A Theater of ViolenceVisions of the Suburban Home in American Cinema and Television

pia pandelakis

Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle - ARIAS

Domestic Imaginaries Symposium

The University of Nottingham

2014

A DICHOTOMY ENACTED IN SPACEThe Walking Dead, Season 4, Episode 7, "Dead Weight"

“musculine” women from the 80s / 90s

late 90s/ 2000 “action babes”

Aliens, James Cameron, 1986.Terminator 2: Judgement Day, James Cameron, 1991.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Simon West, 2001.

violence as a founding base of the american home

// a paradox between violence and its rejection// a negotiation between the two

kathleen anne mc hugh

“one task that the home-or, better, the idea of the home- performs is a transformative one: as an interstitial space, it delimits an area in which specific practices create the distinctions between two territories, the natural and the cultural or the physical and the social. Articulating elements of both, the home is neither”.

American Domesticity: From How-to Manual to Hollywood Melodrama, 1999.

3 cases of violence associated with the homein american cinema

*1 // desertion

The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich, 2004.

3 cases of violence associated with the home in american cinema

*2 // HEAVY DAMAGEJumanji, Joe Johnston, 1995.

3 cases of violence associated with the homein american cinema

*3 // total destructionX-Men 2, Brian Singer, 2003.

what is stake when the home is damaged or destructed?3 ways for violence & the home to be associated

> violence from withoutthe intruder

> violence from within & withoutthe indian graveyard trope

> violence from withindomestic violence (the violent husband)

the home regulates the characters’ relationship to internal & external violence

the woman [ housewife] plays a key roleit is the women “who assert the myth of community in the movies, who propose a world of children and homes and porches and kitchens and neighbors and gossip and schools - everything the American hero is a run from”.

michael woodAmerica in the Movies, 1975.

the housewife connects with the home through her chores: housekeeping

producing more meaning than actual value“Domestic economy disciplines the domestic body so that it labors to produce itself as a body that appears no to labor”.

kathleen anne mc hughAmerican Domesticity: From How-to Manual to Hollywood Melodrama, 1999.

is there room for agency?

Mildred Pierce, Michael Curtiz, 1945.

the chores are seldom shown> the symbolic use of objects> displacement of said objects

Halloween, John Carpenter, 1978.

> the symbolic use of objects> displacement of said objects

Serial Mom, John Waters, 1994.

does the use of kitchen utensils reinforce stereotypes?

> a different takedrawing from “a long kiss goodnight”

samantha & charly:two identitiesThe Long Kiss Goodnight, Renny Harlin, 1996.

the kitchen as war zonea creative for the housewife to reinvent herself?

The Long Kiss Goodnight, Renny Harlin, 1996.

the kitchen as war zone

Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Quentin Tarantino, 2003.

the kitchen as war zone

Hancock, Peter Berg, 2008.

the use of random objects is a common trope of the action film

Commando, Mark L. Lester, 1985.

but domestic accessories include an element of performance. . .

M. and Mrs. Smith, Doug Liman, 2007.

in the oven: an arsenal

but domestic accessories include an element of performance. . .

Hancock, Peter Berg, 2008.

does this function of the home make room for a new experience?

or does it produce a different kind of alienation?