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| To be predator or prey? Often within our contemporary society there is a dichotomy of this sort put forth in romance. The predator/prey dichotomy of romantic dynamics is featured in this Fidel Clothing advertisement. By employing a Freudian semiotic analysis, I posit the repressed meaning underlying this image is that women should be predatory to be desirable. By deconstructing this meaning I conclude that no mode of predator, nor prey is sufficient. In taking away these centers of meaning, a new non-hierarchical relationship of caring for both the self and other is introduced. |
| In a Freudian dream analysis the manifest dream content is everything present in the advert. A woman stands inside a storefront window starring out at the camera. She wears an aqua top with the "Fidel" logo, dark pants, a loose braid, and she has simple make-up. The shot is taken from an angle looking up at her. Her spread fingertips touching the window accentuate the points where they meet the glass. The reflection of the glass is glaring, and another building and shimmering lights are visible. The company name and logo - "FIDEL"- is in upper-case white text on the right side of the advert. As a linguistic sing, "Fidel" in the Latin derivative, means "faithful" in English. The connotations connected to the Fidel clothing company are reliability and honesty. The "Fidel" logo is an empty signifier taking on the characteristics via transference from the connotations of the concept "faithful", and the attractive characteristics of the woman. |
| In accordance with Freudian analysis, the associations that follow are important in uncovering the repressed meaning. Freud writes, "The dream as remembered is not the real thing at all, but a distorted substitute which, by calling up other substitute-ideas, provides us with a means of approaching the thought proper, of bringing into consciousness the unconscious thoughts underlying the dream" (Freud, 121). The woman's curious look out to the viewers of the image suggests sophisticated seduction. Her flirtation is associated with something desired but inaccessible, which is reinforced by her awareness of the glass and the separation it imposes. The questionability of her relationship to the viewer becomes clearer, upon considering the syntagmatic spatial relations. The shot is taken from a low angle, and the viewer assumes a lower position, figuratively and spatially. The woman's position from above is the ideal, and she has higher status, and vitality. The placement of the "Fidel" logo to the right draws the reader in from the left. The proposition the woman offers (on the right) leads to the new conclusion: "Fidel" (on the left). The woman is in a mimetic relation to a perched wild bird in a cage. The image of the window is indexical because it represents a part for the whole. Despite not showing the entire window we observe that its flat reflexive surface. |
| There are several examples of dream-censorship. The conspicuous action of flirtation without another person, and without a relationship, are omissions. The woman's look of intimacy is with a generalized 'other', and not for anyone in particular. Implied is that the woman stares at the viewer of the advertisement. This implicates a direct relationship between her and the viewer. What kind of relationship is this? And, in what way are we as viewers expected to view her? According to Doane on Foucault's theory of the glance and the gaze, the glance is a symptomatic reading of a woman for a deeper meaning, whereas the gaze observes only an "endlessly modulated"exterior. Foucault says, "The glance chooses a line that instantly distinguishes the essential; it therefore goes beyond what it sees; it is not misled by the immediate forms of the sensible, for it knows how to transverse them; it is essentially demystifying"(cited in Doane, 158). By reading the image using the glance (in Foucault's sense), the view is neither one of erotic gaze, nor one of associative identity. I will read the image and the woman as exemplifying a behavior for women in romance. The glance reads a deeper cultural meaning and a societal understanding. |
| Also present is condensation, where the image of the woman represents many things and contains many associations. She is manifested as symptomatic: sophisticated and confident, not overly sexualized nor vulnerable. The mystery of the woman's inner being is paralleled by the barrier that encloses her (the window). We have to go beyond the surface of both the window and the woman to really understand the true meanings. |
| Freud posits that disturbing desires we think of as alien to human nature are repressed. He says, ";Dream-distortion is due to the censorship exercised, by certain recognized tendencies of the ego, over desires of an offensive character which stir us at night during sleep" (Freud, 154). I suggest the repressed meaning is that women should be predatory. On this view, vulnerabilities and honesty mean surrendering being 'on top' and in control. The unconscious latent dream thought reveals a belief that an erotic woman is restrained and does not reveal herself too much. Several oppositions occur; between the freedom and repression of women, dominance or one of submission and being predatory or being preyed upon. |
| In a Deconstructive analysis instabilities in meaning materialize. According to Powell, Deconstruction "concerns itself with decentering' with unmasking the problematic nature of all centers" (Powell, 21). In the thrust of Derrida's arguments he believes that all Western thought is based on the idea of a center that guarantees all meaning. In doing a Freudian and semiotic analysis of this image, I assumed an underlying meaning. The problem for Derrida is that meanings attempt the exclude, and "In doing so they ignore, repress, or marginalize others (which become the Other)" (Powell, 23). In my Freudian analysis, the woman exemplifies society's ideal behavior for romance and she is predatory with a barrier of protection shielding her from other predators. This binary in the hierarchy is privileged as the 'true' meaning, but it requires another binary for completion. Perhaps the woman is in a mimetic relation to a bird as the prey of voyeuristic spectators. The window is no longer protective, she is vulnerable because she perches there. She is in a showcase as objectified, eroticized and submissive. The woman's status as predator can be overthrown in a reading that positions her as prey, and thus this is a subversion of the original binary. However, inherent in this new hierarchy, similar to the first, is instability. Which position does the woman occupy? Is she predator or prey? |
| Both dichotomies are inadequate. By freeing the play of the non-hierarchical, non-stable meanings it becomes clear that she is neither predator, nor prey. Romance has particularity in its relations and caring for both the self and the other. According to Derrida, to put the predator/prey dichotomy "under erasure" means that both "are inadequate to describe the more general play of differences common to both" (cited in Powell 47). Freeing the play of unstable meanings there are a whole myriad of positions for women and many variances on the predator and prey roles. The heterosexual context is assumed, but a homo-erotic context can equally be central. The woman flirts with female clothing buyers, or she flirts with no 'other' at all. The window is a mirror and she looks at and flirts with her self. |
| While one meaning from a Freudian semiotic analysis is central, another Deconstructive meaning can be equally central. Where the first analysis found a center, the other analysis posited that many kinds of romantic dynamics are possible. This advert does portray a certain meaning to us with a center revolving around predator and prey. However, It is also possible to find unintended meanings about sexual liberation or the oppression of women, and the constraints of society on her. |
| Works Cited |
| Doane, Mary Ann. "The Clinical Eye: Medical Discourses in the Woman's Film' of the |
| 1940?s"; The Female Body in Western Culture. Ed. Susan Rubin Suleiman. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1986. 152-174 |
| Fidel/Fidel Jeans by Fidel. Advertisement. VICE Magazine [New York City/Montreal] |
| Volume 9 Number 7, 2002: 33. |
| Freud, Sigmund. "7th, 9th, 10th lectures on latent thoughts, censorship and symbolism in |
| dreams."; A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis. Ed. Joan Riviere. New York: Basic Books, 1970 [1924]. 118-131, 142-155. |
| Powell, Jim. Derrida for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing Inc, |
| 1997. |
| Academic Essay |
| Predator or Prey? A Deconstructive Freudian Analysis of "FIDEL" Advert |
| By Amanda Connon-Unda, 2003. Submitted to McGill University, Canada. email: amanda@womenoftechno.com for more information |