking with departments of women's studies. I would have thought
Lacan and Mulvey are standard fare in such places, but I'm definitely no
expert...
Jeremy
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