The film Stigmata & the Challenge of Conceptualizing Women as Spiritual Agents
The history of Western religion has, for the most part been a history of men's religious stories, practices, and writings. It is quite rare and exceptional to find accounts of religion or practicing groups that place women's experiences at the center. Books, films, and various other cultural products bear this out by demonstrating a stubborn lack of attention to women's religious experiences. At first glance, the movie Stigmata seems like a film that defies this generalization. The movie, starring Patricia Arquette, places a female protagonist and her mystical experiences with Christ at the center of the plot. The woman is modeled after a great figure in the Catholic tradition, St. Francis, and hers is seemingly the story around which the entire movie is structured. Though this apparently unusual use of a woman's direct experience with God seems on an immediate level to be very transgressive, however, the film ends up being even more hegemonic, in a sense because of the way in which it subtly reinforces normative notions of the male-centeredness of supernatural experiences of God in the Catholic tradition.
In this paper I will look at how Stigmata represents sex and gender roles in the Catholic church and in secular America and of how it uses women's sexuality and assumptions about women's lack of spiritual agency to ultimately undermine the legitimacy of authentic feminine experience with the Christian God. I will argue that the movie's emphasis on very structuralist notions of good and evil, man and woman, pure and impure, inevitably sets up a system in which a female's religious authority will be lost. A patriarchal tradition, as the Catholic church most certainly represents, must always scramble to accommodate the abnormality of a woman experiencing a direct link with God. The unwillingness to imagine a situation in which a character like that of Patricia Arquette's character, Frankie, would have a legitimate direct experience with God is a common one throughout the Western (and Western-occupied) world. The emphasis on only granting legitimacy to the written word in the Western religious tradition has always created an environment of hostility to women's non-discursive religious experiences. This paper will also look at how the religious conflicts between the Western patriarchal tradition and female members of a non-Western religious tradition (specifically a group of Ngarrindjeri women) have unfolded and at how such conflicts are similar to the conflict that is represented between Frankie and the priests who would control her in Stigmata.
Everyone should do some sort of community service at some point in their life. Community service is voluntary work that is intended to help people in a particular area. It teaches people what is right from wrong. It helps you develop respect for others and understand that there are people who are living a harder life than you. You should not be sitting around doing nothing and complaining that your life is bad, instead you should be helping others realize that there is something out there that can benefit everyone.
In the film “The Holy Ghost People,” right away we get individual accounts of what the “Holy Spirit” is to certain individuals. One woman says the Holy Ghost guides her and keeps her going. The people are very intense about their beliefs, which comes from the religion Pentecostalism, which has a hyper focus on personal experience with God and baptism with the Holy Spirit. We see them in their church, we hear the sermon, and see the ritualistic dances and the way the prayer overcomes them, and causes seizure like motions. We see and hear the prayers for the healing of one woman’s eyesight, and another woman’s back pain. One man, seemingly the pastor, says that “if God is not doing what they ask, people aren’t believing hard enough.” Later we get an account from a woman of how she was nursed back to health as a little girl brought her nutrients, and she believes it was
Judith Plaskow, a Jewish feminist, searches for ways to incorporate her mostly male-based and male-interpreted faith with her feminist’s ideals in her book of essays, The Coming of Lilith. Her essay covers a wide variety of topics concerning contemporary Judaism and its possibility for flexibility, especially concerning unfair gender roles. Plaskow also discusses how religious traditions can perpetuate a hatred of the “other” religions and how that negatively affects both parties. Judith Plaskow challenges her religious tradition and contemporary culture that is a product of all religions by using sources of Jewish ethics such as the Torah and the Talmud to back up her feminist criticism.
Meese, Elizabeth A. ?Ortality and Texuality in Their Eyes Were Watching God? Crossing the Double Cross: The Practice of Feminist Criticism. North Carolina Press, 1986. 59-70.
In Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she presents a number of very interesting facts regarding the ways that the sexual imagery of men and women respectively are used in the world of film. One such fact is that of the man as the looker and the female as the looked upon, she argues that the woman is always the object of reifying gaze, not the bearer if it. And “[t]he determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to be connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (487). Mulvey makes the claim that women are presented and primped into this role of “to-be-looked-at-ness”. They are put into films for this purpose and for very little other purposes. However, this argument cannot be incorporated with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; the existence of women in the film is extremely insignificant to an extent that could be considered absent. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance,” male serves as the dominant figures with which the viewer can identify, women only appear in the film for a very short moment of time. For instance, the appearance of women is only shown when Howard rescues the ill child in the village and his return to the village for hospitality reception...
One of the most disturbing things about living in New York City since 9.11 has been the way in which the U.S. has been able to wage war on Afghanistan and now maybe Iraq, with very little public outcry. I’d like to suggest that behind the apathy, certain traditions of Christian biblical interpretation may be at work, traditions that feature feminine figures in very particular ways. These are interpretive traditions around salvation history, and apocalypse.
The issue of religion in women's horror is much like the issue of class. In most major organized religions there is a definite patriarchal structure of male dominance. The Father, the Son, the Pope, bishops and priests are all part of this structure that mostly lack woman influences. The religious structure reflects the male dominated society as a whole. As one would expect, women are frightful and perhaps horrified at this exclusionary system and in women's horror the idea of a woman Christ figure has been brought forth. Perhaps women are in touch with the idea of the Christ-like figure, one that is nurturing and motherly and by using a woman with Christ-like attributes, the structure of religion is commented on and destructured. Men's horror, however, works in the opposite direction by struggling to maintain the structure as it stands. While women battle to overthrow the ideas of a patriarchal religion, men battle to keep this disturbance in check and find comfort in the reassurance from male horror in the reassertion of male dominance.
The marianismo gender role beliefs vary depending on where one is located. Marianismo beliefs influence what women see as “appropriate female behavior” (Craske, 1999, p. 12). Stereotypes of women are created which have stuck to what is ‘appropriate’ for what women can and cannot do. It is out of the normalcy for women to not follow these marianismo beliefs. It is obvious that motherhood is found as the ultimate role for women. Though it would make sense that men have fatherhood is not the ultimate role for men (even though both man and woman are needed to create a child) this is not the case at all. Another key marianismo belief Craske (2002) found was that women are “dominant in the private world of domestic organization,” while men are dominant in the public sector (p. 11). This is important to know because women lived very secluded lifestyles. This exclusive lifestyle connects to how Catholic women in Latin America had greater transgressions than men when it came...
Do modern video games contribute to the increasing level of violence that we see around us? Can we really attribute the shootings and bombings we see on the news to the increased violence and realism of video games? Every day, people are exposed to violence through the TV shows and movies they watch, the video games they play, and national media networks who bombard us with graphic information portraying violent and hard-hitting global events. To top it all off, the media frequently loves to make outrageous claims that video games either “inspired” or “trained” the culprits of many of these violent acts. In the article “Are Violent Video Games Harmful?,” Guy Porter and Vladan Starcevic claim that “while playing video games outwardly appears to be an innocuous activity, the limited data available suggest playing violent video games may be related to aggressive and/or antisocial behavior” (4). I strongly disagree with their statement; not only do I believe that violent video games do not directly cause aggression, but I also feel that gaming is a very social activity that is commonplace among today’s youth.
...an, Monica A. "Must I Be a Womanist?" Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22.1 (2006): 96. Print.
The first violent video game invented was during the 1970’s (Anderson & Bushman, 2001), since then, the degree of violence present in a video game has significantly increased. Today, the graphics, sounds, characters in video games have become more realistic than before any of the past years. Real-life associations are easier to make if a video game is realistic. Violent video games impacts individuals psychologically, physiologically and socially. On one side, these elements results in an increase in aggression, addiction, lack of empathy and desensitization (Myers, 2013, p. 295), fluctuation of heartbeats, high levels of blood pressure, and changes in the perception of society (Anderson & Bushman, 2001 ). In the other case, the individuals do not experience these effects altogether or experience very little because of factors such as strong morals and they have no symptoms of any mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety (MediResource, 2013). These individuals demonstrate a high level of cognitive development like critical thinking and motivational skills (Myers, 2013, p. 295).
...ses in the play itself. Here is a good question to ponder for a while “Is ambition okay in any context, or are we all supposed to let fate and chance toss us around?” (Muller)
According to Creed, there are seven possible faces of female monstrosity in the cinematic language: archaic mother, monstrous womb, vampire, witch possessed monster, deadly femme castrator, and the castrating mother. These elements of the female form in cinema help Creed’s definition of the female body as alien and an oppressive realm that provokes feelings of disgust. Creed states that “Horror emerges from the fact that woman has broken with her proper feminine role as she has ‘made a spectacle of herself’ and put her unsocialized body on display” (46). She goes on to relate this to the film The Exorcist (1973) and the young girl’s gradual possession, “with its emphasis on filthy utterances and depraved acts, seems so shocking… mockery of all established forms of propriety, of the clean and proper body and of the law itself define her as abject.Yet, despite her monstrous appearance and shocking utterances, she remains a strongly ambiguous figure.” (46). Creed also makes another fascinating point that highlights the films use of male and female characters. Besides the mother and daughter in the film The Exorcist all law enforcement, doctors, healers, archaologists, and priests are
Religion is a key aspect to the culture of today’s society, as well as, for thousands of years prior. One major key distinction remains, most religions are male dominated traditions. Catholic, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy truly exemplify this. However, the importance and major role women play within the realm of different theologies is evident. Mary, the Catholic Virgin Mary, the Jewish Rachel, and Islamic Fatima are three important saints whose influence and importance is recognized. The term saint sometimes may blur between mortal beings and heavenly realms. Nonetheless, the three saints named have significance within their particular religious content. Rachel, Mary and Fatima contrast significantly in legends, descriptions and religious philosophies, but are comparable in devotions and reasons revered.
#286 – “She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain. As mother of all, she is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of justice. She is the missionary who draws near to us and accompanies us throughout life, opening our hearts to faith by her maternal l love. As a true mother, she walks at our side, she shares our struggles and she constantly surrounds us with God’s love.” When I read this and I recall during the Papal transition we were experiencing a young girl in one of my 5th grade faith formation class, asked why can’t girls be leaders in the Church. My co-catechist’s face went pale, and I took a deep breath. What came afterwards was truly the Holy Spirit. I asked her a question: “What is the single most powerful human weapon God uses to defeat and guard us from evil?” She answered Jesus. I went on to tell her that God chose a young girl to be his most powerful weapon against evil and her name is Mary. Mary our Mother is the Queen. The most important thing she did was say “yes” to God. Girls are blessings that God uses in the church in many ways. Mary is the greatest example of a human leader in our faith, and yes she is a girl. Our Popes ask her for prayers and guidance, so you see we do have female leadership in our Church. The young girl smiled. I am grateful to our Mother for her love and her strength. She exemplifies the feminine genius God