POSTCOLONIAL CINEMA

STUDIES
Salima Hakim S.Sn., M.Hum
ASPECTS OF
POSTCOLONIALISM

IMPERIALISM
COLONIALISM

CULTURAL DOMINATION

SUBSERVIENCE
THE ‘OTHERING’ OF THE
‘OTHER’
 Colonialism is a practice of
domination, which involves the
WHAT IS subjugation of one people to
another.
COLONIALISM?
Colonia, a Latin word meaning
agriculture-settlement, conquest
and control over the lands and
possessions of native and
immigrant populations.
Postcolonialism

Not only denoted a particular historical period (e.g after colonialism/after

independence) but also refers to a transformed historical situation and
new cultural formations reading practices and values.

It also refers to an academic discipline that analysizes, explains and

responds to the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism.

Postcolonial discourse is an interdisciplinary study (history, economics,

literature, cinema) that explores colonial archives and postcolonial
identities.
Gauri Viswanathan:
"postcolonial studies analizes the
cultural interactions between colonial
powers and colonized peoples, as
well as their remaining traces"
Example of Postcolonial
Studies

Nationalism (the formation of national identity)

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

Example of Postcolonial
Studies

"Third-World Literature”
Literature that is most emphatically not of the First
—that is, not of the European, the Europeanized
American, and perhaps simply not of the white
man's world.

Fredric Jameson, Aijaz Ahmed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PXHeKuBzPY
“ THIRD” CINEMA
- Radical movement of filmmaking in former colonies in South America, Asia,
Africa
- Manifesto 'Toward the Third Cinema‘
- Guerrilla film distribution to distinguished their difference with 1st cinema
(Hollywood) and 2nd cinema (Europe)
- Aesthetically inspired by neo-realist and French new wave
- More Raw
- Anti exoticization of poverty

Black Girl (1966 – Senegal, Ousmane Sembène )

Example of Postcolonial Studies

SUBALTERNS
Studies about people in the subordinate position in terms of
class, gender, race and culture. Those who are voiceless,
written out of the historical record and ignored because
their activities do not count for culture/structure.

GAYATRI SPIVAK, PATRA CHATTERJEE, RANAJIT GUHA

POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
Postcolonial theory: gives us a set of tools,
it’s a lens that gives us a view about specific
issues, which commonly addresses these
following issues;

1. Colonialism’s strategies of representation of

the natives.

2. The rise of nationalist and/or nativist

discourse that resisted colonialism and other
forms of resistance.

3. The feminization, marginalization and

dehumanization of the native.
FRANTZ FANON
BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS
THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH

A psychiatrist, Fanon was interested in the emotional effects of

racism and colonization on blacks.

He gave the three phase of formation of national culture,

1-Unquallified assimilation: [Coping the dominant’s trends]
2-Turns back: [Falls back on]
3-Resistance: [Fighting phase]

Two types of women by Fanon:[Negro=A black woman],

[Mulato=neither a black nor white rather a mixture]
Colonialism dehumanized the natives
‘Black Skin ,White Masks’ [The white man is the master and the
object to be desired and feared, The black man tries to be more
like the white man. He puts on a white mask.
EDWARD W. SAID
ORIENTALISM
"Orientalism” is a way of seeing that imagines,
emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of the
colonized people and cultures as compared to that of
the colonizer.

‘Orientalism’ refers to a Western European view and

perception of the "Orient“ or the East.

He analyzes how colonial conquests resulted in an

attempt to know & administer colonial subjects which
inaugurated the ‘othering’ of the other.
Orientalism provided a rationalization for European
colonialism based on a self-serving history in which
“the West” constructed “the East” as extremely different
and inferior, and therefore in need of Western intervention
or “rescue”. (The ‘Othering’ of The Other)

It often involves seeing ‘other’ culture as exotic, backward,

uncivilized, and at times dangerous.

This conception generates the pervasive images and

representation of the native people such as : effeminate Indians,
savage Africans or inscrutably sinister Orientals that are so
common in the literature of the west.
 HOMI K. BHABHA
Homi Bhabha, one of the leading voices in postcolonial studies, focusses mainly on the
culture emerging from interaction between the colonizer and the colonized.

The theory of Homi K. Bhabha is based on the existence of such space where cultural
borders open up to each other, and creation of a new hybrid culture that combines their
features and atones their differences.

He gave the concepts of Ambivalence, Mimicry, Hybridity, Third Space.

AMBIVALENC
E
Ambivalence is the ambiguous way in which
colonizer and colonized regard one
another.

The colonizer often regards the colonized as

both inferior yet exotically other, while the
colonized regards the colonizer as both
enviable yet corrupt.

In a context of hybridity, this often produces

a mixed sense of blessing and curse.
MIMICRY
“Mimicry”, in colonial and postcolonial discourse, is
defined as when people of the colonized country start
imitating the behaviours, attitudes, language and
culture of the colonizers.

The feeling of superiority of the colonial masters over

the natives leads the members of the colonized nation
to look at themselves as the inferior human beings.
Thus, it automatically establishes the belief that the
West is always ‘educated’, ‘civilized’, ‘reformed’,
‘disciplined’, and ‘knowledgeable’, while the east is
illiterate, barbaric, primitive and ignorant.

Mimicry is a concept of imitating colonizer’s behaviors

intended to mock which can appear as a parody.
THIRD SPACE OF NEGOTIATION
The Location of Culture (1994)

Bhabha contends that all cultural statements and systems are constructed in a space that he calls the
‘Third Space of enunciation’ (1994:37).

The Third Space refers to the interstices between colliding cultures, a liminal space “which gives rise to
something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and
representation.” In this “in-between” space, new cultural identities are formed, reformed, and constantly
in a state of becoming.

Cultural identity always emerges in this contradictory and ambivalent space,which for Bhabha makes the
claim to a hierarchical ‘purity’ of cultures untenable. For him, the recognition of this ambivalent space of cultural
identity may help us to overcome the exoticism of cultural diversity in favor of the recognition of an empowering
hybridity within which cultural difference may operate.
 HYBRIDITY
New transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange.

Hybridity can be social, political, linguistic, religious, etc. It is not necessarily a

peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience.

The colonized and the colonists affected and influenced one another and
contribute to the fusion of different cultures creating a hybrid form.
RELIGIOUS HYBRIDITY : SINCRETISM

RACIAL HYBRIDITY : MESTIZAJE

Mestizaje is a Latin American term referring to racial and cultural mixture.

The notion of mestizaje emerged in the 19th century and became dominant with the nation-building projects of the
early 20th century.

Many countries in Latin America, including Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Trinidad, define themselves as made up of
mixed-race people, either mestizos (a mixture of European and indigenous descent) or mulatos (a mixture of
European and African descent).
The promotion of mestizaje, racial mixture,
has a long history in Latin America, dating
back to the 19th century.

It's a product of the region's history of

colonization and the uniquely hybrid makeup
of its population as a result of the
cohabitation of Europeans, indigenous
groups, Africans, and (later) Asians.

MESTIZOS (a mixture of European and

indigenous descent)
Or
MULATOS (a mixture of European and
African descent).
DIASPORA

Refers to people who have been displaced or

dispersed from their homelands, and who
possess and share a collective memory and
myth, and the nostalgic reminiscence of
“home” (“imaginary homelands” to use
Rushdie’s term) or an inherited ideology of
“home” becomes a personal identity as well
as a collective identity of members of a
particular community.
DIASPORIC CINEMA
• Diasporic cinema refers to the film making of any community of exiles or immigrants
who do not live in their homeland and have settled in other countries. It encompasses
a plethora of genres, sub-genres and themes in film studies.

• Diasporic cinema focuses more on cultural aspects rather than ‘nation’ due to this,
there no linguistic and cultural boundaries. However, there are similarities in terms of
genres, themes, execution and targeted audience. Ethnicity, race, culture, identity,
colonialism and capitalism are some of the themes associated with it.
• They portray the cultural and social conditions of the people and often interact with
the culture and society of the country where they live. They address issues of the
paradoxes of exile, belonging to different cultures and communities which often face
xenophobic hate, the clash of identities, etc. In academia, diasporic cinema had
become an important part of film studies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdKzUbAiswE
GAYATRI SPIVAK
“CAN THE SUBALTERN SPEAK?”
Spivak is best known for her essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?"

Subaltern = Subordinate position in terms of class, gender, race and culture.

Subaltern people are those who are voiceless, written out of the historical record
and ignored because their activities do not count for culture/structure.

Subaltern according to Spivak is those who belong to third world countries.

It is impossible for them to speak up as they are divided by gender, class, caste,
region, religion and other narratives. These divisions do not allow them to stand
up in unity.
The ‘subaltern' is a term Spivak borrow form the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci to signify the
oppressed class.

The term “subaltern” originally means the military officer whose rank is lower than a captain in British
army. Antonio Gramsci first uses it to depict anyone who lives in the bottom of the society. And this
situation might be determined by their race, gender, wealth, health, or sexual orientation, etc.
In Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’ thesis, she discusses about the
subaltern’s trauma of “unable to speak”.

To Spivak, the subaltern cannot speak for themselves, and they can
only be represented by the others who control the right of
speaking. The subalterns are the marginal people, and main stream
people could not understand their traumas.

Spivak’s well-known (and controversial) argument is that:

The subaltern cannot speak for him/herself because the very

Structure of colonial power (it must be noted that Spivak is
speaking of the context of colonialism) prevents the speaking.

“ no, the subaltern cannot speak, they can only

be spoken for”.
SOCIAL FORMATIONS AND THE SUBALTERNS
Salaam Bombay!, Mira Nair, 1988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYciGm4tziI&t=54s
POSTCOLONIAL CINEMA STUDIES
Both postcolonial theory and film studies emerged at the end of the 1970s with
the development of semiotic theory and poststructuralist thought.

Both areas engage intensively with the field of representation, implying the ways
in which a language, be it cinematic or otherwise, manages to convey reality as
“mediated” and “discursive,” and therefore influenced by power relations.

'Postcolonial Cinema Studies argues that current experiences of migration,

economic exploitation, militarization, racial and religious conflicts, and tensions
between citizens and non-citizens are haunted by colonial and neocolonial
histories globally.
https://mubi.com/lists/postcolonial-cinema
KEY CONCEPTS OF
POSTCOLONIALISM
1.
2.
Imperialism > its an ideology and colonialism is its practical form.
Colonialism > European occupation on non-European lands.
3. Colony > place occupied by the colonizer.
4. Binary opposition > Binary oppositions are structurally related to one another, and in colonial discourse there may be a variation of the one
underlying binary – colonizer/colonized – that becomes rearticulated in any particular text in a number of ways, e.g. colonizer : colonized.
white : black. civilized : primitive. advanced : retarded.
5. Us and The Other, ‘The Othering of the other’
6. Decolonization > resistance against colonizers.
7. Neocolonialism > a remote control form of colonialism [politicians,world banks,military]
8. Nativity > celebrate being a native.
9. Mimicry > the means by which the colonized adapt the culture (language, education, clothing, etc.) of the colonizer but always in the
process changing it in important ways. Such an approach always contains it in the ambivalence of hybridity.
10. Assimilation
11. Third Space
12. Hybridity > Hybridity/ Syncretism: new transcultural forms that arise from cross-cultural exchange. Hybridity can be social, political,
linguistic, religious, etc. It is not necessarily a peaceful mixture, for it can be contentious and disruptive in its experience.
13. Ambivalence > the ambiguous way in which colonizer and colonized regard one another. The colonizer often regards the colonized as both
inferior yet exotically other, while the colonized regards the colonizer as both enviable yet corrupt. In a context of hybridity, this often
produces a mixed sense of blessing and curse.
14. Subaltern
15. Diaspora refers to people who have been displaced or dispersed from their homelands, and who possess and share a collective memory
and myth, and the nostalgic reminiscence of “home” (“imaginary homelands” to use Rushdie’s term) or an inherited ideology of “home”
becomes a personal identity as well as a collective identity of members of a particular community.