Giving Voice to the Child

Lacanian theories of identification have long dominated theories of film spectatorship. In Moral Spectatorship, Lisa Cartwright proposes a reconsideration of spectator theory, shifting from the logocentric Lacanian model to one that privileges affect and empathy as spectatorial modes, and aims, as she writes, to "recognize and even facilitate the otherness of the other" (2). Cartwright conceives of film spectatorship as an intersubjective experience, a point that she emphasizes throughout the book in both her engagement with theory and her case studies, which take a fascinating turn into the realm of disability studies through her engaging consideration of representations of the deaf in cinema and facilitated writing, a practice wherein caregivers collaborate with subjects to help them speak. In laying out her case for moral spectatorship, Cartwright also engages in a redemptive reading of a number of overlooked or marginalized psychoanalytic thinkers, most notably Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, André Green, and Heinz Kohut.

Moral Spectatorship engages in a bit of intellectual archaeology, examining dominant film theory's construction of the subject in order to understand why the discipline moved so strongly toward Lacanian psychoanalysis. She then makes the case for pursuing an alternative theorization of the subject of film spectatorship, premised upon empathy rather than identification. Her turn to empathy, however, does not preclude projection and even projective identification. Cartwright actively avoids Lacan's work as a model for thinking about identification. She instead proposes looking to Klein, Kohut, Winnicott, and Green, noting that these thinkers

introduced concepts that support film theory's interest in a subject model that veers from the various normative, ideal, and unitary forms offered in liberal humanist political and psychological theories. . . . [T]his body of work provides concepts and models that can help us to get past some of the impasses created by the Lacanian model's adherence to language.

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This move asserts that film theory should move beyond a language-based model and toward an affective model of spectatorship. This theoretical intervention, written with admirable clarity, promises an impact beyond Cartwright's fascinating and well-selected case studies. Most germane is her insistence that "identification with screen characters is a film theory concept that requires more careful material disaggregation and analysis" (55). For all the richness that Cartwright brings to the field, the pace of theoretical discussion can at times feel rushed for readers not already versed in the work of the theorists she draws upon. Fortunately, her case studies help alleviate some of this difficulty by providing object lessons in the application of these theories.

Much of the originality of the book lies in the turn to disability studies and Cartwright's engagement in her chapter "The (Deaf) Woman's Film and the Quiet Revolution in Film Sound: On Projection, Incorporation, and Voice." Cartwright examines films about deaf women in the postwar period, including close readings of Johnny Belinda (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1948), Mandy (dir. Alexander Mackendrick, 1952), Thursday's Children (dir. Lindsay Anderson and Guy Brenton, 1954), The Miracle Worker (dir. Arthur Penn, 1962), and Children of a Lesser God (dir. Randa Haines, 1985). Integrated into the film analysis is a broader examination of the role of sound in the cinema during the postwar period and how different forms of sound technology reproduce the voice. "A Child Is Being Beaten: Disorders of Authorship, Agency, and Affect in Facilitated Communication," the book's fascinating third chapter, concerns children who are given voice through facilitated communication programs for the computer. Cartwright examines issues surrounding facilitated communication in both the context of film and television representations of it and in an explanation of the history of the technology. With her turn toward facilitated communication, Cartwright expands the reach of the book well beyond film studies, or even film and media studies, to the fields of child psychology and disability studies.

Although Moral Spectatorship focuses primarily upon films addressing ethical questions raised by filmic explorations of disability, the book's...