| BLUM LOOKS CLOSELY at F.
T. Marinetti's rhetoric of technology and asserts that his writings displace
the fetishized female body with that of the machine as the focal point
of the artistic gaze. But instead of eradicating the female body from his
writings entirely, he dresses his technological objects in the language
generally used to mythologize the feminine. He calls his car his "great
devoted mistress with her quick and ardent heart . . . his beautiful steel
machine that [shines] beneath his lubricating caress" (quoted by Blum,
78). Blum argues that Marinetti attempts to tame the machine by bringing
it into a realm of familiar association, in order to appropriate it and
become its "master." He accomplishes this through his rhetorical strategy.
He invokes the machine and its manifestations through the language generally
ascribed to the feminine. Womb and breast imagery abound in his writings,
specifically referring to machines and technology. This familiarizes the
"other" (the machine and the feminine) and allows for Marinetti to manipulate
these images to flatter his own image of himself. So while Marinetti uses
the myth of the feminine as a metaphorical vehicle for forging a new meachanical
society, the actual image of the female is replaced with that of the machine.
(Rebecca Scherr.) |