Proposals for Change

What struck me most while I was reading the articles by Mulvey and Kustritz was the differences in the approaches suggested for the groups stereotyped in television and cinema. When speaking about the way films show women, Mulvey says, "It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the intention of this article" (200). This is a very drastic way of speaking of a medium that most people enjoy, and would have no desire to destroy. She proposes that the only way to eradicate the subjugation of women in film through both the scopophilia instinct and the ego libido is to make the viewing of such films unpleasant through extensive analysis. For my part, I know that I won't be able to watch another movie without contemplating if the close up of a movie starlet is just another instance of the male dominated film industry propagating male dominance by keeping the female in the passive, viewed role.
Kustritz, on the other hand, cites several other author's ideas for how do deal with continued eugenic and racist themes in television and film. She begins by criticizing how society has conveniently forgotton the eugenics movement, allowing its base ideas to resurface. One suggested recourse Kustritz mentions is that of Lee Edelman, who proposes that queers (all those left out of traditional means of reproduction) should, "embody for all of society, the inescapable truth that cultural death is inevitable" (12). This is similar to Mulvey's advice for women in that it shows a rather pessimistic paradigm. However, whereas Mulvey hopes to destroy the offensive, Edelman advocates embracing and owning the limits created by society, much as number six fully owns her sexuality in Battlestar Galactica. She doesn't fight against it, but instead plays the role she was designed for while simultaneously adapting the role to fit her personality.
The second option mentioned by Kustritz is that put forth by Lauren Berlant, who proposes, "a renewed commitment to public political action and a refusal of privatization and consumption" (17) to combat the idea that race issues will evaporate as races become indistinguishable through genetic assimilation. Indeed, hers is the only opinion that can be described as proactive. Charmax takes this proactive stance even further by not only calling for action, but also, "tethers the future to our capacity to change by placing faith in the humanity of the Other" (23).
The question that I am still pondering is: which of these categories of views will win out? How will women, queers, African Americans, or any other segment of the other continue to respond to a media that has been dominated by their historical oppressors? Hopefully, we will be able to move forward with meaningful changes without having to resort to rampant destruction. After all, if we destroy the past, however harmful it may be, how can we learn from it?