Slippery subjects: a reading of Robert Altman’s “3 women”

This paper examines Robert Altman’s 1977 “3 Women” as a point of entry into the ways in which female subjectivity is figured within filmic representation. My thesis will argue that the characters portrayed in the film invoke distinct possibilities of female embodiment, who challenge stereotypical female images. In the wake of feminist critic Laura Mulvey’s deconstruction of the male gaze, I want to suggest that this film brings transparency to the complications of how the female and the feminine are perceived in art as well as film. Altman’s three women enact themselves and each other; these are women who cannot be trusted, who attempt to escape their fate as on screen object. This paper investigates the landscape of what I describe as the fraudulent feminine and extend a psychoanalytical reading for the female image and her desires. I will argue that the unethical portrayal of the female characters in “3 Women” expands the field of gendered subjectivity in film and critical theory.