Women Spectatorship and Feminine Joy in Cinema: A Feminine Reading of Movies "Thelma and Louise" and "Vaconeshe Panjom (The Fifth Reaction)"

The feminist film theory has presented a new approach for breaking the narrative line of movie aiming at increasing the consciousness of female audience about her situation of being the object of camera vision and male gaze. The problem is that such an approach led the feminist movies to face economic failure. In this study، using the creative idea of «feminine joy» in the feminist film theory، this paper tries to produce a kind of reading of two famous Hollywood and Iranian movies named «Thelma and Louise» and «Vaconeshe Panjom» (The fifth Reaction). Our aim is to present a kind of analysis based on active role of women in reading films and an explanation of visual possibilities in movies that have emancipatory effect in rescuing women from being an object of male gaze. This analysis uses the feminist psychoanalytic film theory with an emphasis on the theoretical concept of feminine joy. An active feminine reading of movies by women can inspire the friendship joy and empathic relations in them as active spectators. Therefore، despite the limited success of feminist film theory، applying such an active reading from the women characters of stories facing with masculine gaze and power in mainstream movies، can produce a kind of enjoyment for women spectators that is in contrast to the concepts of masculine joy and feminine objectivity. This is the kind of reading that can demonstrate the emancipatory dimension of some mainstream movies for women.