Techno-Scopophilia: The Semiotics of Technological Pleasure in Film

Autor:	Charles Soukup
Rok vydání:	2009
Předmět:	Communication media_common.quotation_subject Scopophilia Advertising Representation (arts) Sign system Pleasure Aesthetics Semiotics Ideology Sociology Fantasy Inscribed figure media_common
Zdroj:	Critical Studies in Media Communication. 26:19-35
ISSN:	1479-5809 1529-5036
DOI:	10.1080/15295030802684026
Popis:	In this essay, I argue that several trends (stemming from the discursive systems of film and advertising), have converged to foster a strange and troubling semiotic convention in contemporary cinema—what I call techno-scopophilia. The visual sign system of techno-scopophilia emerges from the mythologies of gender and science/technology, particularly as commodities in advertising. These trends have produced a new voyeuristic gaze in many feature films, but in addition to the sexualized body, technology is also an object of fantasy and pleasure. In a series of successful films over the last decade (Tomb Raider, Terminator 3, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Italian Job, Entrapment, etc.), the body is inscribed with technology; technology is inscribed with sexuality. The mythic/ideological implications of these semiotic codes involve the representation of sexualized, machine-like women and the fetishizing of commodities in film. By semiotically merging technological commodities with human characteristics, these films...
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
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