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 Feminism, Women and Latvian Cinema Elizabete Pičukāne, Gender Studies Researcher Inga Pērkone. To Love is all I can do... (Rīga, Neputns, 2008) | |
| It seems in Latvia that making reference to feminism in a publication aimed at a wider audience, or declaring that a study is based on feminist methodology, inevitably leads to a barrage of criticism or, at very least, elicits incomprehension. Inga Pērkone's book I can only love... The Image of Woman in Latvian Film has already received just this sort of reception. Without just foundation, I believe. The book analyses how women are represented in films from a viewpoint that is unusual for Latvia. The book audience is anyone who is interested in cinema or in gender issues. The author's conclusions are illuminated with scenes from films, an approach that allows the reader to recall the images witnessed in the films analysed, and to examine the characters of the films more closely. This also makes the book very lively. Starting out from a gender perspective and using feminist methodology, the author makes a number of choices. First of all - to use the concept of gender. Since gender studies began finding a niche in the Latvian academic curriculum, the term gender has been translated and interpreted in a number of different ways. It is difficult to say which of the words is the best, or which will survive and remain in usage, yet by using the word "dzimte" the author conclusively shows that she agrees that the meaning of the word for gender, as used in grammar, can be extended to also mean ‘social gender'. This in addition demonstrates that, in the context of the book, it is essential to differentiate between (biological) gender or sex, and (social) gender (although the term "dzimte" is not used consistently, and occasionally the word "dzimums" is used in its stead). The topic of the book is based on the author's personal experience, both in the way her name was chosen and the way her ideal of the feminine was formed. The constant theme throughout the book is the (potential) impact of the female characters shown in films on both women and men, as well as the effect of specific ideologies and eras on film characters. Pērkone has chosen to examine movies that may have exerted the most profound influence on viewers in their day. The book also clearly delineates the context in which the characters were shaped in each examined period (the interwar years, the Soviet era, today), and we gain a sense of how often the characters may have been relevant to real life, and to what extent they were ideological constructs. I consider the fact that Pērkone has not only compared the different female characters, but has shown them alongside the male characters to be highly successful, thus allowing the role of female characters to be revealed in interaction with male characters, and also illustrating defined forms of femininity (usually as a contrast to the men). Although the book is arranged chronologically, a particular aspect is highlighted in each chapter: female characters in literature, woman as worker, woman as mother, woman as movie star. The dominant message of the feminine image as presented in Latvian cinema (albeit with some exceptions) and referred to in the book's title is: "I can only love..." A woman's role is primarily passive, centred on love; a woman is part of nature and her vocation is family. In my opinion, the women and men of Latvia would do well to think about how and whet her they have been affected by that femininity and masculinity which has been encoded in film characters - and also in the relations between the sexes in Latvia. This is a thought-provoking book. /Translator into English: Filips Birzulis/ | |
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