"The Discourse of Others"

Craig Owens in “The Discourse of Others: Feminists and Postmodernism,” discusses postmodernism as a period, per say, that attempts to upset the reassuring stability of the past. He states that “Not only does the postmodernist [art] work claim no such authority, it also actively seeks to undermine all such claims; hence, it’s generally deconstructive thrust.” Owens discusses how the mechanisms of postmodernism work to expose “system(s) of power that authorize certain representations while blocking, prohibiting or invalidating others,” and we can see immediately, the accentuation of ‘equality’ displayed in the description of the nude couple on the side of a space craft. As Owens points out, the image which supposedly makes the man and woman equal (as a result of disrupting the reassurance of male domination in the past), also manages to reassure male hegemony through the phallic reference of his raised arm. This example suggests that “postmodern feminist practice may question theory and not only aesthetic theory,” thus the implicit history of Western mankind is as valid in analyzing ‘the nude couple’ as its visual presence.  Owens furthers the notions that views of femininity are so tied to the past when he says that issues of gender are often “skirted,” and many feminist works have become, or appear to still show signs of the ‘male pejorative,’ through the overall theme, that despite postmodernisms characterization as the ‘complete indifference,’ what may at first come across as something feminist, may to another be the opposite, and thus it is our choice to perceive it in one way or the other.  This theme is evident also in Lisa Moore’s Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man's Most Precious Fluid, in the chapter “The Money Shot in Pornography and Prostitution,” where she analyses a growing trend for “money shots” in pornography, which she too has linked to ‘our’ male dominated past. The discrepancy in these films is whether the ‘act’ is one of male domination, or female pleasure, which emphasizes Owens argument that postmodern trends can be perceived in both lights, particularly by way of being feminist or non-feminist. Moore does, in the end of the chapter state her belief that the ‘act’ seems routed in male hegemony, but that on multiple occasions women report “liking it”, and even in pornographic films, they appear not to be submissive, but rather equal partners in the act, thus, postmodernisms attempts at breaking ties with the ‘stability of the past,’ is so routed in the past, that any image, or ‘act’ is subject to interpretation by choice.