Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

10. Scopophilia and the Manufacture of “Good” Religion

Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

Leslie Dorrough Smith [+-]
Avila University
Leslie Dorrough Smith is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Avila University, USA, where she is also the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program. She is the author of Compromising Positions: Political Sex Scandals and American Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2020), Constructing “Data” in Religious Studies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy (Equinox Publishing, 2019), and Righteous Rhetoric: Sex, Speech and the Politics of Concerned Women for America (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Description

This essay analyses Believer by drawing on the work of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey. In the 1970s, Mulvey used the term “scopophilia” to describe how filmmakers construct visually pleasing experiences for heterosexual men by framing images of women in certain ways that result in their sexual objectification. After an introduction to Mulvey’s core arguments, this perspective is applied to Aslan’s production. The essay argues that part of the scopophilia involved in watching shows like Believer (and people like Aslan, more specifically) comes not from being exposed to something new, but in the feelings of control and domestication that the audience can vicariously assert as they imagine Aslan as the show’s protagonist.

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Citation

Smith, Leslie. 10. Scopophilia and the Manufacture of “Good” Religion. Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 98-107 Aug 2020. ISBN 9781781797273. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=35424. Date accessed: 25 Apr 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.35424. Aug 2020

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