In the National Film Board of Canada documentary, director Donna Read is joined by Starhawk to produce the 1989 film Goddess Remembered. Featuring numerous artworks and ruins, this documentary provides a historical look at women’s spirituality. With a specific focus on paganism, a collection of Earth-based religious practices, Read and Starhawk expand on the forgotten history of goddess worship and its influences. Their accounts of history portray that the end of goddess worship led to the beginning of domination through sex, class, and race. Through the exploration of ancient cultures, this film highlights the relationship between faith and feminism- a defining aspect of women’s spirituality. In an effort to reclaim power through their bodies, these women revisit history in an attempt to illustrate how power once was distributed. While admirable, their actions to decentralize patriarchy fuels an exclusive essentialist framework of women’s spirituality. In turn, two major themes run throughout the film that perpetuates this idea-cycles and interconnectedness.
Throughout the film, messages of the life cycle circulate, but beyond that, the film includes a cycle of imagery. Opening with an image of a dancing woman holding two snake figurines followed by the narrator stating, “the spiritual journey of Earth’s people started with a goddess”, the film features her rising with powerful music in the background. This image continues throughout the film, but shifts to her as figurine until the end where she appears again. This shift in the type of image follows the narrator’s claims that women were once revered but now are dominated by a “sky god” and patriarchy. Yet, at the end of the film, the woman appears again in flesh as the women discuss the return of goddess worship.
Alongside these images, reproduction cycles run rampant. Every figurine that is shown of the woman and other art collections throughout the film feature images of the vulva or pubic triangle. The gynocentrism of these images is furthered as accounts of these women are shared. One woman goes so far as to claim that she “did not understand womanhood” until she had given birth and that part of the reproductive cycle connected her to every woman throughout time. Additionally, as these women explore history, they speak of efforts to reclaim their power through their bodies because of incidences like the story of Athena. They see the shift in her being the goddess of wisdom to war as a product of male dominance and that her birth from Zeus’ head was the cause. These women seek to unveil these influences of patriarchy through their connection back to the land and the moon, but this connection, in turn, is exclusive. Reproduction is not a qualifier to be a woman. The reclamation through one’s body becomes problematic when determining womanhood when one has atypical anatomy, chooses not to have children, is trans*, is infertile, or does not engage in heterosexual sex.
Furthermore, those who do not fit neatly into the gender binary’s normative behaviors or expressions of gender are further excluded from the reclamation of women’s spirituality as their foundations are built on interconnectedness. Restoration of their spirituality to these women is “listening to the natural rhythms”, the worship of nature and fertility, and their inherent ability to menstruate. These connections to Earth through their bodies is highlighted by images of caves which are claimed to be vulva shaped openings covered in red okra, the symbol of blood. This connection continues with stories of wonders influenced by the goddess throughout time found through cave drawings, pottery, and statues. Consequently, these women see their reconnection with nature as connecting back to the “nurturing” and the internal way of being. Universalizing women to being nurturing, fertile, and connected to the Earth erases the rich diversity of what womanhood is while additionally limiting their own practice to women who fit this particular mold. Interestingly enough, these self-proclaimed feminists further ideas of biological determinism through their essentialization of themselves to be inherently nurturing.
All in all, this film introduces an unique perspective of how identifiable differences can be diminished within women’s spiritually. It brings into question what true womanhood is and how we can connect through spirituality. Despite the inherent lack of intersectionality, I recommend the film. In retrospect the film is a product of its time; however, it is a great example of how those who are oppressed by the patriarchy are attempting to push back upon it. Additionally, it provides an example of how the universalization and essentialization of women limits the scope of a movement.
(April 2017)
Works Cited
BabyradfemTV. “NFB Women and Spirituality series Part 1: Goddess Remembered.” Online video
clip. Youtube. Youtube. 9 June 2016. Web. 6 April 2017.
