Core Post #4

Susan Fraiman’s talk on the implication of feminist politics in the representation of bathrooms in several television series made me rethink about feminist aesthetic in the field of visual media. Fraiman’s argument was focused on “bathroom reality” as a feminist aesthetic strategy of criticizing male-centric notion of realism by accentuating the presence of a feminized reality characterized by its shared intimacy, and nudity in a nonsexual context that is tied to the everyday rhyme of their life. I think her argument can be placed within the lineage of feminist criticism of antispectacle in praise of ordinary/domestic. We can see various forms of this type of feminist manifestation practiced in fine art, film, and television from autobiographical artwork by English artist Tracey Emin to monumental feminist films such as Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels by filmmaker Chantal Akerman.

Considering the fact that these practices of engaging domesticity have often received criticism for them being “narcissistic” and “self-absorbed” for their exclusive focus on interiority both in spatial and psychological terms, I think Fraisman’s argument could be thought of in terms of rethinking the way we can refute these criticisms of narcissism, and think alternative ways of some of the political aspects of narcissism in relation to feminism. Taking an example from Girls, the show depicts the protagonist and her friends in their struggles with wounded narcissism and often unsuccessful self-actualization. It means that the domestic space such as the bathroom can function also as a space for the fixation on the self in a way that works as a space for them to heal their emotional wounds, and retrieving self-esteem that can protect them from their precarious state in the society.

In this sense, the discussion of “bathroom realism” provided me a hint to reconsider the feminist aesthetics of domestic space in relation to the politics of narcissism. Considering “narcissism” as a procedure of self-articulation, the emphasis of spatial and psychic interiority of these television series can be thought to be an interesting example of how somehow narcissistic portrayal of their sensibility is actually provide rich source to rethink the relationship between space, self-identification, and feminine aesthetics.