Digital Identification in Dottie Gets Spanked (1993)

By Colin Kerekes, Edited by Ella Kilbourne

1. “It suffices to understand the mirror stage in this context as an identification, in the full sense analysis gives to the term: namely, the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes [assume] an image - an image that is seemingly predestined to have an effect at this phase, as witnessed by the use in analytic theory of antiquity's term, ‘imago’” (Lacan 76). 

2. “The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking, but it also goes further, developing scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect. The conventions of mainstream film focus attention on the human form. Scale, space, stories are all anthropomorphic. Here, curiosity and the wish to look intermingle with a fascination with likeness and recognition: the human face, the human body, the relationship between the human form and its surroundings… Recognition is thus overlaid with misrecognition: the image recognized is conceived as the reflected body of the self, but its misrecognition as superior projects this body outside itself as an ideal ego, the alienated subject, which, reintrojected as an ego ideal, gives rise to the future generation of identification with others” (Mulvey 201). 

Jacques Lacan delineates that identification occurs when an individual “assumes an image,” which he argues occurs very early in a human’s developmental history through “the mirror stage.” To elucidate, Lacan defines the mirror stage as the moment when an infant looks at themself in the mirror and encounters “situational apperception” (Lacan 75). The infant understands that they are a person–that their thoughts, limbs, and feelings inhabit a singular body. This process also begins to allow the infant to better conceptualize their social role amongst “the persons and even things around him” (Lacan 75). In other words, the mirror stage encourages a psychological shift where by seeing themselves through a reflection, a human understands that they live in a human body and undergo a human experience. Laura Mulvey applies Lacan’s analysis of the mirror stage to her own ponderings on purveyors of cinema and the gaze. She likens the act of viewing a film to that of looking in a mirror, where the spectator, as a result of common cinematic “conventions,” pays close attention to the “human form” (Mulvey 201). Through this, they can begin to recognize aspects of themself through an on-screen persona. Todd Haynes’ Dottie Gets Spanked (1993) situates its young protagonist, Steven (J. Evan Bonifant), as an obsessive observer of a fictional television show featuring a character named Dottie Frank (Julie Halston). By drawing pictures, dreaming of her, and sitting glued to the television after school, Steven participates in Mulvey’s understanding of cinematic identification. His idealization of Dottie, which manifests as desire, reinforces Lacan and Mulvey’s complementary beliefs that identification, at least through an experience like the mirror stage, is never a particularly whole process–otherwise determining the subject one identifies with as detached from the original spectator. 

To begin understanding the incomplete nature of identification, Lacan is aware that an infant is subdued by their own physical weakness. Thus, the image of themselves that they see is not necessarily an authentic rendering of the self because firstly, the infant has not undergone true “identification with the other” which allows them to form their self-image, and secondly, the infant does not have a grasp on “language” which reinforces their “function as subject” (Lacan 76). As a result, the image that the infant identifies with is the “ideal-I” (Lacan 76). It is distant from who the infant actually is, as they have limited physical and intellectual capabilities, yet are able to perceive themselves as a whole being. Although Lacan sees identification as a transformative process that allows a human to engage in self-understanding, he is mindful that there is a dichotomy present between the person observing a self to identify with, and that self that is reflected back. Therefore, this sense of recognition is “overlaid with misrecognition”, as theorized by Mulvey. This idea is cemented within the framework of “scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect” which Mulvey adopts from Freud–scopophilia itself being the “pleasure in looking at another person as object (Mulvey 205). Essentially, Mulvey claims that narcissistic scopophilia emerges when an individual takes great pleasure in objectifying a person on screen as an ideal version of themselves, similar to Lacan’s concept of the ideal-I. While they may recognize a sense of their identity in that person, they are only truly identifying with a concept because that body is viewed as “superior.” 

Mulvey’s expanded ideas are present in Dottie Gets Spanked, especially considering that Steven is not an infant, but does still partake in a mirror-stage like form of identification. Throughout the short film, Steven spends his childhood sitting directly in front of a screen with his eyes glued to The Dottie Show. He intently watches Dottie engage in various sit-com hijinks, only looking down to sketch her likeness on a piece of paper, with emphasis on the “face” and “body.” The wall next to his bed is lined with images of Dottie with an attention to these exact features, indicating that Steven has an interest in her as an object, taking pleasure in his attention towards her human features. It becomes abundantly clear in Steven’s dreams that he identifies with certain characteristics of Dottie as well. For instance, when Steven is given the opportunity to attend the Dottie show, he is introduced to the woman behind the persona. While the character of Dottie is generally childish and witless, her actress is commanding and cold. She choreographs her own spanking sequence, being in control off-screen even while in a traditionally powerless position on-screen. Once again, just as Steven watches her on television, in person he is affixed. The manner in which the camera closely observes Dottie’s movements shows that Steven is interested in the “relationship between the human form and its surroundings” (Mulvey 201). He is entranced by how Dottie commands the space around her, hoping to “assume” that “image” in his own life. While he sees Dottie as someone who is like him, she is ever-so distant from who he actually is. She is an idealized version of himself. 

When Steven goes to sleep after, he dreams of himself as a king donned in an exaggerated crown and robe, taking power over Dottie. Even while he is spanked, he imagines quick flashes of himself flailing his arm, engaging in a spanking motion. Through Mulvey’s perspective, he has taken Dottie’s image and “conceived [it] as the reflected body of the self,” but misrecognized it as superior (Mulvey 201). The way he identifies with Dottie cannot be authentic because she will always embody an aspiration rather than a reality. As Lacan explains that an infant’s incapacities restricts them from truly being able to identify with their reflected body, Steven’s youth, familial situation, and passivity limits Dottie from actually being a true reflection of himself, beyond the fact that she is a fictional cinematic being. He desires to take agency within his life, while external factors like his father’s disapproval of his viewing habits or the antagonistic children at school fuel his narcissistic scopophilic desires to adopt the power of someone he looks up to. 

To Mulvey and Lacan, identification arises as a grounding act so that an individual may form a relationship between the fragmented self and reality. In Mulvey’s case, she looks beyond infancy where at any age, a consumer of media can develop an association with a digital person. While beneath this definition, identification is an imaginary linkage, it is ultimately still a product of real desire. Steven desires much of Dottie’s persona from her confidence to her aesthetic traits, and therefore he chooses to identify with her.

Works Cited 

Haynes, Todd, director. Dottie Gets Spanked. 1993. 

Lacan, Jacques. "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function." Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, translated by Bruce Fink, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006, pp. 75-81. 

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Columbia University Press, New York, New York, 1986, pp. 198–209.