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Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies

Journal of Religion & Film

Journal

Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

From Patriarchal Stereotypes To Matriarchal Pleasures Of Hybridity: Representation Of A Muslim Family In Berlin, Rahime Özgün Kehya Dr Oct 2023

From Patriarchal Stereotypes To Matriarchal Pleasures Of Hybridity: Representation Of A Muslim Family In Berlin, Rahime Özgün Kehya Dr

Journal of Religion & Film

Sinan Çetin’s blockbuster Berlin in Berlin (1993) is a Turkish-German co-production. In contrast to certain representational tendencies with German orientalism or Turkish occidentalism, it deconstructs the intersectional structures of migration, religion, and gender. The portrayal of religion in films about Turkish-German labour migration is a kind of cultural narcissism often projected into national cinema by denigrating the faith of the other and glorifying one’s own religion. However, perspectives at such intersections are critical and require sensitivity in filmmaking, as films can create prejudice or help build peaceful relationships around these sensitive issues. The paper employs discourse analysis in linking Derrida’s …

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The Persian Version, John C. Lyden Jan 2023

The Persian Version, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Persian Version (2023), directed by Maryam Keshavarz.

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Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart Apr 2022

Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart

Journal of Religion & Film

Black Panther (2018) not only heralded a new future for representation in big-budget films but also gave an alternative vision of the past, one which recasts the Enlightenment within an African context. By going through its technological enlightenment in isolation from Western ideals and dominance, Wakanda opens a space for reflecting on alternate ways progress can—and still might—unfold. More specifically, this alternative history creates room for reimagining how modernity—with its myriad social, scientific, and religious paradigm shifts—could have negotiated questions of race, and, in turn, how race could have informed and redirected some of the lesser impulses of modernity. Similar …

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Alice, Sheila J. Nayar Apr 2022

Alice, Sheila J. Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Alice (2022), directed by Krystin Ver Linden.

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Maidenhood, William L. Blizek Apr 2022

Maidenhood, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Maidenhood (2022) directed by Xóchitl Enríquez Mendoza.

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Long Line Of Ladies, William L. Blizek Apr 2022

Long Line Of Ladies, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Long Line of Ladies (2022), directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome.

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Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris Oct 2021

Blindspotting And Covid: The Gentrification Of Racism, Ashley Starr-Morris

Journal of Religion & Film

The novel Coronavirus is not only exposing old patterns of racism and systemic inequalities, but deepening them as well. The notion of blindspotting, as described in the film by the same name, is used to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the “spiritual emergency” or crisis of racism in America. "Blindspotting" is an image or situation that can be interpreted in two ways but is understood by some in only one way, thereby producing a blind spot. In 2020 and 2021, we see segments of American society, from politics to white Christian nationalism, upholding a sacred canopy of exceptionalism by …

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Run Sweetheart Run, Jodi Mcdavid Jan 2020

Run Sweetheart Run, Jodi Mcdavid

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Run Sweetheart Run (2020) directed by Shana Feste.

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‘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 …

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Two-Spirit Mexica Youth And Transgender Mixtec/Muxe Media: La Mission (2009), Two Spirit: Injunuity (2013), And Libertad (2015), Gabriel S. Estrada Apr 2017

Two-Spirit Mexica Youth And Transgender Mixtec/Muxe Media: La Mission (2009), Two Spirit: Injunuity (2013), And Libertad (2015), Gabriel S. Estrada

Journal of Religion & Film

Independent directors Peter Bratt, Adrian Baker, and Avila-Hanna create differing trans-border queer Indigenous media that resist Eurocentric cic-heteropatriarchy. While Bratt’s feature-length narrative film La Mission (2009) features a masculine Mexica gay teenager who survives fused homophobic and trans*-phobic violence, Baker’s short animation Two Spirit: Injunuity (2013) makes stronger trans* and two-spirit Mexica youth identity affirmations. Avila-Hanna’s short documentary Libertad (2015) offers the clearest transgender narrative of the three films as it focuses on a California transgender Mixtec immigrant activist who is coming of age as a woman with the aid of hormones and gender affirming surgery. This article’s trans*- and …

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I Dream In Another Language, John C. Lyden Jan 2017

I Dream In Another Language, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of I Dream in Another Language (2017), directed by Ernesto Contreras.

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The Wound, John C. Lyden Jan 2017

The Wound, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Wound (2016), directed by John Trengove.

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Cloud Atlas’ Queer Tiki Kitsch: Polynesians, Settler Colonialism, And Sci-Fi Film, Gabriel S. Estrada Oct 2014

Cloud Atlas’ Queer Tiki Kitsch: Polynesians, Settler Colonialism, And Sci-Fi Film, Gabriel S. Estrada

Journal of Religion & Film

Polynesian theories of film reception, visual sovereignty, feminisms, and worldview offer critical insights into The Wachowskis' and Tykwer's 2012 film Cloud Atlas. From Indigenous and Native feminist film perspectives, Cloud Atlas offers a sci-fi future deeply entrenched in the queer tiki kitsch of settler colonialism as situated within a comparative context of other queer Indigenous film. As an example of heteropatriarchal settler colonialism, the Cloud Atlas plot supports the heterosexual triumphs of cross-racial couples and sublimates the possibilities of transgender reincarnation. Although Cloud Atlas attempts to critique Christian slavery and defend a secular abolitionist stance in the 1848 South Pacific, …

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God Loves Uganda, John C. Lyden Jan 2013

God Loves Uganda, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of God Loves Uganda (2013) directed by Roger Ross Williams.

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Whale Rider: The Re-Enactment Of Myth And The Empowerment Of Women, Kevin V. Dodd Oct 2012

Whale Rider: The Re-Enactment Of Myth And The Empowerment Of Women, Kevin V. Dodd

Journal of Religion & Film

Whale Rider represents a particular type of mythic film that includes within it references to an ancient sacred story and is itself a contemporary recapitulation of it. The movie also belongs to a further subcategory of mythic cinema, using the double citation of the myth—in its original form and its re-enactment—to critique the subordinate position of women to men in the narrated world. To do this, the myth is extended beyond its traditional scope and context. After looking at how the movie embeds the story and recapitulates it, this paper examines the film’s reception. To consider the variety of positions …

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