{"id":552,"date":"2013-05-26T08:58:55","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T08:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/?p=552"},"modified":"2015-03-12T11:18:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T18:18:53","slug":"vibrators-and-power-a-review-of-hysteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/2013\/05\/26\/vibrators-and-power-a-review-of-hysteria\/","title":{"rendered":"Vibrators and Power: A Review of Hysteria"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Art by Grace Xue SC ’16<\/p><\/div>\n

Is the story of an antiquated medical diagnosis relevant today? Until the twentieth century, hysteria was a blanket diagnosis ascribed to women with wide-ranging symptoms, often based upon male doctor\u2019s perceptions. Symptoms of hysteria were considered to include depression, discontentment, or other emotional troubles, sometimes manifested through women\u2019s nonconformist actions, and diagnosis was based on the belief that the uterus travelled around the woman\u2019s body, upsetting her emotional balance. Doctors developed a variety of treatments for \u201chysterical\u201d women including the rest cure, portrayed in Charlotte Perkins Gilman\u2019s The Yellow Wallpaper<\/em>, hysterectomy, and a \u201chysterical paroxysm,\u201d or in other words, an orgasm. The film Hysteria<\/em>, directed by Tanya Wexler and originally released in 2011 in the United Kingdom (2012 in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics), deals primarily with the last of these treatments. Wexler\u2019s captivating romantic comedy portrays the invention of the vibrator as a solution to Dr. Granville\u2019s carpal tunnel, which he receives from manually inducing \u201chysterical paroxysms\u201d for his patients. While it is a period film, Hysteria <\/em>seems to be in dialogue with contemporary society. Although Wexler risks softening the repressive element of hysteria, she also gives voice to issues of female sexuality still relevant today.<\/p>\n

Wexler\u2019s film has the typical elements of a romantic comedy. Although the film addresses serious issues, including the possibility of court enforced hysterectomy, it arrives at a predictable happy ending where the female protagonist\u2019s repression by patriarchal forces is overcome thorough romance and women\u2019s access to the vibrator foreshadows their future sexual empowerment. By neatly resolving Hysteria<\/em>\u2019s more serious strains, Wexler risks positioning contemporary society as a foil to Hysteria<\/em>\u2019s historical one and distancing audiences from the severity of issues such as forced hysterectomy. The film reenforces women\u2019s increasing access to vibrators, and therefore sexual rights, through pictures of historic and contemporary vibrators displayed at the credits. Yet current political discussions on women\u2019s sexual rights show that while hysteria is no longer an accepted diagnosis, issues concerning women\u2019s rights are not merely curiosities of history.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s portrayal of the treatment for hysteria is, perhaps, too softened. The only problem Wexler raises with inducing orgasms as a treatment is male doctors\u2019 inability to recognize women\u2019s sexuality. Although Dr. Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce) insists that women are \u201cincapable of experiencing any pleasurable sensation whatsoever without actual penetration of the male organ\u201d (Dyer and Dyer), the film disproves this by making female sexuality visible. While Hysteria<\/em> voices contemporary views on other aspects of women\u2019s rights, it does not address the problematic power dynamics of male doctors\u2019 assuming a position of control over women\u2019s sexuality by administering this treatment, which could even be considered rape by today\u2019s society. While Hysteria<\/em> argues that the root of the \u201chysterical\u201d women\u2019s dissatisfaction is their confinement in the domestic sphere and husbands\u2019 refusal to address their wives\u2019 sexual needs, it slips into portraying hysteria as a sham diagnosis of unhappy housewives, less serious than physical injury or disease. This minimizes the actual severity of depression and misses the patriarchal structures that controlled women by imposing the diagnosis of hysteria and enforcing damaging treatments such as the rest cure or a hysterectomy. Furthermore, in critiquing evident sources of power such as the law, Hysteria <\/em>devotes less attention to less obvious manifestations of power through culture and social interaction.<\/p>\n

Wexler, however, incorporates a strong feminist voice with Maggie Gyllenhaal\u2019s character, Charlotte, who refuses to behave as her society\u2019s definition of a lady, runs a settlement house, and insists she will only marry \u201ca partner, an equal\u201d (Dyer and Dyer). Charlotte is not unfeminine, desexualized, or unjustly angry. She displays emotion which men in the film consider a symptom of hysteria, yet the film does not discredit her, for her anger is founded on the continual restrictions placed upon her because she is a woman. Charlotte has insight into her society, providing the contemporary voice that denounces inequalities. She eloquently states the predicament of confining women in a narrow role, claiming that through her charitable work, she is given \u201ca useful life\u201d (Dyer and Dyer). With this statement, Charlotte also comments on a central problem of the human condition, the struggle to impact something beyond oneself.<\/p>\n

By making women\u2019s sexuality a visible issue, openly showing women\u2019s pleasure, and indicating the proliferation of the vibrator for home use, Hysteria <\/em>engages with contemporary society to promote freer expression of women\u2019s sexuality. While Hysteria<\/em> was originally released in the U.K. in 2011, it is strikingly relevant to current American debates surrounding women\u2019s sexual rights. Wexler\u2019s film gives a voice to women\u2019s sexual desires so often shut out of mainstream representations in the United States. Although some films and television shows have depicted women\u2019s use of vibrators and masturbation, these subjects remain taboo. Hysteria<\/em>\u2019s direct portrayal of sexual pleasure from the vibrator insists upon women\u2019s sexual desires, which American society often does not acknowledge.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper<\/em>. Ed. Thomas L. Erskine and Connie L. \u00a0 Richards. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers U.P., 1993. Print.<\/p>\n

Hysteria<\/em>. Dir. Tanya Wexler. Perf. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and Jonathan Pryce. Sony, \u00a0 2012. DVD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tanya Wexler’s film Hysteria addresses women’s sexuality and issues of patriarchal control in the nineteenth century. Is this film’s historical portrayal of hysteria relevant today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[239,246],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-volume-5-issue-1"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}