Am I scarred for life?

The more I read of Freud and his theories, the more I begin to question who I am and the world around me. Now that his theories are floating around in my head, have I been scarred for life? What was life like before I became aware of all these Freudian concepts? Can I ever get back to that point in my life or will I forever be looking at things and analyzing them with Freud in mind?

According to Freud when men are infants, they fall in love with their mothers. They resent their fathers because they have the type of relationship they want to have with their mothers. As a result, they want to kill their fathers. Men love their mothers but since they can’t have them sexually, they focus their desires onto someone else. In addition, at a very young age we learn to repress feelings and thoughts because of social taboos and as such we develop fantasies. So we go through life with all these things going on inside of us most of which we are unaware of unless we are familiar with Freud.

Laura Mulvey’s article discusses the movie industry and how it’s full of Freud’s theories. After reading her article I can’t help but wonder how true it is that Freud’s concepts underlie every single movie I’ve ever seen. Is Debbie Reynolds in “Singing in the Rain” really fetishized? Does she really fall under the concepts expounded by Freud? Will I be able to view movies in the future and not think about Freud?

A few other rambling thoughts about the other readings:
I do not enjoy reading articles like Mercer's in which he speculates about Mapplethorpe's intent. Unless an artist tells us what his or her intent is behind their artwork, I don't think we should speculate. Perhaps I shouldn't be in the art history program, but whenever I read article like Mercer's I always want to counter with other theories. I don't know enough about Mapplethorpe's series Black Males and the Black Book to fully comment so I may be off here, but what if Mapplethorpe was intrigued by producing b&w photos with good contrast. Could it be something as simple as that? Why do we always have to read more into things?

Rajan's article was interesting; debating tradition and modernity and where women fit in. However, it's not a discussion that's exclusive to women. I think that both male and female roles are constantly being evaluated and changing.