Gender and Sexuality in The Piano Essay -- Piano Essays

Gender and Sexuality in The Piano "THERE IS A SILENCE WHERE HATH BEEN NO SOUND THERE IS A SILENCE WHERE NO SOUND MAY BE IN THE COLD GRAVE, UNDER THE DEEP DEEP SEA." With these words, The Piano ends and leaves me in a state of confusion about what point the film was trying to express. The film by Jane Campion has been compared to the likes of Wuthering Heights and has been highly lauded for championing freedom of women’s sexuality and identity. Many critics, though, have debated on the final meanings of the film. This is possible because the film has such complicated characters, such as the main character Ada, who have intricate reasons for carrying out their actions. Campion created a film with a complex storyline that has no clear, easily extracted meaning. I believe that most critics have missed the film’s point when they try to argue what Ada’s expression of her gender and sexuality means. I would like to argue that while Ada does find a solution to the question of her identity and sexuality, this solution is not the feminist ideal of overcoming the status of Other and becoming a fully liberated woman that some reviewers claim it is. Nor is her solution an acceptance of the gender ideology prescribed by patriarchal society. Instead, Ada assumes a complex identity that falls somewhere in between these two extremes. The Piano demonstrates that although gender identity theories are complex themselves and help provide understanding, they fail to accurately and completely describe a particular person’s gender identity and sexuality because these can be combinations of many, perhaps even contradictory, factors. So, the movie’s representation of gender and sexuality is more Foucauldian, though some characters may still see thems... ...Winter 1998): 227-244.    Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.    Gillett, Sue. "Lips and fingers: Jane Campion’s The Piano." Screen 36 (Autumn 1995):277-287.    Hardy, Ann. "The Last Patriarch." Jane Campion’s The Piano. Ed. Harriet Margolis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 59-85.    Hoeveler, Diane Long. "Silence, Sex, and Feminism: An Examination of The Piano’s    Unacknowledged Sources." Literature Film Quarterly, 1998, Vol. 26 Issue 2, 109 116. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO Publishing. March 23, 2001 http://ehostvgw16.epnet.com    Margolis, Harriet, ed. Jane Campion’s The Piano. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.    Sawicki, Jana. "Feminism, Foucault, and ‘Subjects’ of Power and Freedom." Feminist Interpretations of Michel Foucault. Ed. Susan J. Hekman. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State UP, 1996. 159-178.