"The Economy of Desire: The Commodity Form in/of the Cinema" Mary Ann Doane - 1989

Feminist theory situates women as the "object of exchange rather than its subject" making her the commodity. But women also buy and has been situated by capitalist economy as "the prototype modern consumer." (p.23) Have to rethink the absoluteness of dichotomy of object of commodity and consumer to include ways that " a woman is encouraged to actively participate in her own oppression. (p.24) She compares the "passive spectator" in cinema to the "passive consumer" seduced by the beauty of ads to mindlessly consume.

The 3 "instances of commodity form in its relation to the cinema and the question of the female spectator-consumer:
1.Narcissism - "The female spectator is invited to witness her own commodification and, furthermore, to buy an image of herself insofar as the female star is proposed as the ideal feminine beauty. (p.25)
2. Product placement - "This process serves to mediate the spectator's access to the ideal image on the screen. It disperses the fascination of the cinema onto a multiplicity of products whose function is to allow the spectator to approximate the image." (p.25)
3. Distribution - "the film itself and its status as commodity in a circuit of exchange." (p.25)

The movie theater was the ideal space to exhibit the ideal image of consumerism: "an homogeneous population pursuing the same goals - 'living well' and accumulating goods." (p.25)

"If the film frame is a kind of display window and spectatorship consequently a form of window-shopping, the intimate association of looking and buying does indeed suggest that the prototype of the spectator-consumer is female." (p.27) - making cinema addressed specifically to the female spectator and a star system dominated by women. Uses Benjamin to argue that film brings the things to be consumed closer to the viewer and also to each other, eliminating distance which is more like narcissism (opposite of voyeurism in which one person watches another from a distance). "Commodification presupposes that acutely self-conscious relation to the body which is attributed to femininity." (p.31) --> Less distance, narcissistic relationship. Fragment body (just as adds fragment TV shows?) so that each part can be improved.

"The cinematic image for the woman is both shop window and mirror, the one simply the means of access to the other. The mirror/window, then, takes on aspect of a trap whereby her subjectivity becomes synonymous with her objectification." (p.32)

Stella Dallas – A touchstone for popular texts as a feminist in the 90s. Stella is self-sacrificing for motherhood. Works nicely with Doane’s text, which is linked to Bartky in understanding narcissism. Doane’s piece is situated in cinema. How we come to see ourselves. Increasingly less and less distance between consumer and consumed. (Is this true or false when the consumed is virtual on the internet? How is virtual space articulated?)