Gender Roomours II

Works Cited

Arendt, Hannah. Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft. München: Piper 1995. English: The Origins of Totalitarism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1968.

_____. Vita Activa oder Vom tätigen Leben. München: Piper, 1994. English: The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Benhabib, Seyla. "Models of Public Space: Hannah Arendt, the Liberal Tradition, and Jürgen Habermas." Feminism, the Public and the Private. Ed. Joan B. Landes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 65-99.

_____. The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

_____. "The Art of Making and Subverting Distinctions: With Arendt, Contra Arendt." The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 123-171.

_____. "From the Problem of Judgment to the Public Sphere: Rethinking Hannah Arendt's Political Theory." The Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 172-220.

Giesenfeld, Günter. "Liebe und Anarchie." Reclams elektronisches Filmlexikon. CD-ROM. Stuttgart: Philip Reclam, 2001.

Habermas, Jürgen. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1990.

Kallscheuer, Otto. Afterword. Hannah Arendt. Die Melancholische Denkerin der Moderne. By Seyla Benhabib. Hamburg: Rotbuch Verlag, 1998. 343-350.

Spagnoletti, Giovanni. "Kommentierte Filmographie." Lina Wertmüller. Ed. Wolfgang Jacobsen. München: Hanser, 1988. 67-195.

Wertmüller, Lina, dir. Love and Anarchy [Film d'amore e d'anarchia]. Peppercorn-Wormser, 1974.

Notes

• 1) The film begins with its main character Tonino (Giancarlo Giannini) at a turning point in his life, the execution of an older relative for political subversion. After viewing the body on display in what would otherwise by an idyllic rural setting, Tonino is inspired to take over what he perceives as his relative's mission, the assassination of Benito Mussolini. Tonino goes to Rome and links up with his anarchist contact, a highly sought after call girl named Salomè (another Wertmüller regular Mariangela Melato), her brothel is popular with the Fascists and Mussolini's head of security, an arrogant blow-hard named Spatoletti (Eros Pagni), is especially fond of Salomè. Tonino and young call girl Tripolina (Lina Polito) soon fall in love which serves to greatly complicate his mission. Tonino does the madam a favor, and, in exchange, Tripolina gets two days off to spend with him. We soon learn that Tripolina returns his love, and the tragic stage is set. Knowing full well that the assassination attempt, successful or not, will surely mean his death, Tonino is suddenly gripped by fear. When all he had at stake was a quiet life on the farm, he was glad to give it up for a chance at changing the quality of life for his peasant countrymen. But now, having tasted the happiness love can afford, can Tonino really carry through with this suicidal act? Can he truly give up his life for a belief he once thought was worth dying? How will this love affair, Salomè's political will, and the assassination plans play out? (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070061/; 29/12/06)
• 2) Thus the title of the German edition of Seyla Benhabib's book: Hannah Arendt. Die melancholische Denkerin der Moderne.
• 3) See Hübner, Irene: Protest in Spitzenhöschen: Huren wehren sich; von der klassischen Hetäre zum postmodernen Bodygirl. Frankfurt a. M.: Brandes und Appel, 1988. For the greatest part, the "Protest in bodices" was understood as a illusory rebellion which valued the individual feeling of power of the prostitutes, the situative dominance in the transaction of punters, lower than the structural inferiority of these sex professionals, who were earlier easy to make out legally and in analyses of society were always associated with patriarchy. These termini emerge in the concluding evaluation of the study, which decides the power question in favor of the punters, in opposition to the requests of the prostitutes wishes.
• 4) There are multiple scenes in the film which make this clear. Thus, referring to the body of the person who died of a heart attack, which has to be removed secretly from the brothel, the brothel madam makes clear that she has excellent contacts to those in power, but that these must remain secret.
• 5) Here, Benhabib refers to Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarism.
• 6) The subjective refers to the camera view from the perspective of a film figure.
• 7) Benhabib notes: "Hannah Arendt's persistent denial of the 'women's issue', and her inability to link together the exclusion of women from politics and this agonistic and male-dominated conception of public space, is astounding. The 'absence' of women as collective political actors in Arendt's theory - in which only individuals like Rosa Luxemburg are present - is a difficult question, but to begin thinking about this means first challenging the private/public split in her thought as this corresponds to the traditional separation of spheres between the sexes (men = public life; women = private sphere)." (Benhabib, "Public Sphere" 93)
• 8) This represents one line of reception of Arendt (see Kallscheuer).