Ruptures in the Western empire : white female captives and cinematic orientalism /
Moumni, Omar.
Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2012.
First encounters between the east and the west in the Mediterranean are important instances of history. They are the source of constructing Myth and history that depended much on literary and cultural productions. This book investigates this history by dwelling on issues of white female captives in Moorish thralldoms and their representation in western cinema to realize the way the stories of those Christian female captives have been used and abused by their nations to achieve imperialist ambitions. This book dwells on the ambivalent attitudes of those female captives towards their empires and problematizes the strength and unity of the colonial discourse. Cinema of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflects the paradigm that western directors and producers followed. It is the construction of visual narratives they inherited from orientalism as well as the creation of visual tropes that are often created through polarities of good and bad as well as through the process of intertexuality. The western cinematic production encapsulates the other in the stereotypical framework of the cinematic production. It fixes the other with its misrepresentation and with the repetition of those stereotypes it contributes to widening the gap between the two entities the west as opposed to the east. This book analyzes all those visual texts: Movies as a battleground for opposing ideologies, as a space where we are pushed far away from the precinct of literature into the arena of politics and ideology; An arena where political, ideological and cultural struggles are enmeshed to vanquish the weak other. I read all those western cinematic productions as colonial texts. I read them from the perspective and the position of the Moorish other whose voice have been drawn for a history. By rereading this visual culture I deconstruct the stereotypes, the tropes and the constructed reality about the other and hence give the other his due and his voice uttered in the other's disruptive resistance.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
First encounters between the east and the west in the Mediterranean are important instances of history. They are the source of constructing Myth and history that depended much on literary and cultural productions. This book investigates this history by dwelling on issues of white female captives in Moorish thralldoms and their representation in western cinema to realize the way the stories of those Christian female captives have been used and abused by their nations to achieve imperialist ambitions. This book dwells on the ambivalent attitudes of those female captives towards their empires and problematizes the strength and unity of the colonial discourse. Cinema of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries reflects the paradigm that western directors and producers followed. It is the construction of visual narratives they inherited from orientalism as well as the creation of visual tropes that are often created through polarities of good and bad as well as through the process of intertexuality. The western cinematic production encapsulates the other in the stereotypical framework of the cinematic production. It fixes the other with its misrepresentation and with the repetition of those stereotypes it contributes to widening the gap between the two entities the west as opposed to the east. This book analyzes all those visual texts: Movies as a battleground for opposing ideologies, as a space where we are pushed far away from the precinct of literature into the arena of politics and ideology; An arena where political, ideological and cultural struggles are enmeshed to vanquish the weak other. I read all those western cinematic productions as colonial texts. I read them from the perspective and the position of the Moorish other whose voice have been drawn for a history. By rereading this visual culture I deconstruct the stereotypes, the tropes and the constructed reality about the other and hence give the other his due and his voice uttered in the other's disruptive resistance.
Women in motion pictures.
East and West in motion pictures.
History in motion pictures.
Captivity in motion pictures.