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Post-9/11 New York On Screen: Mourning, Surveillance And The Arab Other In Tom Mccarthy’S 'The Visitor', Elizabeth Toohey
Post-9/11 New York On Screen: Mourning, Surveillance And The Arab Other In Tom Mccarthy’S 'The Visitor', Elizabeth Toohey
Publications and Research
New York, as a capital of finance and culture, has been one of Hollywood’s favorite settings, often functioning as a glamorous character itself. Yet in the wake of 9/11, escalating government surveillance prompted filmmakers to call this image into question. Tom McCarthy’s 2007 film "The Visitor" marks a turning point. Set in the aftermath of the towers’ collapse, support-the-troops signs and flags haunt the city, saturating it with reminders of 9/11’s political repercussions. In this article, I explore McCarthy’s portrayal of New York and its Muslim immigrants, who overturn stereotypes of (male) terrorists or (female) victims. Their displacement instead creates …