Read more
This book approaches the construction of complex and transgressive 'pervert' characters in mainstream (not 'art'), adult-oriented (not pornographic) cinema. It deconstructs an episteme on which to base the construction of characters in screenplays, in a way that acknowledges how semiotic elements of characterisation intersect. In addition, it provides an extended re-phrasing of the notion of 'the pervert' as Feiticiero/a: a newly-coined construct that might serve as an underpinning for complex, sexual filmic characters that are both entertaining and challenging to audiences. This re-phrasing speaks to both an existential/phenomenological conception of personhood and to the scholarly tradition of the 'linguistic turn' of continental philosophers such as Foucault and Lacan, who represent language not primarily as describing the world but as constructing it. The result is an original and interdisciplinary volume that is brought to coherence through a queer, post-humanist lens.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction- Re-Phrasing the Feitiço: A New Episteme for Perverse Characters.- Part 1. Myth: From the Absent, Invisible 'Pervert' to the 'Is-ness' of the Feiticeiro/a.- Chapter 2.. Psycho-Analytic Absence: Freudian Object-Focus and the Resultant 'Pervert sans-Corpus'.- Chapter 3. Absenting Heteropatriarchal Discourses: The Invisible 'Pervert'.- Chapter 4. Anthropologically Present 'Perverts': Re-Instating the Feitiço as the Feiticeiro/a.- Part 2. Connotation:The Philosophical Constitution of the Feiticeiro/a.- Chapter 5. Towards an Episteme for the Feiticeiro/a: Realism in Character Construction.- Chapter 6. The Feiticeiro/a and the Categorical 'Fetishist': Sexuality Prescribed through Psychiatric Classifications.- Chapter 7. The Internally Coherent Feiticeiro/a: A Structure not a Substance.- Part 3. Denotation: The Form of the Feiticeiro/a.- Chapter 8. The Feiticeiro/a as a Materially Identifiable Character: Subjectively Conceived Filmic Participants.- Chapter 9. Writing 'Perverse' Behaviour for the Feiticeiro/a: Revisioning the ICD Diagnostic Criteria.- Chapter 10. Rephrasing Character Action for the Feiticeiro/a: External Coherence through Transactional Relations.- Chapter 11. Conclusion: A Few of My Favourite Things: The Feiticeiro/a as Foundation for 'Pervert' Characterisation.
About the author
LJ Theo is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa, where he runs the film school and teaches screenwriting and communications.
Summary
One of the few explorations available on the underpinning thinking for character construction in popular filmsApproaches character construction from a sexuality studies and semiotics perspective, rather than from a deconstructivist film theory angle
Challenges widely-accepted canons of the Hollywood mode of film practice in ways that propose conceptually sound alternatives
