Between abjection and fetishism

Photographer: Nagib El-Desouky

Recently, I have been somewhat preoccupied with exploring the notion of abjection in relation to fetishism and  fetishistic images.
What started it all off was my reading of a paper by Yuh-yi Tan about a film I greatly admire, In the Mood for Love. Yuh-yi wonders whether "the issue of abjection can shed light on our understanding of Mrs. Chen’s fetishistic desire toward the inanimate objects of chipaos, shoes, and cigarettes, and the reified traits, namely cultural constructs of nostalgia and mimetic performativity of an abject self".  Having been model/actress for Marie Schuller's fashion/fetish film, Visiting Hour, such reflections  concern me.
For those unfamiliar with the much acclaimed film made in 2000 by Wong Kar Wai below is a video clip. The film is about an unconsummated love affair between Mrs Chen and Mr Chow in 1960's Hong Kong. Chipaos, cigarettes and high heeled shoes are the fetishistic elements of the film. "The chipao" says Yuh-yi "is an integral part of the fetishistic sexuality, decorates the female body for an erotic spectacle".

Photographer: David Nuttal

The notion of abjection was put forward by Julia Kristeva, the French psychoanalyst, literary critic, feminist and now novelist who discussed it at length in her Powers of horror (1982). She opens her essay with these evocative words: “There comes within abjection one of those violent,dark revolts of being directed against a threat that seems to emanate from anexorbitant outside or inside ejected beyond the scope of the possible, thetolerable, the thinkable”. Thus abjection, says Kristeva, is our reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object and it is an experience in our psychosexual development preceding the "mirror stage" which is to do with the establishment of boundaries between self and others. She also associates the abject with the maternal: abjecting the mother is necessary to the formation of our subjectivity. Further in the essay Kristeva discusses the relationship of abjection to art and religion "The various means of purifying the abject—the various catharses—make up the history of religions, and end up with that catharsis par excellence called art, both on the far and near side of religion".

Fetishism, as we know, was discussed by Freud who linked it with the male child's discovery of the absence of penis in the mother, believed to have been castrated, which leads to her "disavowal" and substitution by an object. Feminist psychoanalytic and cultural theories have reprised the concept and lifted it from an entirely male domain to make it more applicable to female desire beyond the confines of heteronormativity. It was Laura Mulvey that brought attention to the fetishisation of the female body as an element of film - and photographic - narratives, in her now famous discussion of scopophilia (the gaze) in 1975. Later Mulvey broadened that concept to incorporate at least the possibility of a female gaze (1996).

Tina Chanter argues that abjection is the "unthought ground" of fetishistic theories (2008).

Yuh-yi Tan raises an interesting question "Even though abjection has been a relatively unexplored
aspect of fetishistic theories, its association with excluded otherness, the logic of
disavowal, and the horror of castration not only is basic aspect to fetishism, but also depolarizes categories of sexuality and gender".
I can only welcome this critique grounded in Kristeva's 'space of abjection', with all its ambiguity and murkiness.  It  is a very useful lens to understand  fetishistic art. As I continue my exploration of the theory of abjection and its impact  on media I will pick up this thread again in my posts.

(All photos modelled by Alex B)