{"id":100,"date":"2018-10-28T22:50:17","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T22:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/?p=100"},"modified":"2020-04-20T15:34:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T15:34:41","slug":"understanding-the-erotic-analyzing-power-and-eroticism-using-janies-janie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/2018\/10\/28\/understanding-the-erotic-analyzing-power-and-eroticism-using-janies-janie\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the Erotic: Analyzing Power and Eroticism Using Janie\u2019s Janie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following this week\u2019s screening, I left feeling rather perplexed as to how the readings and the films pieced together.\u00a0 After rereading Audre Lorde\u2019s Sister Outsider<\/em> and re-watching the selected films, however, I found some clarity, which was centered almost entirely around Lorde\u2019s margarine metaphor.\u00a0 Lorde\u2019s metaphor, which describes the way in which \u201ca tiny, intense pellet of yellow coloring\u201d is mixed with \u201cuncolored margarine\u201d to create the classic butter-like spread that many of us have used at one point or another, captures both the essence of eroticism that she is writing about in her short essay as well as the essence and character of the experimental films that we viewed in our screening this past Monday. \u00a0\u00a0Lorde\u2019s metaphor, in this manner, provided a critical intellectual framework that ultimately allowed me to transpose my understanding of power, the erotic, and its effects on women to the films that we screened.\u00a0 In all five films, the women appear to have harnessed Lorde\u2019s erotic, which ultimately gave each woman a new found inspiration and empowerment in their respective lives or endeavors.\u00a0 Additionally, these women were able to use this newfound sense of eroticism to surpass what Lorde describes as \u201cthe false notion that there is only a limited and particular amount of freedom that must be divided up between us.\u201d\u00a0 In this manner they used their empowered outlook as a catalyst for life improvement, which involved the conscious decision not to \u201csettle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.\u201d\u00a0 The connection that I perceived between power, the erotic, and the empowerment that these two phenomenon create is especially evident in the film Janie\u2019s Janie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In the 25-minute documentary style film Janie\u2019s Janie<\/em>, audiences are subjected to an unedited and raw depiction of the realities of single motherhood and the welfare state.\u00a0 Janie, a single mother of five who recently separated from her husband, Charlie, allows filmmakers to follow her trials and tribulations as she attempts to provide for both her children and herself.\u00a0 While the film is shot in a way that emphasizes the struggles of single motherhood, it also goes to great lengths to depict the inspiring effects that an empowered single mother had on a poor community in Newark, New Jersey.\u00a0 With the film\u2019s up-close shots of Janie sitting exhausted and coughing at the kitchen table after a long day of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children, audiences are able to see the physical toll that single motherhood takes on this woman\u2019s health and vitality.\u00a0 This presentation of Janie combined with the way in which the camera follows her around and interviews her as she goes about her daily duties as a single mother allows audiences a glimpse into the endless chaos that comes with this type of lifestyle.\u00a0 The seemingly endless struggle is complicated, however, by the one-on-one interviews that the film crew conducts with Janie.\u00a0 In these interviews, the struggling single mother demonstrates an empowered and inspired view on her new life.\u00a0 In one particularly poignant interview Janie claims \u201c\u2019Before I was my father\u2019s Janie, and then I was Charlie\u2019s Janie, and now I am Janie\u2019s Janie.\u00a0 I have to be my own person\u2019\u201d thus demonstrating to viewers a drive and determination that she has created for herself, which I have come to realize perfectly coincides with Lorde\u2019s essay on the Uses of the Erotic.<\/p>\n

In Janie\u2019s Janie<\/em>, both the one-on-one interviews as well as the progression that the film depicts of Janie\u2019s character demonstrate a seamless embodiment of Lorde\u2019s theory on the connection between the erotic and power.\u00a0 In her essay, Lorde claims that \u201cthe fear that we cannot grow beyond whatever distortions we may find within ourselves keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, externally defined, and leads us to accept many facets of our oppression as women,\u201d which is sentiment that Janie reiterates especially at the beginning of the film.\u00a0 For Lorde it seems that erotic revolves around an acceptance and understanding of your inner desires.\u00a0 In this manner, Lorde appears to be arguing that once a woman accepts and acknowledges her inner desires, whether they be sexual, emotional, or intellectual, she can begin to throw off the shackles of societal oppression, which was a sentiment that was clearly demonstrated in Janie\u2019s Janie. Viewers hear the physical, mental, and emotional abuse that Janie suffered at the hands of her father, and they also hear the ways in which Janie had come to accept them as true.\u00a0 She accepted the fact that she needed to get married and get pregnant in order to escape her father\u2019s abuse, and she accepted the fact that she would be confined to a loveless marriage and a solitary and isolated existence as a stay at home mother.\u00a0 She accepted, in essence, the \u201cexternally defined\u201d gender norms that left her without a voice, without opinions, and without companionship.\u00a0 Upon separation from her husband, however, something inside Janie changed that allowed her to think, act, and demand what she desired for herself and her children.\u00a0 The film underscores this internal transformation by transforming the manner in which Janie is presented to the audience.\u00a0 In the second half of the film, Janie is no longer confined to the isolated existence of single motherhood.\u00a0 She is filmed outside of the house with other women doing things other than cooking and cleaning her house.\u00a0 She is organizing groups of single women, she is fixing major appliances, and she is smiling and enjoying her life.\u00a0 She is no longer the exhausted and sick housewife who is confined to her house.\u00a0 She is free and liberated both spatially as well as intellectually and emotionally.\u00a0 In essence, she has found her purpose by unlocking the erotic power within.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following this week\u2019s screening, I left feeling rather perplexed as to how the readings and the films pieced together.\u00a0 After rereading Audre Lorde\u2019s Sister Outsider and re-watching the selected films, however, I found some clarity, which was centered almost entirely around Lorde\u2019s margarine metaphor.\u00a0 Lorde\u2019s metaphor, which describes the way in which \u201ca tiny, intense … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Understanding the Erotic: Analyzing Power and Eroticism Using Janie\u2019s Janie”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":712,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/712"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gendersexualityandmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}