GAZE VARIATIONS

1. GAZE ONE: Redlight District in Amsterdam and Window-shopping of Female bodies

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fybNYnaBTP0

“The women in De Wallen are self-employed and rent the rooms from private owners for some €100-150 per 8 hour shift, which includes closed-circuit security.Twenty minutes of sex typically costs about €40 to €50, sometimes with a €20 surcharge for the girl to take off her top. There are women of most nationalities offering services.

To counter negative publicity, De Wallen has organized "open days" in February 2006 and March 2007, allowing visitors free access to some window brothels and peep shows and informing them about the working conditions there”.

2. GAZE TWO [from Lu Xun to Lust,Caution]

Lu Xun, in the well-known Preface to Nahan, his first story collection, revealed why he gave up completing his medical education at Sendai. One day after class, one of his Japanese instructors screened a lantern slide documenting the imminent execution of an alleged Chinese spy during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). Lu Xun was shocked by the complete apathy of the Chinese onlookers; he decided it was more important to cure his compatriots' spiritual ills rather their physical diseases.

"At the time, I hadn't seen any of my fellow Chinese in a long time, but one day some of them showed up in a slide. One, with his hands tied behind him, was in the middle of the picture; the others were gathered around him. Physically, they were as strong and healthy as anyone could ask, but their expressions revealed all too clearly that spiritually they were calloused and numb. According to the caption, the Chinese whose hands were bound had been spying on the Japanese military for the Russians. He was about to be decapitated as a 'public example.' The other Chinese gathered around him had come to enjoy the spectacle." (Lyell , pp 23).

3. GAZE THREE—FETISH etc.

[1]…of the DEAD AND MORBID

a. the fashion: see article from THE GUARDIAN

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1839447,00.html

Back from the dead

“Not since the Victorians has taxidermy been so fashionable. The way things are going, no trendy wine bar or loft apartment will be complete without a stuffed poodle or horse. But why did dead animals stop being tacky? And what does it mean for endangered species? Patrick Barkham meets the men and women making corpses into art”.

b. The Others (2001)

[2]…of the freaky, the bizarre…

Diane Arbus and her photographs

Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967

Biographer Patricia Bosworth said, "She was involved in the question of identity. Who am I and who are you? The twin image expresses the crux of that vision: normality in freakishness and the freakishness in normality." The twins were seven years old when Arbus spotted them at a Christmas party for twins and triplets. The twins' father once said about the photo, "We thought it was the worst likeness of the twins we'd ever seen."

[3]…of the exotic (erotic), the different, the marginal, the imaginary Orient

How would the viewer position themselves and what is her/his relationship with the being-viewed? Think of the Chinese Fifth Generation films by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, and the CG+ Martial art + costume epic films as Chinese blockbusters which could “conquer” the Westerners simply with its visual spectacles.

4. DIGITAL IMAGE REPRODUCTION AND MANIPULATION:

Wag the Dog [From Wikipedia]:

Wag the Dog is a 1997 film starring Robert De Niro, about a Washington spin doctor who distracts the electorate from a U.S. presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer, played by Dustin Hoffman, to construct a fake war with Albania. The scheme enlists the musical talents of Mark Knopfler (musical producer) and Willie Nelson (who creates a theme song for the 'war').

The film is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart. The book, however, differs greatly from the picture. In the book the president is specifically George Herbert Walker BushDesert Storm. (in the movie he is unnamed) and the fake war operation is explicitly

The film explores serious themes, such as the manipulation of the mass media and public opinion, with a comedic sensibility. The film drew attention at the time for similarities to the Clinton sex scandal, although the movie also makes reference to the Persian Gulf War as an example of war used as an electoral tactic. The idea of war as a creation of the media is not, of course, original to the movie. The French postmodernist Jean Baudrillard's ideas in particular are relevant to a discussion of the movie — see for example his essay The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.

The title of the movie is taken from the joke: "Why does a dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog." Interpretations differ as to the meaning of this metaphor. Some suggest the dog is public opinion, and the tail represents the media; the dog is the media, and the tail is political campaigns; or the dog is the people, and the tail is the government. Or, when considering the personal relations in the movie, the dog is the president and the tail represents his PR assistants, who immediately assume the authority for the damage control. Moreover, the expression "the tail wagging the dog" refers to any case where something of greater significance is driven by something lesser.

Coincidence

Less than a month after the movie was released, President Bill Clinton was embroiled in a sex scandal arising from his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Over the course of 1998 and early 1999, as the scandal dominated American politics, the US engaged in three military operations:

• Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq that took place as the U.S. House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton
• Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky
• Operation Allied Force, a 78-day-long NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that began weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

In a further coincidence, the missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan were announced by the White House moments before the beginning of a press conference in which Lewinsky was to give details of her appearance before Congress.

Critics, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, charged that the former operation was an attempt to distract attention from the Lewinsky scandal, and Serb state television went so far as to broadcast Wag The Dog in the midst of NATO attacks on Serbia.

The video cassette version of the film contains an extended feature after the credits that has commentary about the movie in the context of the Lewinsky scandal by the producers of the movie and Tom Brokaw.

You could find clips of this film @

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_3HUP2dbf8