Browse Exhibits (2 total)

Allen Warren | Life's a Peach: The Convergence of Sexuality and Class in Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name (2017) became famous for its “peach scene,” though the orchard around the Perlmans’ villa where this fruit thrives could not have grown on its own. Distinctions of class and a parasitism by the most affluent of their workers cultivate the paradise where director Luca Guadagnino sets the blossoming romance between Elio and Oliver. Apricots are a clear metaphor for desire here, yet their prolificacy is only possible through the invisibility and silent intervention of other food items, from peas to latkes to water. Critics have pointed out the beauty of the Italian setting and its use as a temporary escape from heteronormative surveillance, as well as the way domestic workers flow in and out of scenes almost wordlessly. What these critics have missed is the connection these occurrences have in explaining how the working class have built (butdo not benefit from) this heaven on Earth, where the young male lovers may permit their bodies to act without restraint. While queer and class theories inform this discussion, my primary vehicle for interpretation will be food, both for its prominent place in the movie and for the ways it parallels the class structure at the villa. I find the film quietly reflects on the levels of economic privilege and exploitation needed to experience the paradise it depicts, with the usurpation of food in many scenes helping to remind the audience of the inability of this space to be wholly subversive.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Emily Rutter

Department of English

Undergraduate

Tags: , ,

Emily Turner | The Parasite of Society

Food studies in media provide complex layers to the films that viewers quite literally consume, a fact complicated depending on how one analyzes food. Different theories, lenses, and contexts can change how food is used in film, much like how using different ingredients in a recipe can alter the final product. But why does food matter in film, and how do directors use food to create meaning? Food is often employed to symbolize greater significance or to prove a point that a director wants to assert in their film. For example, Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite (2019) utilizes food to symbolize social class: food is a vehicle in this film to show both the stark divide between the upper and lower classes and how such economic disparity can be perilous for society. Bong does this to warn viewers that class inequality is unjust by demonstrating how greed within different social classes warrants grave consequences. Ultimately, Parasite concludes with the patriarch of the ultra-wealthy Park family deceased while the extremely impoverished Kim family is divided, still dangerously poor, and suffering the death of their daughter/sister. While these may be extreme conclusions to draw from the film, Parasite aims to warn its viewers of the greed between social classes that could lead to such dismal ends. Bong accomplishes this through the placement of food: it symbolizes the class divide that each family struggles with in different ways.

Faculty Mentor: Emily Rutter

Department of English

Undergraduate

Tags: , ,