“The male gaze,” a term coined by British film theorist Laura Mulvey in “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” is something of a staple in feminist film criticism. It implies that the lens of the camera, at least in the majority of films made in the early to middle of the twentieth century, is almost exclusively wielded by men. Thus, the “eye” of the camera becomes the “male gaze,” everything we are subsequently shown is from a male point of view. Therefore, as women are more and more involved behind the camera in the film production process, the topic of the “female gaze” is an inevitable one. How do we re-articulate film theory from the point of view of women? And is the “female gaze” even possible? Anna Biller in her 2016 film The Love Witch sought to bring these questions to the forefront, as well as conceptions of the “woman as auteur,” as she had a hand in every single aspect of production, from costumes (which she sewed herself) to cinematography.
Check out the trailer for The Love Witch:
The Love Witch is a beautiful film, a very carefully-crafted universe in which we are transported to somewhere that’s a cross between a Hammer horror film and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. We follow the point of view of Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a young, down-on-her-luck witch facing heartbreak and rejection, who seeks to reinvent herself by moving into a new apartment and conducting new and hopefully fulfilling love affairs. But, as you might expect, they never do. In fact, her paramours have a nasty habit of dying, often through the aid of psychedelic drugs, before Elaine is able to achieve her fantasies of true love.
Elaine (Samantha Robinson) in her studio
In the age of the Bechdel test and other metrics of determining feminism onscreen, where to place The Love Witch? On the one hand, it’s a deeply feminine world that Biller has created from a woman’s point of view. On the other, it’s still a tragic story of a woman who is brought to ruin through the pursuit of a man, which doesn’t sound very feminist at all. How are we, the savvy viewers of contemporary media, meant to interpret all of this? Is it campy satire of the Russ Meyer films of the 1960s, where women were nothing more than glorified props? Or is it a complicated picture addressing the limitations of the female gaze in the twenty-first century? As you might expect, a complex film invites complex questions.
One theorist in particular who might be of some use to articulating some of the problems at the crux of The Love Witch is French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir, an avid fan of film herself but who never wrote extensively about it, wrote The Second Sex in 1954, a comprehensive treatise of the second-class status of women in the twentieth century. In The Second Sex we encounter an number of archetypes, such as “the woman in love,” which Beauvoir describes as if they are characters in a play.
In Beauvoir’s analysis, the woman in love bases her entire identity on that of her partner and abandons her own subjectivity in the process. As Beauvoir explains, this is not entirely her fault: having no basis to form her own identity separate from her relationships, woman seeks subjectivity through the eyes of another, in this case, her romantic partner. Put differently, because there is no definition of female subjectivity that is not relation to man, there is a tendency in women to over-identify with the object of their affections based on unfulfilled personal needs. Thus, men become “demi-gods” which women devote themselves to, only to become bitter and disappointed when they turn out to be ordinary men.
Elaine on Wayne’s untimely demise
This is essentially what happens to Elaine. Having faced disappointment before, Elaine throws herself into relationships, hoping that the new objects of her affections will be different from those before. At first, she encounters the college professor, Wayne, who dies almost immediately because of a weak heart. Beauvoir notes that “virility” is the primary quality the Woman in Love seeks in her mate, which comically plays out to its logical conclusion when Elaine laments how easily Wayne succumbed. Thus, she is now attracted to the police officer investigating the death of the professor because of his hypermasculine appearance. Maybe he will survive falling under her spell.
But the main difference between the woman in love Beauvoir has constructed and Elaine is that the latter does appear to have self-awareness and subjectivity of her own. We are privy to this through her tongue-in-cheek interior monologues, explaining how she came to be a witch and how she believes that people are scared of witches because they are unnerved by feminine power. However, this appears to be in direct contradiction to the almost hyperfeminine scolding Elaine gives in the tea room, in which she praises romantic love as the greatest pursuit of all. Therefore, the viewer is at a loss as to which is the “authentic Elaine.”
Elaine in the tea room
We tend to think of “agency” in the existentialist sense as something that affirms the individual. The idea of living vicariously through others, whether in relationships or not, is acting in something Beauvoir’s contemporary Jean-Paul Sartre called “bad faith.” But it also seems like Elaine’s primary pursuit of relationships isn’t for the sake of identity; instead, it is the promise of the fantasy itself. Real love would require vulnerability and risking disappointment, in short relinquishing control. The entire reason Elaine became a witch was to take power and regain control over her life; however, the fact that her power is dependent on love shows that this path is full of frustrating and apparent contradictions.
As Beauvoir notes “The woman in love who encloses her lover in the couple’s immanence dooms him to death with herself…. There cannot be a real relationship between an individual and [her] double because this double does not exist.” What she means is that Elaine’s lovers, even if they are real, only “exists” as a projected fantasy, and thus cannot participate in an authentic relationship. Like the narcissist, who enters into a relationship and fascination with herself, the woman in love projects her own feelings onto her partner.
I believe Biller demonstrates, in The Love Witch, this subtle point concerning the nature of power, difference, and agency. In dominating and subjugating her lovers, Elaine doesn’t actually gain anything. In fact, the climactic scene in which she is attacked by an angry mob further demonstrates that there needs to be collective as well as individual recognition of agency. Secondly, Elaine’s carefully constructed identity, along with her rich fantasy life, automatically distances her from any sort of authentic connection with her romantic partners. Instead of the bad faith of simply enacting prescribed gender roles, Elaine acts in bad faith by pretending that she is somehow breaking the mold through witchcraft. A real authenticity would enrich her life instead of destroying it.
Griff on Elaine’s approach to love
The Love Witch becomes an important film concerning the female gaze because of the complex understanding of agency. On the one hand, we could interpret Elaine’s actions as empowering because she is going after what she wants and appears to be self-aware enough to not fall into the trap of the Woman in Love. However, it is precisely the controlled, projected fantasy that keeps her from entering any authentic relationships. Therefore, it perhaps leads us to problematize our notions of so-called “empowered” female characters who use manipulation as a means of asserting that power.
The Love Witch is available to stream and on DVD:
Related: read about teenage witches.
Kellye McBride is a freelance writer and lecturer who has very complex ideas about the things that go bump in the night. When she’s not seeking out the dark forces and joining their hellish crusade, you can find her on Twitter at @kellyemmcbride or on her website, kellyemcbrideediting.com.
