Despina Mantziari | University of Sussex (original) (raw)

Papers by Despina Mantziari

Feminist Media Studies, 2017

Article (Accepted Version) Mantziari, Despoina (2018) Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape c... more Article (Accepted Version) Mantziari, Despoina (2018) Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape culture: I Spit On Your Grave (2010) and the practice of "media rape". Feminist Media Studies, 18 (3). pp. 397-410.

"The Non-Issue Issue in Danish Cinema: Women Directors and Transnational Feminist Historiography" presented at the Doing Women's Film and Television History Conference IV, Southampton, May 2018

Discussions of contemporary Danish cinema generally accord little to no importance to the directo... more Discussions of contemporary Danish cinema generally accord little to no importance to the director’s gender. Indeed, Meryl Shriver-Rice even claims that “[t]he proportion of women directors in Denmark is a unique phenomenon through its political presence as a relative non-issue”. For example, Susanne Bier, one of the most high-profile contemporary Danish filmmakers, argues that the country’s long tradition of women directors ensured that she “never had to fight for the right to be a woman and a film-maker”. Quantitative data seems to confirm that Danish cinema does indeed provide an exceptional instance of gender inclusivity. But is this sufficient to declare gender as politically irrelevant in Danish filmmaking? This paper explores the rich history of women directors’ work in Denmark, but also stresses their international (in)visibility. Despite the idyllic sense of equality within the country, Denmark’s status as a small nation inevitably constrains its cinematic profile and the ways in which such inclusivity tends to be historicised within and beyond its national borders. I argue that the international marginalisation of major filmmakers such as Alice O’Fredericks (1899-1968) serves to perpetuate gender inequality in film historiography, as does the way contemporary transnational directors like Bier relate to this tradition. By tracing Bier’s lineage on two competing levels of film history, i.e. the national and the global, this paper provides a more nuanced account of gender as a persistent issue for women directors working in different national and industrial contexts.

Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape culture: I Spit On Your Grave (2010) and the practice of “media rape”

This article revisits earlier theorisations of cinematic voyeurism and gender-based violence in c... more This article revisits earlier theorisations of cinematic voyeurism and
gender-based violence in considering the cross-media connections
between cinema and non-consensual pornography online. In
particular, it looks at how the remake of a significant rape-revenge
film, I Spit On Your Grave (1978/2010), explores the role of technology
in the perpetuation of female victimisation. By making a visible
connection between the female character’s physical rape and the
violation of her subjectivity performed through filming her without
her consent, the film raises a larger social/media issue, which I call
media rape. In offering a theorisation of this phenomenon, the
article analyses the operation of the website creepshots.com, which
distributes non-consensual photos of women. The comparison
between these two texts promotes an understanding of the visual
and discursive continuities between cinema and online spaces in
relation to media rape and rape culture more generally. At a time
when the distinction between the creators of and audiences for media
content is less straightforward within the context of online media,
sadistic scopophilia needs to be reconsidered in relation to medium
specificity. Although it is already problematic in the cinematic context,
when it extends to online media sadistic scopophilia becomes a
human rights violation.

"The Anti-feminist Crusade: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) and Post Millennium Rape Culture"

Feminist Media Studies, 2017

Article (Accepted Version) Mantziari, Despoina (2018) Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape c... more Article (Accepted Version) Mantziari, Despoina (2018) Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape culture: I Spit On Your Grave (2010) and the practice of "media rape". Feminist Media Studies, 18 (3). pp. 397-410.

"The Non-Issue Issue in Danish Cinema: Women Directors and Transnational Feminist Historiography" presented at the Doing Women's Film and Television History Conference IV, Southampton, May 2018

Discussions of contemporary Danish cinema generally accord little to no importance to the directo... more Discussions of contemporary Danish cinema generally accord little to no importance to the director’s gender. Indeed, Meryl Shriver-Rice even claims that “[t]he proportion of women directors in Denmark is a unique phenomenon through its political presence as a relative non-issue”. For example, Susanne Bier, one of the most high-profile contemporary Danish filmmakers, argues that the country’s long tradition of women directors ensured that she “never had to fight for the right to be a woman and a film-maker”. Quantitative data seems to confirm that Danish cinema does indeed provide an exceptional instance of gender inclusivity. But is this sufficient to declare gender as politically irrelevant in Danish filmmaking? This paper explores the rich history of women directors’ work in Denmark, but also stresses their international (in)visibility. Despite the idyllic sense of equality within the country, Denmark’s status as a small nation inevitably constrains its cinematic profile and the ways in which such inclusivity tends to be historicised within and beyond its national borders. I argue that the international marginalisation of major filmmakers such as Alice O’Fredericks (1899-1968) serves to perpetuate gender inequality in film historiography, as does the way contemporary transnational directors like Bier relate to this tradition. By tracing Bier’s lineage on two competing levels of film history, i.e. the national and the global, this paper provides a more nuanced account of gender as a persistent issue for women directors working in different national and industrial contexts.

Sadistic scopophilia in contemporary rape culture: I Spit On Your Grave (2010) and the practice of “media rape”

This article revisits earlier theorisations of cinematic voyeurism and gender-based violence in c... more This article revisits earlier theorisations of cinematic voyeurism and
gender-based violence in considering the cross-media connections
between cinema and non-consensual pornography online. In
particular, it looks at how the remake of a significant rape-revenge
film, I Spit On Your Grave (1978/2010), explores the role of technology
in the perpetuation of female victimisation. By making a visible
connection between the female character’s physical rape and the
violation of her subjectivity performed through filming her without
her consent, the film raises a larger social/media issue, which I call
media rape. In offering a theorisation of this phenomenon, the
article analyses the operation of the website creepshots.com, which
distributes non-consensual photos of women. The comparison
between these two texts promotes an understanding of the visual
and discursive continuities between cinema and online spaces in
relation to media rape and rape culture more generally. At a time
when the distinction between the creators of and audiences for media
content is less straightforward within the context of online media,
sadistic scopophilia needs to be reconsidered in relation to medium
specificity. Although it is already problematic in the cinematic context,
when it extends to online media sadistic scopophilia becomes a
human rights violation.

"The Anti-feminist Crusade: I Spit on Your Grave (2010) and Post Millennium Rape Culture"