last minute reading..

I never liked studying psychoanalysis and I doubt I ever will. Unfortunately, I've chosen to take film studies this semester and here's a sample of what I'm reading right now:

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) - Laura Mulvey

"The paradox of phallocentrism in aIl its manifestations is that it depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world. An idea of woman stands as lynch pin to the system: it is her lack that produces the phallus as a symbolic presence, it is her desire to make good the lack that the phallus signifies..."

"Woman's desire is subjected to her image as bearer of the bleeding wound, she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it..."

"Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning..."

Surely a penis isn't THAT significant and powerful???? No offence to film studies enthusiasts but I can't believe the shit I'm reading.

And as usual I have nothing intelligent to say about academic readings.