The oedipal trajectory

The oedipal trajectory - Males - Summary

• A male child, who at first is bonded with his mother, imagines himself a united whole with her.
• However, when held up to a mirror, he perceives his difference from her.
• He becomes aware of the illusion of unity and still desires it. The desire now because sexual.
• He comes to hate his father, as his father has ‘lawful’ access to the mother.
• The child perceives this difference as one of castration: he sees the mother as castrated.
• To identify with her would this mean he would be without his penis - in identifying with her he becomes like her; in uniting with her, he runs the risk of castration from his father (he assumes the father has this power)
• He attempts to identify with the father; he sets about trying to find a female. The male child can now move towards social stability and continue the cycle.

Application in Film Narrative

In cinematic narrative, the male protagonist moves, through the resolution of a crisis, towards social mobility. The male is a stationary site (=passive object) to which the male travels and upon which he acts. He is therefore the active subject.

In a film that embraces the Oedipal trajectory, the threat of castration is dispelled and the masculine role of the patriarch is assumed.

The threat is contained by voyeurism and fetishes: voyeurism, with the female as the passive of the object of the female gaze; fetishisation, via a fragmentation of the female body and and an over-investment in parts of the female body (legs, breast etc.). In the way, this woman becomes commodified as a whole, unified body. The body is denied it’s difference and rendered phallic (through, for example, slinky black deressed, high heels and long fingernails).

If the male subject fails to achieve social stability, a crisis of masculinity is revealed (see film noir and female fatale).

Females

As with the male child, the mother is the first love object of the female child.

However, since there is no perceived difference between mother and daughter (i.e. a lack of penis), the daughter rejects her mother due to penis envy.

The mother cannot provide her with a penis so she turns to her father to provide her with it in the form of a child.

To fulfil her Oedipal trajectory and enter into the social order of things, the female child must turn from the mother, even though she may still desire her - she must conform to male subjectivity. Failure to do so will result in punishment - either through marginalisation of death.

Independent women, in a mainstream cinema, eventually ‘come to their senses’: they marry the guy if its a comedy; they are ‘ rough to their senses’ if its a film noir or thriller.

Fishtank Comparison
- Never had a father figure before, so as soon as conner arrives, Mia instantly gains attachment.
- Mia Still desires her mother so she has sex with conner to attempt to gain likeness from her mother - conformation to society / penis envy.
- Dancing scene in the end, intertwined with her going off with the male shows she has come to her senses, and even though she still desires her mother, follows the oedipal trajectory to turn away from her.
- Throughout Fishtank, Mia is on a conquest to gain validation and approval from her mother, and ends with conformation to normality as she goes with bill, her 'Night in Shining armour '.
- She also decides to leave due to her fear of failure to confrom, which in appliance resulted in
conners punishment at the end.