Project MUSE®: Camera Obscura - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Camera Obscura.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 15 (2000) - vol. 19 (2004)Latest Articles: Camera ObscuraTWOProject MUSE®Camera Obscura1529-15100270-5346Latest articles in Camera Obscura. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Of Housewives and Saints: Abjection, Transgression, and Impossible Mourning in Poison and Safe
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176558
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James Lyons as Jack Bolton in Poison (US, 1991). Courtesy Killer Films
In the opening sequence of Velvet Goldmine (dir. Todd Haynes, UK/US, 1998), future glam-rock trendsetter Jack Fairy stands in front of a mirror and, having been brutalized earlier by a pack of schoolyard bullies, smears the blood from his split lip into a glistening, cherry-red smile, satisfied in the knowledge that "one day the whole bloody world would be his." This is a signature Haynes moment: Fairy converts the corporeal sign of his abjection into the brazen emblem of his star power. The very stigmata that brand him as a pariah literally provide the raw materials for his transformation into a flaming proto-pop icon.
Though
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallOf Housewives and Saints: Abjection, Transgression, and Impossible Mourning in Poison and Safe2005-01-05text/htmlen-USOf Housewives and Saints: Abjection, Transgression, and Impossible Mourning in Poison and Safe2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®911972026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05The Incredible Shrinking Star: Todd Haynes and the Case History of Karen Carpenter
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176559
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Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (US, 1987)
Critics have consistently characterized the films of Todd Haynes within the terms of what B. Ruby Rich described in 1992 as the "new queer cinema"—films whose style displayed traces of "appropriation and pastiche, irony" and a social constructionist understanding of history. Not surprisingly, most of these critics, as well as Haynes himself, have sought analytical explanations for his directorial choices in relation to the generic (the woman's film, the star biopic), authorial (Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder), and theoretical (theories of narrative, identification, repression) antecedents cited in his body of work.1 In other words, Haynes's
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallThe Incredible Shrinking Star: Todd Haynes and the Case History of Karen Carpenter2005-01-05text/htmlen-USThe Incredible Shrinking Star: Todd Haynes and the Case History of Karen Carpenter2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®1129062026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05Pathos and Pathology: The Cinema of Todd Haynes
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176560
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For general reference of the films discussed here, see Todd Haynes, Far From Heaven, Safe, and Superstar: Three Screenplays (New York: Grove Press, 2003). Additionally, it is worth noting that Zeitgeist has recently released Dottie Gets Spanked on DVD, see Zeitgeistfilms.com for more information.
Sigmund Freud, "'A Child Is Being Beaten': A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions," in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey (London: Hogarth, 1955), 17:5-204.
Freud
Sigmund
'A Child Is Being Beaten': A Contribution to the Study of the Origin of Sexual Perversions in The
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallPathos and Pathology: The Cinema of Todd Haynes2005-01-05text/htmlen-USPathos and Pathology: The Cinema of Todd Haynes2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®183752026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05Grainy Days and Mondays: Superstar and Bootleg Aesthetics
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176561
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Throughout this essay, historical persons will be referenced by their full names, while the doll characters in the film will be identified by first name—except in the final moment, when the two become conflated.
See, for example, Coco Fusco, "Regimes of Normalcy," Afterimage 16 (1988): 18.
See, for example, FuscoCocoRegimes of NormalcyAfterimage16198818
Haynes refers to Sally Potter's Thriller (UK, 1979) as a particular influence. Todd Haynes, telephone interview with the author, 12 August 2003.
Haynes refers to PotterSally'sThrillerUK1979 as a particular influence. Todd Haynes, telephone interview with the author, 12 August 2003.
The film can only be read as camp in the sense defined by
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallGrainy Days and Mondays: Superstar and Bootleg Aesthetics2005-01-05text/htmlen-USGrainy Days and Mondays: Superstar and Bootleg Aesthetics2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®462752026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05Written on the Screen: Mediation and Immersion in Far from Heaven
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176563
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On the line: possibilities and limitations of mediated communication in Far from Heaven. Courtesy Killer Films
Recently, while engaging in one of my favorite forms of procrastination—using my computer to search for mid-century modern bargains on eBay rather than using it to engage in more rigorous, or at least more legitimated, intellectual pursuits—I, quite by accident, came across an interesting listing: one "'FAR FROM HEAVEN' red '50's [sic] Eames era purse," described as looking like it could have been taken right off the set of the film. This was a lucky find, not because of the object itself (however lovely), but because of the ways in which the listing encouraged me to reconsider assumptions
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallWritten on the Screen: Mediation and Immersion in Far from Heaven2005-01-05text/htmlen-USWritten on the Screen: Mediation and Immersion in Far from Heaven2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®1201602026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05Traumatic Postmodern Histories: Velvet Goldmine's Phantasmatic Testimonies
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176564
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Courtesy Miramax
If modernity was characterized by and imagined itself in terms of a particular awareness of time and history—the unfolding of social, political, and technological projects of progress and revolution, a heightened sense of novelty, increased speed, shortened distance—postmodernity seems to understand itself in terms of the deprivation of history and perhaps even the loss of time itself. Anything characterized as progress must beget a mournful attitude toward history, since the past becomes fraught—by definition—with error. The inhabitants of the past might be forgiven based on their lack of knowledge of the future, but Western history as a
history of follies and repressions
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallTraumatic Postmodern Histories: Velvet Goldmine's Phantasmatic Testimonies2005-01-05text/htmlen-USTraumatic Postmodern Histories: Velvet Goldmine's Phantasmatic Testimonies2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®935472026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05Dangerous Spaces: Safe
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/176565
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Producer Christine Vachon has referred to Safe's mixed critical reception on its release in 1995; see Christine Vachon and David Edelstein, Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter (New York: Avon Books, 1998), 316-17. Many critics have observed how Safe is open to a wide range of audience interpretations: for example, Gaye Naismith, "Tales from the Crypt: Contamination and Quarantine in Todd Haynes's Safe," in The Visible Woman: Imaging Technologies, Gender, and Science, ed. Paula A. Treichler, Lisa Cartwright, and Constance Penley (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 368; and the critics cited by Glyn Davis, "Health and Safety in the Home:
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/35/image/coversmallDangerous Spaces: Safe2005-01-05text/htmlen-USDangerous Spaces: Safe2005-01-052005TWOProject MUSE®412242026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002005-01-05