Primal Screen 6 (post partum)
August 19th, 2009 at 16:19The primal screen is a Christian fantasma.
I must be careful not to impose it onto cultures which have incorporated their own religious beliefs, and which have developed ideas of the nature of woman as well as the function of visual images different from mine.
The Christian veil marks the beginning of the history of the primal screen. A history that is not over yet.
“Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at.” (John Berger) The wish to see her naked — not as she would see herself but as he wants to see her. Nude. The convention of the female nude, unique to European art, presents a form of nakedness that reduces the lived diversity of women’s bodies to an idealized surface, a screen. The nude wears her nudity like a garment. A naked veil. A sight to be looked at by others and by herself. The female nude is never a mother.
The saturation of public spaces with images of the nude affect me. I begin to imitate the image. I have shed the veil long ago. Over the centuries layer after layer of clothing has disappeared. When in the 1960s the bikini becomes an acceptable form of dress, I have mastered the art of likening myself to the image of the nude. I rarely talk about this part of my history when I revile the Muslim woman’s veil.
Much pleasure & satisfaction can be found in turning myself into a sight. It makes me feel seductive & desirable, powerful, in control. But this should not lead me to conclude that the veiled Muslim woman lacks the freedom to experience pleasure. Her pleasures may be different from mine. It is that difference I perceive as a provocation to my hard-won freedom.
The veiled Muslim woman does not pretend she’s flat. There is a female body underneath the veil. A sexual body. It is this body I’m obsessed with, want to drag into the open, expose, defile. This is my wish: to reduce her to an image, a nude, a flat screen. Why? Because her presence forces me to acknowledge that not only am I less secular than I pretend to be, I am also not as free and liberated as I want to be.
——————————————– read primal screen 5
Posted: August 19th, 2009
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