Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Journal of Religion & Film

2018

Articles 1 - 21 of 21

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Visual Grandeur, Imagined Glory: Identity Politics And Hindu Nationalism In Bajirao Mastani And Padmaavat, Baijayanti Roy Dec 2018

Visual Grandeur, Imagined Glory: Identity Politics And Hindu Nationalism In Bajirao Mastani And Padmaavat, Baijayanti Roy

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper examines the tropes through which the Hindi (Bollywood) historical films Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018) create idealised pasts on screen that speak to Hindu nationalist politics of present-day India. Bajirao Mastani is based on a popular tale of love, between Bajirao I (1700-1740), a powerful Brahmin general, and Mastani, daughter of a Hindu king and his Iranian mistress. The relationship was socially disapproved because of Mastani`s mixed parentage. The film distorts India`s pluralistic heritage by idealising Bajirao as an embodiment of Hindu nationalism and portraying Islam as inimical to Hinduism. Padmaavat is a film about a legendary …

Go to article

‘Love-Jihad’ And Bollywood: Constructing Muslims As ‘Other’, Nadira Khatun Dec 2018

‘Love-Jihad’ And Bollywood: Constructing Muslims As ‘Other’, Nadira Khatun

Journal of Religion & Film

In the postcolonial nation state that is India, cinema has become an important tool for propagating the idea of nationalism. In recent times, one of the most controversial components of Hindu nationalism has been the hate campaign against what is termed as ‘love-jihad’, which is deployed as a weapon to mobilize, polarize, and communalize citizens. The Indian Hindi-language film industry, popularly known as Bollywood, has also become a controversial site. In this paper, I argue that if ‘Indian nationalism’ is to be represented as ‘Hindu nationalism’ and ‘Indian culture’ as ‘Hindu culture,’ it logically follows that this majoritarian construction needs …

Go to article

Myth And Monstrosity: Teaching Indigenous Films, Ken Derry Dec 2018

Myth And Monstrosity: Teaching Indigenous Films, Ken Derry

Journal of Religion & Film

The past few times that I have taught my course on religion and film I have included a number of Indigenous movies. The response from students has been entirely positive, in part because most of them have rarely encountered Indigenous cultural products of any kind, especially contemporary ones. Students also respond well to the way in which many of these films use notions of the monstrous to explore, and explode, colonial myths. Goldstone, for example, by Kamilaroi filmmaker Ivan Sen, draws on noir tropes to peel back the smiling masks of the people responsible for the mining town’s success, …

Go to article

‘I Am That Very Witch’: On The Witch, Feminism, And Not Surviving Patriarchy, Laurel Zwissler Dec 2018

‘I Am That Very Witch’: On The Witch, Feminism, And Not Surviving Patriarchy, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

While contemporary discussions about witchcraft include reinterpretations and feminist reclamations, early modern accusations contained no such complexity. It is this historical witch as misogynist nightmare that the film, The Witch: A New England Folktale (2015), expresses so effectively. Within the film, the very patriarchal structures that decry witchcraft – the Puritan church from which the family exiles itself, the male headship to which the parents so desperately cling, the insistence, in the face of repeated failure, on the viability of the isolated nuclear family unit – are the same structures that inevitably foreclose the options of the lead character, Thomasin.

Go to article

A Journey Into The Heart Of God: Darren Aronofsky’S Noah (2014) As A Subversive Kabbalistic Text, Lindsay Macumber, Magi Abdul-Masih Dec 2018

A Journey Into The Heart Of God: Darren Aronofsky’S Noah (2014) As A Subversive Kabbalistic Text, Lindsay Macumber, Magi Abdul-Masih

Journal of Religion & Film

The title of this paper reflects our interpretation of this film as a subversive mystical text, from within the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah. This interpretation is itself the product of a long journey of thinking about, and wrestling with this film in various ways. In this paper, we will outline this journey, concentrating on our first impressions of the film, some notable shifts in our thinking on this film that alerted us to the connection between the film and Jewish mysticism, and some concluding remarks about the implications of this reading.

Go to article

Representations Of Nineteenth Century Mormonism In A Mormon Maid: A Cinematic Analysis, Elisabeth Weagel Dec 2018

Representations Of Nineteenth Century Mormonism In A Mormon Maid: A Cinematic Analysis, Elisabeth Weagel

Journal of Religion & Film

During the first quarter of the 20th century there was a trend in Hollywood to make films about Mormons. Practices such as polygamy created just the kind of sensationalism that attracted filmmakers (even Thomas Edison contributed with his 1902 film A Trip to Salt Lake). Many of these were B-pictures, but the 1917 film A Mormon Maid stands out because it was produced by a major production company (Paramount) and was backed by top director Cecil B. DeMille. It is often given passing reference, but very little genuine scholarship has been done on the film. A hundred years …

Go to article

Ask The Beasts Of The Southern Wild: Exploring Human Identity As Beast, Being And Beholder In Ask The Beasts: Darwin And The God Of Love And Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Stephanie Cherpak Clary Dec 2018

Ask The Beasts Of The Southern Wild: Exploring Human Identity As Beast, Being And Beholder In Ask The Beasts: Darwin And The God Of Love And Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Stephanie Cherpak Clary

Journal of Religion & Film

Anthropocentrism and hierarchical dualism together encourage a dangerous anthropology where human primacy among creation and the prioritization of certain humans leads to destruction for all. During a time when suffering caused by climate change continues to intensify, it is increasingly important to find compelling ways to share the stories of those who suffer most. I will explore how Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012) contextualizes the ecofeminist theology found in Johnson’s Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (2014), specifically the idea of humans identifying as beasts, beings and beholders. Furthermore, I will discuss how the representation …

Go to article

Reason (Vivek), J. Barton Scott Oct 2018

Reason (Vivek), J. Barton Scott

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Reason (Vivek) (2018), directed by Anand Patwardhan.

Go to article

Gender, Religion And Partition: The Shifting Sītā In Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's Pinjar, Shamika Shabnam Oct 2018

Gender, Religion And Partition: The Shifting Sītā In Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's Pinjar, Shamika Shabnam

Journal of Religion & Film

My paper aims to negotiate the political illustration of the pure Hindu woman as propagated during the India-Pakistan Partition of 1947. The split of British India was followed by communal violence and the mass abduction of women from both sides of the Indo-Pakistan border. Amid the wave of sectarian belligerence, the abducted Hindu woman was popularly classified as Sita from the Rāmāyaṇa, who was held captive by the diabolical enemy or ‘Muslim Ravana.’ I examine how religious narratives during the Partition era endorsed a reductionist dichotomy of India-Pakistan, Hindu-Muslim, and the juxtaposed iconographies of the Hindu Sita and the …

Go to article

Novitiate, Joshua Canzona Apr 2018

Novitiate, Joshua Canzona

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Novitiate (2017) directed by Maggie Betts.

Go to article

Thelma, Kevin V. Dodd Apr 2018

Thelma, Kevin V. Dodd

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Thelma (2017) directed by Joachim Trier.

Go to article

Dialectics Of Tradition And Memory In Black Panther, Sailaja Krishnamurti Mar 2018

Dialectics Of Tradition And Memory In Black Panther, Sailaja Krishnamurti

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler.

Go to article

Black Panther As Spirit Trip, Laurel Zwissler Mar 2018

Black Panther As Spirit Trip, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

This is one of a series of film reviews of Black Panther (2018), directed by Ryan Coogler. This review analyzes engagement with the movie as a religious experience and considers some political implications of both its storyline and reception. In particular, the piece focuses on constructions of race, especially in relationship to Africa and African Americans, as well as practical tensions around commodifying dissent.

Go to article

Editorial In(Ter)Ventions: Comparing The Editorial Processes Of The Hebrew Bible And The Star Wars Saga, Timo Tekoniemi Mar 2018

Editorial In(Ter)Ventions: Comparing The Editorial Processes Of The Hebrew Bible And The Star Wars Saga, Timo Tekoniemi

Journal of Religion & Film

Canonicity and authority of one textual form over another, textual plurality, and scribal freedom in the early transmission of the Hebrew Bible have in the recent decades become prominent topics in the methodological discussions of biblical scholars. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it has become clear that, when attempting to discern the oldest text of the Hebrew Bible, we are in need of new and better models of textual transmission that take into account all extant textual evidence. Working solely on the basis of the so-called Masoretic Text is no more methodologically tenable, especially when it comes …

Go to article

Beast, Rubina Ramji Feb 2018

Beast, Rubina Ramji

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Beast (2018), directed by Michael Pearce.

Go to article

Women Are Speaking Up At Sundance, Rubina Ramji Feb 2018

Women Are Speaking Up At Sundance, Rubina Ramji

Journal of Religion & Film

Women speak up at Sundance 2018.

Go to article

Quiet Heroes, William L. Blizek Jan 2018

Quiet Heroes, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Quiet Heroes (2018), directed by Jenny Mackenzie, Jared Ruga, and Amanda Stoddard.

Go to article

Puzzle, John C. Lyden Jan 2018

Puzzle, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Puzzle (2018), directed by Marc Turtletaub.

Go to article

The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, John C. Lyden Jan 2018

The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018), directed by Desiree Akhavan.

Go to article

Half The Picture, John C. Lyden Jan 2018

Half The Picture, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Half the Picture (2018), directed by Amy Adrion.

Go to article

Believer, John C. Lyden Jan 2018

Believer, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Believer (2018), directed by Don Argott.

Go to article