Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Gossip, Women,
Film, and Chick
Flicks
Sarah-Mai Dang
Berlin, Germany
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Director of the SFB, Georgios Binos, who helped handling the successful
application for the translation grant of the DFG.
Beyond the Freie Universität Berlin, I am indebted to Johannes von
Moltke from the University of Michigan for his extraordinary support
during my academic year as doctoral exchange student in the US.
Working with him at both the Department of Germanic Languages and
Literatures as well as Screen Arts and Culture has had a significant impact
on my understanding of film experience.
In addition, my dear friends Sylvia Müller, Sarah Schaschek, Kerstin
Beyerlein, and Lukas Engelmann have sharpened this book’s arguments
by reading and responding to various drafts of the dissertation. So did
Landon Little who helped me translating the German manuscript into
English. Thanks to Mercury Meulman for editing, proof reading, and
formatting the text at the very end.
At Palgrave Macmillan, I would like to thank my Commissioning Editor
Chris Penfold who believed in this project from the beginning and sup-
ported me in attaining funds for the translation of this study. I would also
like to acknowledge the help of Lina Aboujieb and Karina Jakupsdottir
with regard to the production process of this book. Thanks to the anon-
ymous reviewer for her generous time and insightful comments on the
manuscript.
I was able to endure this “intellectual marathon” due to the friendship
of the “Stabi Gang” and Ion Kozuch who always encouraged me to keep
going. I am also indebted to Caroline Wunderlich for her astute questions
and comments as well as her continuous support in all kind of matters. In
addition to introducing me to chick flicks, I have benefited tremendously
from her feminist points of view, which have not only influenced this study
but have also been an inspiration throughout our friendship. This book is
dedicated to her. And last but not least, I cannot possibly express enough
gratitude to my parents, Lydia Dang and Hieu De Dang, for their love and
support throughout my life.
CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
5 A Matter of Perspective 67
Index 73
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 3.1 Screenshot from Easy A showing how the camera meanders
across a schoolyard 18
Fig. 3.2 Screenshot from Easy A presenting a teenage girl
accompanied by a group of loyal followers 20
Fig. 3.3 Screenshot from Easy A demonstrating how the protago-
nist’s books fall to the floor 20
Fig. 3.4 Screenshot from Easy A showing the protagonist appearing
in front of a webcam 21
Fig. 3.5 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive and Rhiannon
in the girls’ bathroom 23
Fig. 3.6 Screenshot from Easy A demonstrating how Mary Ann
disrupts Olive’s and Rhi’s conversation 24
Fig. 3.7 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive turning her head 25
Fig. 3.8 Screenshot from Easy A highlighting that rumors spread
incredibly fast 25
Fig. 3.9 Screenshot from Easy A showing how Olive becomes
the high school’s subject 26
Fig. 3.10 Screenshot from Easy A presenting Olive in black lingerie
that she has sewed into an only semi-appropriate outfit
with a red, hand-stitched “A” 34
Fig. 3.11 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive’s friend Todd
asking Olive out 38
Fig. 4.1 Screenshot from Emma demonstrating how the fast
spinning globe marks the relativity of perspective 47
Fig. 4.2 Screenshot from Emma presenting Emma handing
over a handcrafted globe to the newly wedded Westons 47
xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES
Introduction
This book addresses the relationship between gossip, women, and film in
regard to the genre of chick flicks. Traditionally, gossip is a form of
communication that has been assigned to women and is consequently
disregarded. Gossip is mostly waved aside as nonsense, in contrast to
(male) speech or the written word (Spacks 1985: 16–18). “When people
talk about the details of daily lives, it is gossip; when they write about it, it
is literature,” says Esther Deborah Tannen (cited by Fritsch 2004: 9).
Particularly, feminist theory of the 1980s saw women silenced by men and
theory and thus language. I agree with this argument and consider this still
to be a very important issue. Women’s experiences and perspectives need
to continue to be heard and acknowledged. While the lack of women’s
voices in the general public sphere remains an issue, I argue, in regard to
film the female voice is very present in contemporary media such as in the
genre of chick flicks.
Specific chick flicks like Clueless (USA 1995, Amy Heckerling), Emma
(GB/USA 1996, Douglas McGrath), Legally Blonde (USA 2001, Robert
Luketic), Easy A (USA 2010, Will Gluck), and Sex and the City (USA
2008, 2010, Michael Patrick King) are dominated by voices: by ceaseless
talk about appropriate or inappropriate relationships, chitchat about
friends being absent, and whisper about people being present. The
characters—in particular female—are mainly acting on the sound level.
Voice and verbality are of great importance in these films and thus for the
spectator. But how exactly do voice and verbality shape the film experi-
ence? And how does the category of woman relate to this form of
communication? With this study, I seek to explore what role gossip
plays in the staging of chick flicks.
The definition of what makes a film a chick flick, however, varies widely
(Ferris and Young 2008: 1–25). The term itself emerged during the mid-
1990s, used to describe—more often than not in the pejorative sense—
American films with strong-willed, successful, and independent feminine
women in leading roles. Chick flicks are media productions of wide
commercial success largely associated with female audiences. Based on
the apparent emancipated protagonists, these films seem to speak particu-
larly to women growing up in the period of so-called postfeminism, a
period marking the emergence of new ways of thinking about women and
gender.1 Much like chick lit (chick literature, for example Helen Fielding’s
Bridget Jones’s Diary or Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City), chick flicks
are ascribed to contemporary women’s culture, and appear simultaneously
with the rise of postfeminism, also known as third-wave feminism, follow-
ing the second wave of the 1970s and 1980s (Genz and Brabon 2009;
Gillis et al. 2004).2
Remarkably, besides the classic woman’s film of the 1930s and 1940s—
films like Stella Dallas (USA 1937, King Vidor) or Mildred Pierce (USA
1945, Michael Curtiz)— the chick flick is the only film genre that has been
defined by its audience (with the exception of teen films, which are often
discussed in relation to chick flicks, Brecht 2004; Maxfield 2002). While
other genres are defined based on iconographic motifs, such as the open
1 INTRODUCTION 3
NOTES
1. Postfeminism is a heterogeneous category being used for a number of
reasons in a number of various contexts (Gill 2007). One significant repre-
sentative of the so-called postfeminism is Judith Butler. Butler questions the
term ‘woman’ as a biological category by asking whether it serves as a useful
category for feminist critique (Butler 1999 [1990]). Butler’s work has led to
a divide between second-wave feminists and third-wave feminists.
2. Based on whether theorists interpret the history of feminism as ruptures
between different generations of women or as an enduring legacy of feminist
traditions, they refer to the term postfeminism or neofeminism or feminist
waves (the first wave, represented by women’s suffrage of the nineteenth
century; the second wave, championed by the women’s movement from the
1960s to the 1980s; and the third wave, the new generation of feminists,
prominently represented by Judith Butler). The positions each wave of
feminism has taken up are largely determined by specific historical circum-
stances and conditions.
6 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Altman Rick. 2012 [1999]. Film/Genre. London: BFI.
Brecht, Christoph. 2004. Teenage Negotiations: Gender als Erzähltechnik in Amy
Heckerlings Teen Movie Clueless. In Hollywood Hybrid. Genre und Gender im
zeitgenössischen Mainstream-Film, eds. Claudia Liebrand and Ines Steiner,
67–90. Marburg, Germany: Schüren.
Brokoff, Jürgen, Jürgen Fohrmann, Hedwig Pompe, and Brigitte Weingart, eds.
2008. Die Kommunikation der Gerüchte. Göttingen, Germany: Wallstein
Butler, Judith. 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Dang, Sarah-Mai. 2014. Chick Flicks. Film, Feminismus und Erfahrung. Berlin/
Hamburg: oa books/tredition.
Engell, Lorenz. 2008. Film und Fama—Citizen Kane.In Die Kommunikation der
Gerüchte, eds. Jürgen Brokoff, Jürgen Fohrmann, Hedwig Pompe, and Brigitte
Weingart, 322–337. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Ferriss, Suzanne, and Young. Mallory, eds. 2008. Chick Flick: Contemporary
Women at the Movies. New York: Routledge.
Fritsch, Esther. 2004. Reading gossip. Funktionen von Klatsch in Romanen
Ethnischer Amerikanischer Autorinnen. Trier: WVT.
Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. 2009. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts
and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Gill, Rosalind. 2007. Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility.
European Journal of Cultural Studies 10(2): 147–166.
Gillis, Stacy, Gillian Howie, and Munford. Rebecca, eds. 2004. Third Wave
Feminism: A Critical Exploration. Basingstoke, Hampshire, England/New
York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Huyssen, Andreas. 1986. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture,
Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Lenzhofer, Karin. 2006. Chicks Rule! Die schönen neuen Heldinnen in
US-amerikanischen Fernsehserien. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript.
Maxfield, Amanda L. 2002. The Quest for External Validation in Female Coming-
of-Age Films. In Film studies, ed. Alexandra Heidi Karriker, 141–178. Lang:
New York.
1 INTRODUCTION 7
FILMS
Clueless (USA 1995; directed/written by Amy Heckerling; actress: Alicia
Silverstone).
Easy A (USA 2010; directed by Will Gluck; script: Bert V. Royal; actress: Emma
Stone)
Emma (UK/USA 1996; directed by Douglas McGrath; script: Jane Austen/
Douglas McGrath; actress: Gwyneth Paltrow).
Sex and the City (USA 2008; directed by Michael Patrick King; script: Candace
Bushell et al.; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis,
Cynthia Nixon)
Sex and the City (USA 2010; directed by Michael Patrick King; script: Candace
Bushell et al.; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis,
Cynthia Nixon)
Legally Blonde (USA 2001; directed by Robert Luketic; script: Amanda Brown
et al.; actress: Reese Witherspoon)
Mildred Pierce (USA 1945; directed by Michael Curtiz; script: Ranald
MacDougall et al.; actress: Joan Crawford)
Stella Dallas (USA 1937; directed by King Vidor; script: Sarah Y. Mason; actress:
Barbara Stanwyck)
CHAPTER 2
a speech act that in many ways serves as “an intermediary between norms
and deviation, between power and marginality” (Neubauer 1998: 161,
my translation2). The reference source of “they say” supports this func-
tion since it always already postulates a collective, which is constituted
through hearsay. What was previously just an anonymous group of insi-
ders (if the message was already known or not does not matter) is
transformed through the act of communication into an intimate constel-
lation of confidants. (see Siegel 2006: 74; Spacks 1982: 29–30). This
study highlights how gossip as an object of analysis can offer profound
insight on social and political structures in society.
Whether or not gossip advances or undermines power structures, or
whether rumors have a positive or negative consequence, is evaluated
differently depending on the given context. As fama, the Roman goddess
of fame and rumor, usually presented with wings and trumpets, and
respectively pheme in Greek mythology, a rumor is ambivalent. It can
evoke a person’s fame as well as a person’s ruin, and thus can have both
positive and negative effects.
In academic discourse, gossip has been mainly examined based on its
negative effects, particularly as a form of character assassination or lie.
Only a few studies have looked at gossip’s positive sides, such as its
liberating potential as a subversive form, for example, how gossip can
felicitate self-expression. Furthermore, there are only a few approaches
that have analyzed gossip on an aesthetic level (Siegel 2013; Brokoff et al.
2008; Engell 2008; Weingart 2006; Kirchmann 2004). Fritsch (2004)
examines gossip as form of postcolonial feminine writing, and Marc Siegel
sees gossip as a form of inventing stories in order to situate one’s self both
performatively and autonomously in the world (Siegel 2006) as well as to
establish an aesthetic-political practice with film images (Siegel 2010).
Other scholars rejected the subversive potential of gossip outright, high-
lighting the normative dimension of gossip:
On the other hand, Patricia Meyer Spacks has identified gossip’s subver-
sive potential that can promote solidarity among women. Siegel (2006)
points out in regard to Spacks’ highly regarded work on gossip that
2 GOSSIP AS AN ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL ORDER AND PERCEPTION 11
The speech-act is no longer connected with the second function of the eye,
it is no longer read but heard. It becomes direct, and recovers the distinctive
features of “discourse” which were altered in the silent or written film (the
distinctive feature of discourse, according to Benveniste, is the I-You rela-
tion between persons). It will be noticed that cinema does not become
audio-visual as a result of this. In contrast to the intertitle, which was an
image other than the visual image, the talkie, the sound film are heard, but
as a new dimension of the visual image, a new component.
What is heard is at the same time seen. What is seen can also be heard. In
the talkie, there is no longer a separation between speech, which appeared
2 GOSSIP AS AN ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE OF SOCIAL ORDER AND PERCEPTION 13
in the silent film as text in the intertitle, and the image of the speaker. In
the talkie, the audible speech act not only became visible, the visible
speech also became audible. Thus, in the talkie, hearsay and hearsee
come to be united in synchronicity (see Siegel 2010: 55).
The aesthetic, political, and social dimension of gossip delineated
above is applicable to Easy A and Emma. Due to the films’ subjects,
emphasis on verbal expression, and spatiotemporal nature, gossip serves
as a particularly helpful model to analyze these films. In addition, these
films are also well suited for understanding gossip as a theoretical film
category and more generally for reflecting on gossip as a social practice.
While Emma depicts a hermetically sealed world in which community is
constituted based on inclusion and exclusion, Easy A reflects a norma-
tive environment in which subjective perspectives are free to develop.
In Emma the controlling function of gossip is pushed into the fore-
front. In contrast, gossip in Easy A represents a form of emancipation
and serves as performative mode of self-expression. Particularly impor-
tant is how both films depict gossip as a genuinely female mode of
perception and creates an experience of subjective collectivity, as I will
demonstrate in the following analysis.
NOTES
1. Original quote: Gossip is “ein Prozeß, dem bei der Ausbildung und
Erhaltung von Identitäten und sozialen Strukturen eine Schlüsselrolle
zukommen kann und der als soziales Regulativ fungiert” (Fritsch 2004: 9).
2. Original quote: Gossip qualifies as a speech act that in many ways serves as
“die Schaltstelle von Norm und Abweichung, von Macht und Marginalität”
(Neubauer 1998: 161).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brokoff, Jürgen, Jürgen Fohrmann, Hedwig Pompe, and Brigitte Weingart, eds.
2008. Die Kommunikation der Gerüchte. Göttingen, Germany: Wallstein.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1989 [1985]. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Engell, Lorenz. 2008. Film und Fama—Citizen Kane. In Die Kommunikation der
Gerüchte, eds. Jürgen Brokoff, Jürgen Fohrmann, Hedwig Pompe, and Brigitte
Weingart, 322–337. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Finch, Casey, and Peter Bowen. 1990. “The Tittle-Tattle of Highbury.” Gossip
and the Free Indirect Style in Emma. Representations 31: 1–18.
14 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
FILMS
Easy A (USA 2010; directed by Will Gluck; script: Bert V. Royal; actress: Emma
Stone)
Emma (UK/USA 1996; directed by Douglas McGrath; script: Jane Austen/
Douglas McGrath; actress: Gwyneth Paltrow).
CHAPTER 3
Fig. 3.1 Screenshot from Easy A showing how the camera meanders across a
schoolyard
3 EASY A—“A IS FOR AWESOME” 19
Fig. 3.3 Screenshot from Easy A demonstrating how the protagonist’s books fall
to the floor
3 EASY A—“A IS FOR AWESOME” 21
Fig. 3.4 Screenshot from Easy A showing the protagonist appearing in front of a
webcam
Fig. 3.5 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive and Rhiannon in the girls’ bathroom
Fig. 3.6 Screenshot from Easy A demonstrating how Mary Ann disrupts Olive’s
and Rhi’s conversation
Fig. 3.7 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive turning her head
Fig. 3.8 Screenshot from Easy A highlighting that rumors spread incredibly fast
initiator as much as the object of the rumor itself, the communicator and
the message. Olive thus occupies both the position of an observer as well
as participant engaged in the events. In this sense, Olive functions as a
spatiotemporal personification of gossip.
26 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
Fig. 3.9 Screenshot from Easy A showing how Olive becomes the high school’s
subject
Through the modulation of oral discourse the first person “I” becomes the
third person and hence a figure. However, the creation of this figure
through rumor is a third person of greater efficiency. Since others contribute
to the transformation of this figure, it serves as a type of “collective expres-
sion” as Gilles Deleuze would say, therefore a figure that represents sig-
nificant political and social relevance (my translation).3
This omnipresence in space and time that enfolds rapidly through the
spread of rumors resembles the popular image Andreas Paul Weber
sketched of the Fama. Weber’s image shows a monstrous being with a
long nose, devil-like ears, and a serpentine body that flies through street
canyons, where numerous mini monsters fall out the windows and become
part of that flying monster, the rumor. Gossip is defined by this rapid
weightlessness because gossip is not about passing something new to
somebody, but about experiencing a sense of belonging, which is con-
stituted by passing on information. The film makes clear that gossip is
above all about the act of communication. Communication is what con-
stitutes and shapes a community and a collective, which before was only an
anonymous mass.
Kay Kirchmann (2004: 74, my translation4) notes that rumors in con-
trast to news do not have an initiator, or if they do, they can no longer be
corroborated, meaning rumors are essentially “to be understood as
unchecked and unsupported forms of information sharing.” What Easy
A foregrounds is that gossip is not about whether rumors are true or not,
but much more about the interactive connection between those involved.
In contrast to Kirchmann, I do not think that gossip comes to a standstill
when it can be verified whether or not a rumor is true; instead, like Siegel,
I suggest that gossip stops when there is no longer any interest in the act of
speculation and the desire to tell stories. Siegel (2010: 119) notes,
Gossip thus loses its currency not because it’s untrue, but because no one
really cares enough about it to circulate, embellish and make something
fabulous out of it. Believing gossip then presupposes a desire to take its
speculations as true and relevant to the self.
Gossip deals much more with what people want to believe than with actual
knowledge, which creates its own collective discourse. The truth of a
rumor does not matter so much since the origins of rumors usually remain
unknown. Probability plays a much more significant role than truth, and
perhaps most important is the act of communication. That said, the
content of gossip is by no means insignificant, as Easy A shows.
However, the communication shown is not based on the truthfulness of
disclosure, but the possibilities of interpretation. In this regard, gossip
serves as an exchange of individual opinions, subjective statements, and
the creation of a common consciousness. Gossip is not about knowledge;
28 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
those engaged in gossip, those who [use] speaking about others as a means
of self-reflection, to express amazement and uncertainty, to locate certainties
and broaden their knowledge of others. This type of gossip can, like the
other forms, use elements of a scandal, but their objective is aimed only in
little measure beyond the world of those who speak—except the dimensions
of the world they are concerned of.
to high school, meaning it is the only aspect of the film that stands apart
from the circulation of rumors.
Easy A also presents gossip as a means of self-expression. On a narrative
level gossip is presented “as a means of self-reflection, to express amaze-
ment and uncertainty” (Siegel 2006: 78), and so represents the growth of
a teenager, who tests the boundaries of her gender identity. The film
shows that gossip is subject to strict rules and is not solely a means of
creating new identities. The film’s story demonstrates that it is impossible
to define oneself as a subject separate from either prevailing or recogniz-
able conceptions of gender.
Since Olive is both subject and object in the spread of rumors, as well as
medium and participant, she is responsible—at least in the beginning—for
officially confirming that she goes to bed with her fellow students. (Except
for Rhiannon, no girl seems to care about her reputation, and boys only
seem eager to build up a good reputation and gain fame and thereby
partake in the circle of insiders and develop a sense of belonging.) In
exchange for restaurant gift cards and other favors, Olive begins to spread
false rumors about her sexual encounters with other male students. Only
as a sexual being, so the film shows, does Olive come to be recognized as a
subject. Through the course of the film it is not just the image of the boys
that transforms, but Olive’s image. Although the truth behind the gossip
threatens to collapse with the increasing number of participants, surpris-
ingly, the rumors do not lose their effect. The rumors simply change, and
thereby their effect. Those involved increases in number, and those
excluded diminishes. Since Olive has supposedly slept with everyone, a
date with her loses its currency as anything special. Nevertheless, Olive’s
favor remains desirable amongst the student body. As the group of those
who belong grows and the group of those who are excluded shrinks, the
protagonist’s perception of herself and of others changes.
the performative breaks the link between meaning and the intention of the
speaker, for what act I perform with my words is not determined by my
intention but by my social and linguistic conventions.
Fig. 3.10 Screenshot from Easy A presenting Olive in black lingerie that she has
sewed into an only semi-appropriate outfit with a red, hand-stitched “A”
spectators know better (i.e., that Olive has not slept with anyone), they
can nonetheless still imagine that Olive will appear naked on her webcast.
Due to the gossip’s efficacy, the spectator now expects a visualization of
the gossip which is now considered a fact. Even though I have argued
gossip is not about content and the question of whether something is true
or not, but about collective interaction, the ending of Easy A shows that
nonetheless gossip is also driven by an unyielding desire to know the truth.
This is exactly why the film spectator is also excited about the “resolution”
of the gossip and thus becomes part of the diegetic community constituted
through gossip. With the final chapter of Easy A, the feeling of belonging
is also realized for the extradigetic audience since as spectators we also
participate in the practice of collective imagination.
At the beginning of the film the students of Ojai North High School
stood alone for themselves outside of a social network, but by the end of
the film they are brought together as a seeing and hearing collective, as an
audience. The film shows the entire community including students’
families in different locations as they wait for Olive’s webcast. What they
behold, in stark contrast to their vivid expectations, is Olive explaining her
side of the story. The film’s conclusion reveals that all of the events
witnessed in Easy A are Olive’s retelling of them for her web cast audience.
In this final scene, Olive presents her side of the story, which is not an
individual story, but a story of the community, a community which has
been created through the telling of such a story.
When Olive states in her webcast, “That’s what the movies don’t tell
you: How shitty it is to be an outcast,” her web cast merges with the film’s
diegesis. This merging of personal and communal points of view produces
a new level of reality. What is interesting is that Easy A does not end with
the final broadcast of Olive’s web cast. Although Olive is no longer
narrating the events, she still occupies a fictional reality that very much
resembles a movie. Suddenly Olive turns from the camera and looks out
her window to see her old friend Todd standing in front of her house and
holding two computer speakers above his head. The filmic space becomes
a space of action as Olive finishes her webcast, leaves her room and goes
outside. Todd is presented “like in a movie” with a lawn mower and and a
twenty-first century stand in for a boom box—exactly as Olive has
dreamed of (Fig. 3.11). Thus Easy A ends with a typical romantic scene.
In this final scene, different levels of reality are at play. By ending the
webcast, Olive dissolves the fictitious, innerdiegetic community constituted
via gossip and the development of which is unknown since the logic of gossip
38 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
Fig. 3.11 Screenshot from Easy A showing Olive’s friend Todd asking Olive out
reality (see Siegel 2010: 5–8). On the one hand, Siegel’s research looks at
the interaction with images of stars in film, videos, and performances, in
which the images develop, change, and form anew. On the other hand,
Siegel shows how this change and transformation of aesthetics produced
through these interactions opens up an ambiguity of representation. Siegel
considers the use of film images and their constitution of an aesthetic as a
form of gossip, that is, a collective mode of communication. These types of
images he calls gossip images,
In this sense, the last chapter of Easy A shows how gossip can equally be used
a means of self-invention, through which oppressive structures not only
become visible, but can be canceled out: A is not for adulteress, but for
awesome. Therein lies the film’s emancipatory potential, which is realized
through an experience of empowerment in the film’s conclusion when the
protagonist ends the self-destructive potential of gossip. What Easy A makes
clear is that the relationship between the “I” and the “we” is essentially a
constantly perpetuated fiction. If one understands gossip as a spatiotemporal
manifestation, which is realized through film experience, one can frame chick
flicks in relation to gossip. As Siegel (2010: 30–37) suggests, gossip images
are “a mode of image circulation” through which new types of images come
into being and are accompanied by new ways of thinking (Siegel 2010: 8–9).
NOTES
1. It is difficult to apply the concept of the free indirect discourse here, as in the
analysis of Emma, since the voice-over and the amorphous movement of the
camera relate to an “I” (and not to a third person).
2. Easy A thematizes how in order to become an individual and thus a subject
one must step out of the mass. This always implies the risk of failure.
Nevertheless, Easy A does not correspond to Robert Warshow’s (1962
[1948]) analysis of the gangster film and the notion of “becoming some-
body” within a class-based society. Instead the film looks at the ramifications
of “becoming somebody” based on gender.
3. Original quote: “Durch die Modulation des oralen Diskurses wird die erste
Person, ‘ich’, zur dritten Person – und damit letzten Endes eine Figur. Doch
diese durch Klatsch produzierte Figur ist eine dritte Person mit größerem
3 EASY A—“A IS FOR AWESOME” 41
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Benedict R. 2006 [1983]. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Austin, John L. 1975 [1962]. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Branigan, Edward. 2007 [1984], Die Point-of-View-Struktur. Montage/Av 16(2):
45–70.
Bublitz, Hannelore. 2002. Judith Butler zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.
Bühl, Walter. 2000. Das Kollektive Unbewusste in der Postmodernen Gesellschaft.
Konstanz, Germany: UVK Medien.
Butler, Judith. 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge.
Culler, Jonathan. 2007. The Literary in Theory. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1989 [1985], Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Kirchmann, Kay. 2004. Das Gerücht und die Medien. Medientheoretische
Annäherungen an einen Sondertypus der informellen Kommunikation. In
Medium Gerücht. Studien zu Theorie und Praxis einer kollektiven
Kommunikationsform, eds. Manfred Bruhn and Werner Wunderlich, 67–83.
Bern/Stuttgart/Vienna: Haupt Verlag.
Mellenkamp, Patricia. 1992. High Anxiety: Catastrophe, Scandal, Age, & Comedy.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Siegel, Marc. 2006. Gossip ist fabelhaft. Queere Gegenöffentlichkeiten und
“Fabulation.”. Texte Zur Kunst 61: 68–79.
Siegel, Marc. 2008. Vaginal Davis’s Gospel Truth. Camera Obscura 23(1):
151–159.
Siegel, Marc. 2010. Die Leute Werden Reden. Joseph Mankiewicz’ filmischer
Klatsch. In Synchronisierung der Künste, eds. Robin Curtis, Gertrud Koch,
and Marc Sigel, 93–100. Munich: Fink.
Siegel, Marc. 2013. A Gossip of Images: Hollywood Star Images and Queer
Counterpublics. Doctoral Dissertation. Freie Universität Berlin.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. 1982. In Praise of Gossip. The Hudson Review XXXV 1:
19–38.
3 EASY A—“A IS FOR AWESOME” 43
Warshow, Robert. 1962 [1948]. The Gangster as Tragic Hero. In The Immediate
Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre & Other Aspects of Popular Culture, 83–88.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wittig, Monique. 1992 [1976]. The Category of Sex. In The Straight Mind and
Other Essays, 1–8. Boston: Beacon Press.
FILMS
Easy A (USA 2010; directed by Will Gluck; script: Bert V. Royal; actress: Emma
Stone).
Emma (UK/USA 1996; directed by Douglas McGrath; script: Jane Austen/
Douglas McGrath; actress: Gwyneth Paltrow).
Sex and the City (USA 1998–2004; directed by Michael Patrick King et al.; script:
Darren Star; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia
Nixon).
CHAPTER 4
Fig. 4.1 Screenshot from Emma demonstrating how the fast spinning globe
marks the relativity of perspective
Fig. 4.2 Screenshot from Emma presenting Emma handing over a handcrafted
globe to the newly wedded Westons
48 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
In a time when one’s town was one’s world and the actions of a dance
excited greater interest than the movement of armies, there lived a young
woman who knew how this world should be run.
The film introduces Emma as both the subject and the object of the film,
as a viewing character as well as a character who is viewed. The film’s
voice-over strengthens the impression of a spinning and rotating globe
and emphasizes the subjective perception. The images capture the prota-
gonist’s point of view, while at the same time the film speaks of Emma in
the third person. This first scene in Emma establishes a way of seeing the
world that resembles Easy A but is rather to be defined in relation to free
indirect discourse.
Pier Paolo Pasolini adopted the literary term free indirect discourse for
film studies (see Pasolini 1976). Free indirect discourse is the thoughts of a
character expressed without the use of quotation marks, which makes it
difficult to determine whether it is the author or the character who is
speaking (e.g., Is it really too late?). In a film context, free indirect
discourse is staged as a narrator’s perspective in between a subjective
character’s point of view and the objective gaze of the camera. Gilles
Deleuze defines such a cinematographic perspective as perception-image.
Deleuze (1986 [1983]: 76) states:
Fig. 4.3 Screenshot from Emma highlighting Emma as the center of the film
50 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
Fig. 4.4 Screenshot from Emma showing Emma’s face in a close up, mourning
the “loss” of the beloved Miss Taylor
pivot of the community that she constitutes at the same time. In other
words, the events unfold according to Emma’s aims and thus through
her point of view. Like Olive in Easy A, Emma cannot be grasped as an
agentic individual, but is rather to be understood as a mediator. Emma
is always present. Her role as a protagonist is to influence and shape
events and relationships between characters. No conversation in the
film takes place without her. Since matchmaking structures the social
relations of the community, Emma’s cupid’s play in fact constitutes the
society itself.
accuses Miss Bates of senseless babbling at the picnic, all the lively con-
versations that were going on stop at once. The interactions are inter-
rupted, and no socializing seems possible anymore. One after another,
attendees leave the picnic with poor excuses and disappear from the scene.
In Emma, speech acts are the basis of the community. Who is heard and
seen determines who is included and excluded and thus determines how
society is structured.
In Emma, the characters embody a community that is constituted by
gossip. Who is seen with whom and when, that is, who is participating in
the exchange of news and opinions, matters as much as the question who
is falling in love with whom. As in Easy A, in order to be part of the
community it is essential to be the subject of conversation as well as
participate in the gossip of Highbury. To be part of Highbury’s gossip
one has to be an eligible marriage candidate. Thus it is only possible to
belong to the community through a relationship that is produced via
gossip. Therefore it is of no coincidence that the babbling Miss Bates and
her deaf-mute mother, who embodies the role of the poor spinster, are
marginalized within the community. They are not able to perform ade-
quate speech acts in order to participate in the daily conversations. While
Miss Bates talks without pause, though never manages to say anything
meaningful, Jane Fairfax, Miss Bates’ niece, is also speechless and
remains silent. She is also excluded from Highbury’s society until it is
later revealed that she is secretly married to Frank Churchill, the son of
the freshly married Mr. Weston. Jane Fairfax’s voice is only heard in a
duet that she performs with Frank Churchill. This duet can be inter-
preted as a clue that she will marry him and become part of the commu-
nity (Fig. 4.5). However, the film also suggests that Emma and Frank
could make a great couple based on the witty and intimate conversation
they share during their first encounter. They both enjoy speculating
about who is going to marry next and talk also about Jane Fairfax, even
though Frank’s speculations turn out to be lies since he of course already
knows about his own engagement to her. The seeming intimacy reaches
its climax when Emma and Frank also sing a duet together just before
Jane Fairfax and Frank do (Fig. 4.6). Staging both possibilities, Frank
and Emma as a potential couple as well as Frank and Jane Fairfax, the
duet scene highlights how the film invites the spectator to also speculate
since the images always present a subjective perspective that can prove
untrustworthy.
54 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
Fig. 4.5 Screenshot from Emma presenting Frank Churchill performing a duet
with Jane Fairfax
Fig. 4.6 Screenshot from Emma presenting Frank Churchill performing a duet
with Emma
4 EMMA—“A MATCH WELL MADE, A JOB WELL DONE” 55
Fig. 4.7 Screenshot from Emma pointing out Ms. Bates senselessly babbling at
the ball standing among Emma, Mrs. Weston, Mr. Churchill, and Jane Fairfax
cannot begin until Miss Bates leaves the scene to welcome another
guest. The characters enter and leave the scene, and as in the first
scene, doors serve as an important element of the mise en scène.
In Emma, community and society mean the same thing. When the
music plays, couples come together on the dance floor. They mark the
center of the filmic space. Emma dances with Frank Churchill after making
sure that Harriet was not left standing alone outside of the action. After
Mr. Elton rejects Harriet, Mr. Knightley asks her to dance and thereby
integrates her into the community. Later in the film, the friendly farmer
Mr. Martin asks Harriet to marry her.
After the dance Emma and Mr. Knightley leave the room to get some
fresh air and discuss the events of the evening; they stand together in the
darkness and look through the window toward the illuminated dance floor
(Fig. 4.8). This images capture both Emma’s and Mr. Knightley’s roles as
observers as well as participants of the events. Both are shown as part of
Highbury’s society, but also as trying to make sense of what is going on
within it. The spectator experiences something akin to having been in the
middle of the dance floor and then of leaving the ballroom to serve as
an observer of both the scene inside and the intimate conversation
between Emma and Mr. Knightley. The change in the spectator’s position
4 EMMA—“A MATCH WELL MADE, A JOB WELL DONE” 57
Fig. 4.8 Screenshot from Emma presenting Emma and Mr. Knightley as both
observers and participants of the events
does not create distance from the film characters as one might expect, but
rather, reinforces the spectator’s curiosity and desire to see a relationship
develop between Emma and Mr. Knightley.
The drawn out coming together of couples is a critical element of the
film’s dramaturgy, which correlates to how gossip points to the future.
The spread of rumors always implies a forward movement. It is not as
important to bring a message to another person as it is to continue the
exchange of news and opinions. The term hearsay implies that both the
reception and the dissemination of a rumor are going on at the same time.
Gossip is driven by a future-oriented force that derives from a “speculative
relation to the past” (Siegel 2013: 96, my translation2). Focusing on the
coupling of Emma and Mr. Knightley, the film is driven towards this ends.
Already knowing that Emma and Mr. Knightley would make a perfect
couple and having to wait nevertheless until the end of the film, raises the
intensity of the spectator’s experience of impatience.
According to Casey Finch and Peter Bowen (1990: 2), a rumor is
“a secret that is no secret.” On the novel Emma, they write:
The spectator at least senses from the film’s very beginning that Emma and
Mr. Knightley will ultimately be united but not only because they know
the outcome of the original novel or because as a love story it’s expected to
end with unifying the two characters always at odds with one another. The
spectator also anticipates the happy ending because of how the film stages
the relationship between Emma and Mr. Knightley, who are often seen in
conversation and positioned in a symmetric, harmonious manner as is
typical for the staging of romantic couples in a screwball comedy (see
Greifenstein 2013). Emma is portrayed in a similarly harmonious manner
with Frank Churchill, which frustrates any sense of certainty on whom
Emma will end up with at the end.
novel and pointed out as typical for gossip presented in the form of the
novel. They write:
modes is transformed as Emma becomes more and more aware of her own
subjectivity and thus changes her actions and attitude towards the events
accordingly. The second half of the film draws the spectator into the
communication processes so that it is impossible to maintain a critical
distance to the events in the first part of the film. With the appearance of
Frank Churchill, the aesthetic mode of the film changes and with it the
status of the film’s images. While the semi-subjective point of view in the
first part of the film made the diegetic world appear transparent, the
increasing subjectivity of the film’s second part causes the spectator’s loss
of orientation in social affairs. As soon as Emma becomes involved in
Highbury’s community and becomes herself an object of gossip, the
mood of the film turns to drama. The second part of the film consists of
numerous close ups of the protagonist, inner monologues, and dark
intimate rooms decorated with mirrors. The subjective dimension of
these images reaches a climax when Emma thinks to realize her love for
Frank Churchill while she is seated alone in a dark room illuminated only
by candles (Fig. 4.9).
After the disappointment of finding out that there will be no wedding
between Harriet and Mr. Elton, which was obvious for the spectator but
not for the protagonist, Harriet and Emma hide out in the stable. This is
an interesting scene to consider especially in how it emphasizes how the
Fig. 4.9 Screenshot from Emma showing how Emma thinks to realize her love
for Frank Churchill
4 EMMA—“A MATCH WELL MADE, A JOB WELL DONE” 61
status of the film’s images can suddenly change. This scene compresses
time and space. The site and the dynamic of conversation, which are based
on where it takes place and whom is involved, is shown to change from
one second to the next. Dialogues begin here, continue there, and are led
by different characters. This scene shows the independent nature of the
speech act, which does not rely on individuals or sites of discourse. Or in
Deleuze’s (1989 [1985]: 228) words, “The film appears as an indetermin-
able speech-act (rumor) which circulates and spreads, making visible the
live interactions between independent characters and separate places.”
In Emma, gossip is realized as a film experience wherein subjective and
objective becomes more and more indistinguishable. Who will marry
whom (Mr. Knightley and Harriet, or Harriet and Mr. Churchill, or Mr.
Churchill and Jane Fairfax, or Mr. Churchill and Emma, or Emma and
Mr. Knightley, or Harriet and Mr. Martin) remains for the film characters
as uncertain as it does for the spectator. Not until the film’s ending are all
potential relationships realized. Only when the community’s speculation
finally ends, does it become a community. The final kiss between Emma
and Mr. Knightley marks the end of the social theatrics. The moment they
kiss Emma becomes a full member of the community since she gives up
her position as the observer. At the same time, spectators also relinquish
their critical perception of the events and can enjoy the anticipated uni-
fication of the couple.
Similar to Easy A, Emma shows how a sense of belonging is also created
through participation, whereby the spectator experiences an experience of
collectivity. With the transformation from objective to subjective images,
it becomes clear that Emma’s point of view represents the view of the
community. Emma’s point of view is Highbury’s view, which correlates
also to that of Emma (see also Finch and Bowen 1990: 8).
changing all the time. Thus, the spectator has difficulties in reconstructing
how, to whom, and from whom the rumor has been disseminated.
Speculations become omnipresent and move on independently, while
the origin and the object of gossip have taken a back seat. Finch and
Bowen locate a normalizing function of gossip based on the fact that at
one point the rumor cannot be traced and it thus becomes ambiguous
whether a message is an opinion or news.
Analyzing Austen’s novel, Finch and Bowen conclude that the perspec-
tive of free indirect discourse, which is expressed in the film adaption
through gossip, naturalizes power structures. How the protagonist speaks
both as an individual as well as for the entire community makes it difficult
to distinguish whether she represents a single or a general opinion. This
establishes an ambiguity, Finch and Bowen argue, which renders the
origin of a rumor invisible making it difficult to trace it back to its original
source and proving its reliability. Gossip thus becomes a normalizing
mechanism that presents processes of inclusion and exclusion as a given
and unchangeable.
Finch and Bowen criticize Austen’s novel for how it presents gossip as a
typical women’s practice of communication and thus naturalizes gender.
In their view, gossip reinforces patriarchal power structures. They write:
The novel trivializes gossip as a women’s practice, Finch and Bowen (1990: 3)
argue:
When it comes to the film Emma, gossip does not appear as an alternative
form of communication as for example Marc Siegel points out in regard
64 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
For women and others who were typically denied access to venues of public
expression, gossiping fostered meaningful relationships by which they could
test and exchange perspectives on the outside or official world.
However, Easy A and Emma also demonstrate that gossip is not just a
typical practice of communication among women. The spectator experi-
ences gossip, as an exchange of opinions and news that serves as the basis
of a community. Emma shows how characters and locations are connected
through verbal communication and thus constitute the community of
Highbury. While gossip is widely seen as a form of denunciation, or a
useless pastime, the film stages speculation as a legitimate view of the
world. That being said, gossip nevertheless serves as a system of surveil-
lance and self-control as Finch and Bowen describe gossip in the novel.
Emma does not stage gossip as a utopian form of communication, as a
practice of testing and exchanging points of view, but instead as a mechan-
ism that determines who is allowed to participate in a community and who
is not. Drawing on Deleuze’s concept of how cinematographic speech acts
make interactions visible, I argue that in Emma gossip shows how hier-
archical structures are at work in society.
Highbury’s inhabitants are occupied by exchanging news, opinions,
and speculations with family members, acquaintances, and friends. While
in Emma the speculative form of gossip is performed primarily by the
female characters, the male characters function more as an organ of the
existing order. For example, Emma’s father is staged as a character who
due to his age knows the facts and keeps a distance from the community’s
matchmaking. As the clergyman, Mr. Elton is responsible for the official
legitimation of social relationships. Thus, he represents the social order
of class. Frank Churchill only participates in gossip because he does not
want anybody to know about his engagement to Jane Fairfax. Like
Emma, Mr. Knightley embodies both a subjective and a general point
of view, but during the course of the film, Mr. Knightley’s individual
feelings come more and more into play. In the end, he and Emma
represent both the individual and the community. By depicting Emma
and Mr. Knightley as a harmonious couple, the film initiates a transfor-
mation of the spectator’s point of view. While the film shows how
Emma’s individual point of view transforms into a more general point
4 EMMA—“A MATCH WELL MADE, A JOB WELL DONE” 65
NOTES
1. Original quote: “Ich werde zu dem “er” oder zu der “sie”, die irgendetwas
getan hat, gewesen ist oder gesagt hat” (Siegel 2006: 77).
2. Original quote: Gossip is driven by a future-oriented force that derives from
a “spekulativen Beziehung zur Vergangenheit” (Siegel 2013: 96).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Deleuze, Gilles. 1986 [1983]. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1989 [1985]. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Engell, Lorenz. 2008. Film und Fama—Citizen Kane. In Die Kommunikation der
Gerüchte, eds. Jürgen Brokoff, Jürgen Fohrmann, Hedwig Pompe, and Brigitte
Weingart, 322–337. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Finch, Casey, and Peter Bowen. 1990. “The Tittle-Tattle of Highbury.” Gossip
and the Free Indirect Style in Emma. Representations 31: 1–18.
Greifenstein, Sarah. 2013. Tempi der Bewegung—Modi des Gefühls. Expressivität,
heitere Gefühle und die Screwball Comedy. Doctoral Dissertation. Freie
Universität Berlin.
Kirchmann, Kay. 2004. Das Gerücht und die Medien. Medientheoretische
Annäherungen an einen Sondertypus der informellen Kommunikation. In
Medium Gerücht. Studien zu Theorie und Praxis einer kollektiven
Kommunikationsform, eds. Manfred Bruhn and Werner Wunderlich, 67–83.
Bern/Stuttgart/Vienna: Haupt Verlag.
Pasolini, Pier P. 1976. “The Cinema of Poetry”. In Movies and Methods. An
Anthology, ed. Bill Nichols, 542–548. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London:
University of California Press.
Radway, Janice A. 1984. Reading the Romance. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
Siegel, Marc. 2006. Gossip ist fabelhaft. Queere Gegenöffentlichkeiten und
“Fabulation.”. Texte Zur Kunst 61: 68–79.
66 GOSSIP, WOMEN, FILM, AND CHICK FLICKS
Siegel, Marc. 2010. Die Leute Werden Reden. Joseph Mankiewicz’ filmischer
Klatsch. In Synchronisierung der Künste, eds. Robin Curtis, Gertrud Koch,
and Marc Sigel, 93–100. Munich: Fink.
Siegel, Marc. 2013. A Gossip of Images: Hollywood Star Images and Queer
Counterpublics. Doctoral Dissertation. Freie Universität Berlin.
Spacks, Patricia Meyer. 1985. Gossip. New York: Knopf.
FILMS
Easy A (USA 2010; directed by Will Gluck; script: Bert V. Royal; actress: Emma
Stone).
Emma (UK/USA 1996; directed by Douglas McGrath; script: Jane Austen/
Douglas McGrath; actress: Gwyneth Paltrow).
CHAPTER 5
A Matter of Perspective
Abstract In the conclusion, Dang revisits the key arguments put forward
in the analysis of Easy A and Emma. She sums up how these films reflect
on gossip as a form of perception in order to relate to the world and
oneself and at the same time demonstrate how gossip works as a mechan-
ism of power that creates and structures society. Dang argues that the films
present gossip as a way of viewing the world based on a specific relation-
ship between an “I” and a “we.” This is how, she concludes, Easy A and
Emma do nothing less than stage the question “And who am I?”
in challenging the assertions that chick flicks as mass media forms work
against the legacy of feminism and render feminist theory obsolete.
Even though the protagonists of Easy A or Emma are incredibly different
characters—in their appearance, world view, and even their life style—there
are, as I have demonstrated, many legitimate reasons to bring these films
into conversation with one another. Both films, Easy A and Emma, create a
diegesis that is based on categorizations. The films invite the spectator to
participate in these processes of categorization by sharing the characters’
points of view as well as reflecting on them. They force spectators to
immediately take a position on the protagonists’ appearance and behavior.
The spectators of Easy A and Emma do not have to make up their minds
whether something is feminist or anti-feminist, but rather whether an event
is depicted from a subjective or objective perspective. These films demon-
strate how a specific point of view determines how one sees the world.
Easy A and Emma focus on the practice of communication and the
participants involved. While it is worth considering the constative dimension
of categorization processes presuming given social structures (“It has always
been like this—and will always be.”) (Dang 2014), this study looked at the
performative sites of categorizations. In doing so, it demonstrated how the
film experience evoked in Easy A underscores the creative dimension of
gossip, whereas Emma points to the speculative dimension of gossip.
Analyzing Easy A and Emma, I demonstrated how gossip, mainly
associated with women, is a productive method in understanding the
complexity of chick flicks and how gossip is expressed through the film
experience of chick flicks. Gossip works quite differently in each of these
films. Both Easy A and Emma reflect on gossip as a form of perception in
order to relate to the world and oneself. At the same time, these films
demonstrate how gossip works as a mechanism of power that creates and
structures society. The films show how gossip can be an affirmative as well
as a subversive practice. While Emma depicts a rather hermetically sealed
society, Easy A provides an image of a society that is variable to a certain
extent. Emma shows how gossip conforms to norms and helps perpetuate
them, whereas in Easy A gossip helps deconstruct images of gender. Easy
A’s affective dramaturgy reveals how prejudices are at work when it comes
to images of gender in a society based on a heterosexual matrix. At the
same time, the film underscores how gender identities are nevertheless an
important point of reference. Easy A reflects on women as representations,
the circulation of images and the feminist paradigm of “femininity=ima-
gery” by showing that the protagonist can only be recognized as a (visible)
5 A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE 69
different from the norm and thus marginal” (Fritsch 2004: 9, my transla-
tion1). This can be seen as an analogy of chick flicks more generally.
Gossip as well as chick flicks are a part of popular culture since they are
everywhere and still they are marginalized by oppressive discourses on
differences of high and low culture. Emma and Easy A work against
these differentiations by demonstrating how gossip implies a collective
form of communication that constitutes a social order. The spectator
experiences gossip as a daily speech act and as a genuine perception of
the world. Emma and Easy A both show, though in different ways, that
meaning is derived from subjectivity. Subjectivity is the precondition of
being in the world. The films describe an imaginary and fictive relation to
the world, which nevertheless is real. In other words, the films show that
subjectivity and objectivity go hand in hand and cannot be separated.
By staging subjectivity as a genuine way of perceiving the world, the
films demonstrate that even if identities are imaginary they have actual
effects. Through the film experience of gossip, the spectator sees how a
self-confident “I” that can express oneself through a given language as an
individual begins to awaken. The films reveal that the “I” is mere fiction,
an effect of a collective practice of communication, which is determined by
specific social structures however emancipatory or restrictive those might
be. Emma and Easy A depict stories that imply a “we,” a dimension of
collectivity, from the beginning. The spectator experiences through
Emma and Easy A how the “I” is constituted through a “we.” These
films do nothing less than stage the question “And who am I?”
NOTE
1. Original quote: Rumors are “überall und weichen doch vom ‘guten Ton’ ab
und sind somit marginal” (Fritsch 2004: 9).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dang, Sarah-Mai. 2014. Chick Flicks. Film, Feminismus und Erfahrung. Berlin/
Hamburg: oa books/tredition.
De Lauretis, Teresa. 1987. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and
Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Fritsch, Esther. 2004. Reading gossip. Funktionen von Klatsch in Romanen
Ethnischer Amerikanischer Autorinnen. Trier: WVT.
5 A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE 71
FILMS
Easy A (USA 2010; directed by Will Gluck; script: Bert V. Royal; actress: Emma
Stone).
Emma (UK/USA 1996; directed by Douglas McGrath; script: Jane Austen/
Douglas McGrath; actress: Gwyneth Paltrow).
Gossip Girl (USA 2007–2012; directed by Mark Piznarski et al.; script: Stephanie
Savage et al.; actresses: Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Penn Badgley, Chace
Crawford, Ed Westwick).
Sex and the City (USA 1998–2004; directed by Michael Patrick King et al.; script:
Darren Star; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia
Nixon).
Sex and the City (USA 2008; directed by Michael Patrick King; script: Candace
Bushell et al.; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis,
Cynthia Nixon).
Sex and the City (USA 2010; directed by Michael Patrick King; script: Candace
Bushell et al.; actresses: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis,
Cynthia Nixon)
INDEX
Empowerment, 40, 69 M
Exclusion, 4, 13, 28, 35, 39, 49, Male gaze, 3
62, 63 Matchmaking, 46, 51, 52, 58, 64
Moving image, 4
F
Fabulous subjectivity, 18, 28–30 N
Femininity, 3, 6n3, 68 Neofeminist, 3
Feminism, 2, 3, 5n2, 68 Normative, 10, 13, 32, 46, 69
Fiction, 16, 18, 32, 36–38, 40, 70 Norms, 9–10, 31–33, 68, 70
Film experience, 2, 4, 12, 15–17, 26,
28, 39, 40, 46, 48, 51, 61, 68–70
Filmic figuration, 50–52, 55 O
Finch, Casey, 57, 58, 61–64 Omnipresence, 12, 16, 17–21, 27,
First wave feminism, 5n2 40, 61
Free indirect discourse, 40n1, 46–51, 63 Oppressive, 32, 40, 70
Fritsch, Esther, 1, 9, 10, 13n1, 70, 70n1
P
Participation, 5, 17, 28, 33, 34, 51,
G
58, 61
Gender, 2, 4, 5, 30–34, 40, 40n2,
Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 46, 48
41n9, 45, 46, 63, 68–69
Patriarchal power structures, 63
Genre, 1–4, 6n4, 11, 15, 67
Patriarchy, 63
Perception, 4, 9–13, 30, 36, 48, 61,
68, 70
H Perception-image, 48
Hearsay, 4, 5, 9–10, 12, 13, 28, 50, Performance, 29, 31, 39
52, 57 Performative, 4, 10, 12, 13, 29, 31,
Heterosexual matrix, 30–34, 68 32, 46, 68
Highbury, 50–53, 55, 56, 58–62, 64 Performative utterance, 32, 35
Perspective, 2, 3, 11, 13, 16–19,
21–22, 23, 24, 28, 35, 36, 46–49,
I 51, 53, 58, 63, 65, 67–70
Imagery, 68 Political practice, 10, 11
Images of gossip, 36–40 Popular culture, 67, 70
Inclusion, 4, 13, 28, 35, 39, 49, 63 Postfeminism, 2, 5n1, 5n2
Individual, 4, 21, 26, 28, 31, 32, 35, Power, 4, 5, 10, 16, 19, 24, 29, 31,
37, 39, 40n2, 41n5, 49, 51, 52, 32, 39, 41n5, 63, 65, 68
58, 59, 61, 63–65, 69, 70 Practice, 10, 11, 13, 15–17, 31, 34,
Interaction, 12, 18, 21–28, 33, 37, 39, 37, 39, 46, 50, 52, 61–64,
50, 52, 53, 55, 61, 62, 64 68, 70
INDEX 75
Private, 11, 24, 58, 59, 62 Speech act, 4, 10, 12, 13, 13n2, 16,
Public, 2, 11, 24, 39–40, 55, 58, 17, 23, 30–36, 52, 53, 59, 61, 64,
59, 62 69, 70
Speech act theory, 31
Subjectivity, 5, 16, 18, 28–30, 35, 45,
R 46, 48, 51, 59–60, 70
Reality, 16, 19, 21, 22, 29, 31, 33, 34, Subversive, 9, 10, 31, 68
37–39, 62
Reception, 4, 11, 57
Representation, 38–39, 68–69
Rumor, 5, 9–12, 16, 17, 22–30, T
32–36, 40, 41n4, 57, 59, Temporality, 4, 29, 55
61–63, 70n1 Theory, 1–3, 11, 16, 31, 68
Third wave feminism, 2, 5n1, 5n2
S
Second wave feminism, 2, 5n1, 5n2 U
Sex, 2, 17, 22, 31, 33, 35, 36, Undoing gender, 69
41n9, 69 Utterance, 31, 32, 35, 55, 59
Sexuality, 30
Siegel, Marc, 10–13, 17, 23, 26–30,
34, 38–40, 41n6, 41n7, 52, 55,
57, 63–64, 65n1 V
Social phenomenon, 4, 5, 11 Viewing process, 4, 36
Society, 10, 51–53, 55, 56, 58, 59, Visibility, 33
64, 68 Visual pleasure, 67
Spacks, Patricia Meyer, 1, 10, 11, 23,
29, 50, 64
Speculation, 4, 27, 46, 51, W
53, 61–64 Womanhood, 35