Black Body in Ecstasy -Provost

The Black Body in Ecstasy explores racialized pornography and pornographic representation, not as a project of violation but Nash approaches pornography with a more nuanced lens. Nash borrows from many feminisms, specifically a feminist anti-pornographic body of work and black feminist theory to further investigate what she is presenting us with. Nash does this to outline the complexities of pleasure in a context of race, gender and sexuality. She contextualizes her work in relation to other feminist projects and approaches to unpacking pornography, specifically it’s relation to interpretations and reading of pleasure.

What is most interesting to me in Nash’s work her close reading of the texts and the role of spectatorship and the assumptions that pleasure does not exist for the black women in the films that she analyzes. Nash attempts to convince the reader through the presentation and re-interpreation of “Silver” and “Golden” age films, that the black women represented in the films themselves derive pleasure(s) or some sense of empowerment.

Nash’s perspective and methodologies were useful for me to reimagine my current understanding of many complex and nuanced research questions. While this specific work does not directly relate to my work I wonder how her close reading techniques can be applied elsewhere.