Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return

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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by dronerstone »

just wanted to post this. thx sylvia!

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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

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So fucked up.
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by Cipher »

sylvia_north wrote:Naido is the obligatory Lynch 'woman in trouble' for Return and Lynchian women in trouble must be naked, and the nature of Lynchian nakedness by the same token means they are in trouble.
There's an interesting on-again-off-again relationship between nudity and "women in trouble" in Lynch's work. I have to imagine Blue Velvet played heavily in solidifying the connection for you as represented in that post, and there Dorothy Vallen's nudity is nearly the totality of the representation of her abuse in a shocking scene nearing the film's climax. But later in his filmic career, in Inland Empire, which provides the pithy "wom(a)en in trouble" phrase for us here, Nikki Grace is never seen nude. Indeed, the only moment of nudity is reserved for one of her chorus characters yearning for the comfort/protection of a man (which I think the film goes a long way to connect to its troubling overtones and the state of existing in a predatory world; it's not endorsing). That character is in trouble too, I suppose, but it strikes me as a fairly different use.

In Fire Walk With Me, we get toplessness as a confrontation of Laura's sexuality in a way the original series always had to hide. It strikes me as fair and thoughtful in that doesn't necessarily reduce nudity to simply a sign of a character being in trouble. When we might have gotten more nudity later, after the orgy in the cabin, we don't.

It's probably worth touching on "Premonition Following an Evil Deed" here too, which features one really prominent example of nudity+woman in trouble+the implication of an ultimate evil act. That's absolutely of a piece with the "nudity=woman in trouble" reading. I think it works, but it works better in isolation than it does picking up the feeling of working in reductive shorthand if that's a theme one takes from Lynch's other pieces.

Anyway, none of that was building toward a coherent statement here. It's something I'd love to sit with at some point. This was mostly just musing. That also doesn't touch the twin identity plays of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive either. I don't believe either fit comfortably into a "nudity=women in trouble" reading.

In The Return, though, I'm not sure what to think about its use of nudity, and that's been one of the things quietly troubling me about its choices in regard to gender. It seems ... almost thoughtless about it, at this point, or at least riding comfortably within the lines of genre expectations. Women are nude when it fits the composition of an image, but men, who's nudity might also be invoked to that end, or for one of sexual frankness, never are. This bothered me as early as the first four hours, where one really might have expected a few male bits alongside all that T&A. Men stay dressed for sex in Twin Peaks. Then there's Briggs, Ruth, and Naido, whose bodies all show up from Lodge travel in the buff, and I suppose there might be a consistency to that even though Cooper's method of transportation lets him retain his suit, but again -- it seems to be largely for the sake of aesthetics that wind up presenting the naked female form far more often than the male one. Lot of great shots, kind of an odd gender binary between whose nudity is acceptable for what purposes when viewed as a whole.
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by sylvia_north »

Cipher wrote:In The Return, though, I'm not sure what to think about its use of nudity, and that's been one of the things quietly troubling me about its choices in regard to gender. It seems ... almost thoughtless about it, at this point, or at least riding comfortably within the lines of genre expectations. Women are nude when it fits the composition of an image, but men, who's nudity might also be invoked to that end, or for one of sexual frankness, never are. This bothered me as early as the first four hours, where one really might have expected a few male bits alongside all that T&A. Men stay dressed for sex in Twin Peaks. Then there's Briggs, Ruth, and Naido, whose bodies all show up from Lodge travel in the buff, and I suppose there might be a consistency to that even though Cooper's method of transportation lets him retain his suit, but again -- it seems to be largely for the sake of aesthetics that wind up presenting the naked female form far more often than the male one. Lot of great shots, kind of an odd gender binary between whose nudity is acceptable for what purposes when viewed as a whole.
Premonition Following an Evil Deed for sure, forgot about that one. Wow it's good.

I guess my point wasn't onscreen nudity- relating to nakedness (prostitution, rape, pregnancy) is enough or having sex with a risky person still fits the theme. Pregnancy, which is of course what "in trouble" means- sexual function is directly linked to nakedness (this includes Lula, who is not exactly safe with Sailor.) Whenever a woman is naked, she's vulnerable in Lynch movies. I should add sex with a risky person AND fitting a standard body type (Miriam and Sylvia would be out.)

I remember a sex scene with Nikki, but you're right she stays clothed (onscreen, so does Darya in Return but we know she is screwing Mr C putting herself in the line of fire, as Teresa was screwing Leland.) I have a clumsy grasp on IE, Architecture of David Lynch and Decoding David Lynch helped me some but I'm pretty sure the chorus girls are projections of Nikki because of what they're talking about and are literally 'in trouble' for the liminal space they exist in (disappearing, not aware of Nikki.) Kerri is reduced to parts and her sexuality. Alice also is a prostitute/plaything for Mr Eddie that exists in a liminal space. Renee is naked- in trouble, she gets killed.

Sheila is being used and lied to by Pete. Two of the porno girls in LH are in a snuff movie with Marilyn Manson.

Laura is in a perpetual state of trouble- we know this because she's marked for death and even she knows she's going to die. Her nipples come out of her basque in the cabin a bit, more than once? Haven't watched it in a while.

I definitely think Rita being in trouble (shower scene, amnesia) in Diane's fantasy when it's Diane that's in trouble counts (crying masturbating over Camilla's betrayal after putting out a hit on her, and on the way to suicide.)

Yep in Return it seems strictly for visual composition, like it's meeting a quota or something. Definitely not all the women in trouble in Twin Peaks are going to be naked, but there had to be a token one. There must be x number of boobs and butts within a certain time frame.
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

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sylvia_north wrote:I'm pretty sure the chorus girls are projections of Nikki because of what they're talking about and are literally 'in trouble' for the liminal space they exist in (disappearing, not aware of Nikki.) Kerri is reduced to parts and her sexuality. Alice also is a prostitute/plaything for Mr Eddie that exists in a liminal space. Renee is naked- in trouble, she gets killed.
Re: The chorus girls as an extension of Nikki: I think that's a very fair reading. My takeaway from Empire was that all of its women, save Grace Zabriskie, are linked by circumstance. "A woman in trouble" is/may as well be all women, because of the predatory structures around them. Unlike The Return, though, I think it manages to make that case through an intimate and affecting perspective. It draws one character's experience out onto a broader canvas, rather than trying to shrink the more distanced patterns of a broader canvas into a reductive narrative. (The difference between experiencing the power of a singular perspective versus trying to make an objective and sweeping statement, basically, with the former feeling far more honest because it's tasking itself with much less.)

I'm embarrassed to say I completely forgot Rita shows up naked at the beginning of Mulholland Drive. That movie has never managed to stick with me the same way other Lynch works do.
Laura is in a perpetual state of trouble- we know this because she's marked for death and even she knows she's going to die. Her nipples come out of her basque in the cabin a bit, more than once? Haven't watched it in a while.
Laura is certainly in a perpetual state of trouble, but I don't think nudity is really used as the primary shorthand for it. Do we get nudity in the cabin? I watched it about six weeks ago, and don't remember that, but I can't say I was scanning for nipples or anything.

Anyway:
There must be x number of boobs and butts within a certain time frame.
Yeah, that's unfortunately how it tends to read. Or rather, there must be sexuality and aesthetic nudity, and in line with genre conventions (and even non-genre conventions), it must never come from the men. I wish it felt more purposeful. Or rather, completely un-purposeful to the point that both genders could appear nude for frankness or composition. The exclusively-female nudity (save Briggs' corpse for a brief moment) doesn't yet feel connected to any kind of conscious gendered commentary to me.
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by Novalis »

I was offline for most of this week so am only now catching up on these last few posts (from here onwards, including both sylvia_north and Cipher's insightful output).

Like others I was really bothered by Naido used as a kind of 'bare life' (nuda vita) figure. It isn't clear that she can see at all, she certainly has difficulty communicating and mobilising, but yet it's decided that she herself must be excessively available to the eyes of the clothed men who surround her, down to her T&A . That's a level of reduction you can bet we won't see any of the men have to face. How humiliating is it to have to be rescued by these 'noble' boys, despite it being Lucy that adds some humanity back with the offer of clothing?

I think all the talk of Mother and the Experiment-body being so universally assumed to be Mother (why is this so?) basically corroborates what has been said about Kristevan abjection, which I was fortunate enough to study in my Art History Masters last academic year.

Kristeva's critique of psychoanalysis states that in the biologically open system, beneath organised symbolic communication, an ambiguous relationship always persists with the maternal chora[1]. Consequently, what a cultural product is produced to communicate is only its 'phenotext', while at a subterranean level the 'genotext' operates: a network of motile drives and tensions with their own meanings[2]. Symbolic (i.e. paternal) meaning is undermined by this pre-symbolic bodily semiosis. As such any reading of art which proposes a straightforward, masterful or 'competent' communication of experience attempts domination by the paternal law, while it is rather in the gaps, slips and transactions where communication falters or hesitates where relationships with abjected objects (or 'abjects') are signalled.

The matrixial womb -- not to be biologically essentialist -- is I think a blind spot in Lynch, even in what may be his very attempt to address figures of genesis. The experiment gives birth, if it can be called this, through its head. While abjection proper maintains an ambiguous relationship with the body of the Mother at the level of the genotext, with all its non-symbolic biology, the level at which Lynch aims all his artistic endeavour is the symbolic organs par excellence, the head and mouth. The Experiment's body otherwise is a relatively standard or genre form woman's body. What I'm saying here is that we need to stop looking at the monstrosity of what he is showing us and notice that the elided content can often be understood simply as the labour of women. Again, note, I am at pains not to follow the line of reasoning Kristeva is herself criticised for (i.e. woman = bearing of children) but to see this elided labour and community of women as something far more, that just so happens in abjection theory to be accessible through the perplexing way that a woman's body's biological realities drop out of the picture when it becomes an image for consumption.

[1] Kristeva 1984:25 & 1987:14
[2] Kristeva 1984:86

Ref:
Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of horror: an essay on abjection, Columbia University Press, New York
Kristeva, J. (1984) Revolution in Poetic Language, Columbia University Press, New York
Kristeva, J. (1987) Tales of Love, Columbia University Press, New York
Kristeva, J. (1995) New Maladies of the Soul, Columbia University Press, New York
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

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https://25yearslatersite.com/2017/08/19 ... bar-alone/ "Sarah Palmer is every woman who has been to a bar alone"
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by sylvia_north »

Cipher wrote: The exclusively-female nudity (save Briggs' corpse for a brief moment) doesn't yet feel connected to any kind of conscious gendered commentary to me.
And Briggs' body isn't objectified because a corpse is literally an object already. Pulling what I wrote on the Disappointed thread,

Dead women are eroticized in art, and by a minority population of male perverts/killers. (Any female necrophile is statistically irrelevant the number is so small. ) Laura Palmer is held up by critics as the ultimate dead woman fetish object- a dead woman is utterly controllable, that is objectification taken to the extreme. There is no such connotation for male dead bodies. Briggs wasn't naked- the decaying tissue that used to be Briggs is. There is still sexual interest in a beautiful female corpse, and Naido could have been dead when we first see her obviously female rear. The word Naido is even a Buddhist term for "Inner Path" and if that's not a fitting synechdoche for a woman ...

Novalis wrote: I think all the talk of Mother and the Experiment-body being so universally assumed to be Mother (why is this so?) basically corroborates what has been said about Kristevan abjection
[...]
a woman's body's biological realities drop out of the picture when it becomes an image for consumption.
The same model, Erica Eynon, is credited for Mother and Experiment. As with Naido (Nae Yuuki) who is objectified for the purposes of the scene because of her sex, she retains secondary sex characteristics , so not all of her biological reality falls away. (Naido is androgynously-chested so not pornographic, but still childlike.) They are both monstrous because of their sex and the associated stereotypes (gender) and have alien, monstrous features. A few posters on the Disappointed thread couldn't differentiate between nude and naked (vulnerable,) or objectification that's sexed (only female naked bodies) from sexual objectification (intent to titillate,) which says a lot about male entitlement to female nakedness in film and the female body as a consumer object. 'but it's artistic and is in line with the purposes of characterization, and I wasn't turned on' is the basic defense.

Lynch is fond of mouths- bleeding from the mouth is a recurring theme. Laura's open bloody mouth at the end of FWWM, Lula's bloody mouth after her rape by Uncle Pooch directly preceding her abortion, Injured Girl on the Roadside as she dies releases a particularly menstrual stream out of the corner of her mouth.

If the gendered fear of the female body is the womb- being consumed (the bed of milk in Eraserhead,) being castrated, menstrual fear- the mouth could be a Lynchian paradigm for the vulva. Considering the mouth as a metonymy for sickness (eg 6 Men Getting Sick, Dougie and Mr C voming, and various mentions of sickness in his paintings, Bobby Peru's mouth, the gaping orifices in Dumbland, even Johnny Horne's therapy bear,) this is an uncomfortable symbolic relationship. The close-up of Dorothy's mouth when Jeffrey hits her then is both vulva and her mental illness (sexual trauma) ; the "disease" Frank put in her.

It makes sense to me that the ultimate monstrous-feminine would vomit her disease. Buddha was antinatalist and believed the pain and suffering of man would cease if all reproduction ceased. It comes up now and again that garmonbozia is sperm- corn kernels, literally creamy seed, which reminds me of the Mother's vomit. Hawk mentions black corn- "diseased, unnatural." It also makes sense that the Fireman employs a similar mode of partheongenesis- a glowing vulva shape that comes from his head, like Zeus, deposits 'eggs.' If the mouth stands in for the vulva, The Fireman himself is a stand-in for a phallus- tall, erect, bald.

Lynch also likes the look of females exhaling smoke, onscreen and again in Images in extreme closeup, which can look like an ethereal floating ("feminine" :wink: )sort of vomit. It's an interesting aesthetic choice that also serves as distancing from the vagina.


I mentioned Kristeva on page 20 I think in regards to Ruth's corpse. I only studied abjection briefly in a History of Gothic Literature class and I confess I'm out of my depth with a lot of Lacan, but I'm going to go through your post a few more times to challenge myself and appreciate it. The Mother/Experiment definitely needs attention. I'm with Noam Chomsky and Alan Sokal when it comes to most of postmodernism. (All women do have wombs, with rare medical exceptions.)
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by Novalis »

sylvia_north wrote: The same model, Erica Eynon, is credited for Mother and Experiment.
Ah ok. I guess that's why everyone has been conflating the two into one. I hadn't realised that Mother was credited, so was super wary of doing this.
sylvia_north wrote:As with Naido (Nae Yuuki) who is objectified for the purposes of the scene because of her sex, she retains secondary sex characteristics , so not all of her biological reality falls away. (Naido is androgynously-chested so not pornographic, but still childlike.) They are both monstrous because of their sex and the associated stereotypes (gender) and have alien, monstrous features. A few posters on the Disappointed thread couldn't differentiate between nude and naked (vulnerable,) or objectification that's sexed (only female naked bodies) from sexual objectification (intent to titillate,) which says a lot about male entitlement to female nakedness in film and the female body as a consumer object. 'but it's artistic and is in line with the purposes of characterization, and I wasn't turned on' is the basic defense.
Yeah I struggle to engage in that thread although some posters have made some interesting points when the topic hasn't been gender. I'm not in the profoundly disappointed camp as such ('this is pretentious crap', 'people who call this art are delusional') but I'm a long-time critic of the way Lynch treats women in his films. I think it's perfectly possible to be committed to Lynch's films as something worth watching while retaining a strong criticism of his gender politics.

My reference to 'bare life' (sometimes translated 'naked life' but the Italian has nuda vita) is from Giorgio Agamben's work on the form of subjectivity produced in extermination and concentration camp detainees (Homo Sacer). It's basically an amplification and extension of Foucault's work on biopower, but far more pessimistic. Being deprived of her symbolic efficiency, speech and sight, clothing, etc. Naido is more-naked-than-naked, being reduced to something like a living substrate or life without form-of-life: she is denied human culture, she is rendered monstrous. This is what got me thinking about abjection and the power of horror, and it was a bit of a relief when someone else was the first to bring this up, so I didn't feel like the only one 'talking into the void' about it.
syliva_north wrote:Lynch is fond of mouths- bleeding from the mouth is a recurring theme. Laura's open bloody mouth at the end of FWWM, Lula's bloody mouth after her rape by Uncle Pooch directly preceding her abortion, Injured Girl on the Roadside as she dies releases a particularly menstrual stream out of the corner of her mouth.

If the gendered fear of the female body is the womb- being consumed (the bed of milk in Eraserhead,) being castrated, menstrual fear- the mouth could be a Lynchian paradigm for the vulva. Considering the mouth as a metonymy for sickness (eg 6 Men Getting Sick, Dougie and Mr C voming, and various mentions of sickness in his paintings, Bobby Peru's mouth, the gaping orifices in Dumbland, even Johnny Horne's therapy bear,) this is an uncomfortable symbolic relationship. The close-up of Dorothy's mouth when Jeffrey hits her then is both vulva and her mental illness (sexual trauma) ; the "disease" Frank put in her.
This to me all signals an avoidance of the vagina as entrance into the world; as if reference to the labour of childbirth is symptomatically displaced to the organ of speech, and birth itself is especially problematic and traumatic for Lynch to relate to: he can't easily control the vagina, but as a powerful man with additional directorial privilege he can control the mouth of women, which becomes a target for violence. In contrast, the vagina for Lynch is reduced to something to fuck, or finger ('ooh, you're nice and wet'), or grope ('tight pants' in WaH, Alice's direction of Pete's hand in LH) or disdain ('free c***-try'), but not to regard as an effulgent, enjoying organ that can also bring being into being. There is probably some element of 'purity and danger' in Mary Douglas' terms (which Kristeva used) involved here: menstruation and childbirth tend to 'contaminate' the aseptic image of women Hollywood has. There is also the biographical aspect to this: Lynch's body-horror around procreation is well documented in relation to Eraserhead and'the baby stuff' he is so reticent about. There's a lot to consider around the theme of the trauma and labour of procreation and how Lynch's own experiences of forbidden disgust and rejection may have coloured his relation to it; still, the missing representations are largely the woman's side of the story.
syvia_north wrote:It makes sense to me that the ultimate monstrous-feminine would vomit her disease. Buddha was antinatalist and believed the pain and suffering of man would cease if all reproduction ceased. It comes up now and again that garmonbozia is sperm- corn kernels, literally creamy seed, which reminds me of the Mother's vomit. Hawk mentions black corn- "diseased, unnatural." It also makes sense that the Fireman employs a similar mode of partheongenesis- a glowing vulva shape that comes from his head, like Zeus, deposits 'eggs.' If the mouth stands in for the vulva, The Fireman himself is a stand-in for a phallus- tall, erect, bald.

Lynch also likes the look of females exhaling smoke, onscreen and again in Images in extreme closeup, which can look like an ethereal floating ("feminine" :wink: )sort of vomit. It's an interesting aesthetic choice that also serves as distancing from the vagina.
Agreed, and there is an element of aesthetic conventionality to be acknowledged here. Mouth as aesthetic stand-in or fantasy screen is common enough for us not to descend into talking about an oral fixation, unless we do so as a reflection on contemporary society overall. But that's a different conversation I think.
sylvia_north wrote:I mentioned Kristeva on page 20 I think in regards to Ruth's corpse. I only studied abjection briefly in a History of Gothic Literature class and I confess I'm out of my depth with a lot of Lacan, but I'm going to go through your post a few more times to challenge myself and appreciate it. The Mother/Experiment definitely needs attention. I'm with Noam Chomsky and Alan Sokal when it comes to most of postmodernism (All women do have wombs, with rare medical exceptions.)
Since we're showing our hands, I'll admit to dabbling in Lacan -- or rather the secondary literature on the political uptake of Lacan (Yannis Stavrakakis, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupancic, and early [Laclau-and-Mouffe-era] Zizek). While I don't go as far as Sokal and Chomsky who I think overstate their case, I'm no fan of postmodern theories of art. I'm far more aligned with the non-postmodernist strain of theory in Agamben and Badiou and also good old fashioned theories of the social production of art (e.g. Janet Wolff) and the wide gamut of contextualist approaches. Derrida and Deleuze are largely unexplored territories for me; while I can sort of appreciate their key ideas, I don't think they add all that much to the way I work. Marina Warner is a feminist writer I appreciate; it was her Sight and Sound review of Lost Highway that initially attracted me to the field.

It's always great to meet other people who take visual analysis seriously, despite the persistent climate of 'not overthinking the opportunity' and the retinue of folks who think we're in the business of seeing things that aren't there (which is surely missing the point of analysis -- sorry, again this is another convo). I've been enjoying your musings on the Return, and agree that the spiritual, Western Mystery Tradition, occult and transcultural depth of the cinematic language of Lynch is quite under-represented in the literature. That way in to Lynch's world has always fascinated me, but I've always been super wary about writing on it because of its easy co-option by paranoid real-life Hastings figures, who always turn out to be reactionary-libertarian Dr. Amps living in fear of a Jewish-Masonic NWO. I avoid the alt-right like the plague. I'm essentially a feminist-marxist art historian heavily influenced by structuralism, iconology and a smidgeon of anthropology and psychoanalysis.

I want to talk about black corn, black fire, the dirty faces of the woodsman at great length. I have a feeling that there is still too much to discuss about gender though. I feel like we're only skimming the surface so far, and am really happy when I see someone has posted in this thread.
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

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Novalis wrote:
sylvia_north wrote: The same model, Erica Eynon, is credited for Mother and Experiment.
Ah ok. I guess that's why everyone has been conflating the two into one. I hadn't realised that Mother was credited, so was super wary of doing this.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. Erica Eynon has been credited as "Experiment Model" (Part 1) and "Experiment" (Parts 8 and 14), there was no confirmation (yet) that she is "Mother".
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by sylvia_north »

Dreamy Audrey wrote:
Novalis wrote:
sylvia_north wrote: The same model, Erica Eynon, is credited for Mother and Experiment.
Ah ok. I guess that's why everyone has been conflating the two into one. I hadn't realised that Mother was credited, so was super wary of doing this.
Sorry, but that's incorrect. Erica Eynon has been credited as "Experiment Model" (Part 1) and "Experiment" (Parts 8 and 14), there was no confirmation (yet) that she is "Mother".
My bad I was going off this http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/Experiment http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/Part_8 She's listed in the credits in part 8 as Experiment- and no other experiment-looking thing in that part, no credit for the mother in that part, thus the conclusion. But I guess not?

Parson's Babalon Working was an experiment involving a 'goddess' or force that would birth the moonchild, possibly the homonculous fetus allegedly irradiated at Trinity by Bohemian Grove scientists to usher in the New World Order. Or something. So far the only big part of the series that ties into TSHOTP, so it's another assumption (I guess) that leads to the conclusion they're the same, or same kinda thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5YJByOmtz0 < Jack Parsons, Atom Bomb and Homonculous
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by sylvia_north »

Part 15 was a good one for women.

Nadine and Norma shoveled their way out of the shit.

Chantal fucked some shit up.

Gerstein did her best to stop a suicide.

Audrey got her domestic violence on- it does kind of suck Richard is hers.

And Margaret bless her soul made us all cry like Lucy.

They weren't talking with one another, but this is better than a cluster of punching bags and doormats

Sarah's face was projected on Jumping Man?
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by referendum »

didn't know this:
''The Lynch foundation set up a women's health initiative to help victims of violence get over their trauma.''
''let's not overthink this opportunity''
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by sylvia_north »

I just talked a bit of shit about TM and felt bad and deleted it. Good intentions are good intentions :)

https://diane.libsyn.com/twin-peaks-the-return-part-12 has an excellent discussion of women 13:00 - 18:00 about, French Girl as the jump off, 25:00 for Sarah
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Re: Gender in Twin Peaks: The Return (SPOILERS)

Post by oldforce »

I think as we close in to the end the central project of the piece's relationship to gender and sexuality will come into focus, and will put a new lens on the more problematic seeming things we already witnessed. I think, as usual, this is the authorial intent, we have the fun of parsing whether it works! Judging by Part 15 I think it will work.

Great job in this thread btw, everyone.
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