Incendies, Babel, and the Global Hollywood Gaze - Essay Example

How the Global Hollywood Gaze helps in Understanding the Meaning, Ideologies and Context of the Films Incendies and Babel According to Deborah Shaw’sBabel and the Global Hollywood Gaze, world cinema is strenuously promoted and lends respectability to DVD collections, academic publishing, academic courses and film festivals. In academia field, world cinema refers to canon of great cultural text. In commerce, global cinema has links to world music; they are films that have root in particular national context but with ingredients that can sell in international markets (Deborah, 2009). In pedagogical context, global cinema refers to a collection of national cinemas usually in canonical and idealized syllabus for film studies students. World cinemas also refer to films that seek to pass information about the world. These films focus on the relationships between socio-political issues and citizens. The texts intricately address issues of globalization. They center on the ways in which relations of power and authority between nations and people are evident on the screen. The films are often transitional in their production, crew and cast. This task looks at the manner in which films Incendies and Babel meet the criteria of world cinema. Both films are, indeed, world cinemas as they relay several aspects and characteristics of world cinema as will be seen from the text. Rebel is a movie of great global ambition and scale. The Hollywood production is a perfect example of what could be termed as a world cinema. It tells of 4 stories located in four different countries; Japan, Morocco, Mexico and USA. The film is in six languages. To emphasize the fact that Babel is a global cinema, the six languages (Moroccan, Berber, Arabic, Japanese, sign language and English) have been translated to suit global audience. The four stories in the four countries are held together by an accident. Two goat herders in Morocco, Yussef and Ahmed unwittingly shoot an American tourist when testing their riffle. The storyline shifts to the aftermath of the shooting for the family. The second storyline outlines the aftermath of the shooting to the victims and concentrates on attempts by Susan to survive in the shack in her tourist guide. The film goes on to indicate how the incident sours the diplomatic relationship between America and Morocco as American government take the accident as an act of terrorism by Islamic radicals against its citizens. In a third story, a US couple living in Morocco is featured under the care of a Mexican nanny in California (Media Capital, 2011). Amelia the nanny takes the children for her son’s wedding in a neighboring village, Tijuana without alternative childcare. This leads to her arrest and deportation and the authorities deny her the chance to get back to US where she had worked and lived for many years. The fourth story that is set in Japan features Chieko, a deaf-mute teenager facing traumas. His father had been to a hunting trip to Morocco, gave his rifle to his guide and the same rifle was used to shoot Susan, the tourist. By all chances, this is a depiction of global film (Carruthers, 2007). Shaw uses Babel to create a novel ‘world cinema’ gaze. Babel is a new sort of film that the author of the article attempts to use to create global Hollywood gaze within commercial Hollywood context. She examines the manner in which it approaches this and asks whether or not the film succeeds in this attempt. She explores the tensions between conservative and progressive political agendas and pays attention to the way other cultures are seen in the movie with Third World pretensions and the United States money behind it. In Babel, the Hollywood gaze is evidently that of the tourist. The film places the viewer in the position of North American. All other cultures that are outside North American are viewed as inferior. The Mexican nanny, Yussuf and Ahmed from Morocco and the Japanese reveler get treatment of second class citizens from events that intricately originate from the accidental death of Suzan the tourist. This film challenges cultural norms by globalization and takes a deeper look into the common difficulties with communication. Debora Shaw notes that the plot of the film as a global film creates a gap between the home positioning of the individual subject and the entirety of class structures in which it is situated. There is a gap between the reality that transcends all individual experience and thinking in different parts of the world in which the film is viewed and the phenomenal perception. Viewing the film would cause incapacitation of the mind, at least at the viewing time, to map the great global multinational and the de-centered communicational network in which they find themselves caught. Furthermore, the film subscribes to global gaze by reaching the world audience from North American perspective. It gives an impression that all other cultural practices in Morocco, Japan and Mexico are alien to the norm (Deborah, 2009). American culture and lifestyle takes precedence over the other practices and the viewer places himself in a North American position. There are many contemporary social issues discussed in this film that leaves audience with emotional trauma and a third world perspective that brings audiences out of their comfort zones. Perception of the West on Islam and terrorism comes out clear. Although Yussuf and Ahmed shoot Susan accidentally, it becomes a diplomatic row and the US government insists that the “killers” were Islamist terrorists (Deborah, 2009). In a publication by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, he notes the paradoxes that theorists have often tolerated in their definition of nationalism. The first of these paradoxes is the objective modernity of countries in the perspective of historians versus their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists. Secondly, there is the paradox of the formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural model versus the irremediable distinctiveness of its tangible appearance. Finally, the author notes the paradox of the power of nationalism versus their incoherence and philosophical poverty. Nationality is pathology of modern day pathology and is inescapable in an individual (Benedict, 2012). Yet, it has same essential ambiguity attached to it. Incendies is the film that awakens the paradoxes of nationalism to reality. The film is set in Quebec and an unidentified Middle Eastern country. The unnamed country in the Middle East is probably Lebanon. The tantalizing puzzle in the movie begins from the reading of a will of the late mother of two youths in their 20s. The core aspect that gives Incendies a global gaze is the fact that it is set in more than one country. It appeals to both viewers in Canada and the unnamed country in the Middle East. The plot begins with the two youths getting instructions from their dead mother’s will to search for and find their father who they had all along believed to be dead. Incendies tells of global issues; problems that face more than one part of the world. Political instability and civil wars are some of the global problems that the film reveals. In the overture to Incendies, there is a group of small boys having most of their hair shaved off by soldiers (Rosenstone, 2009). The young boys are bloodied and badly bruised, revealing that they have been under some sort of torture and traumatizing pain. Some sort of attack has certainly just happened. The song in the background is slurred and sad, revealing the sort of sad and torturous life the young boys are probably enduring. As a result of the difficult life, the boys have become tough and monstrous (Edelstein, 2013). One of the boys with a tattoo of dots on his back-foot looks into the camera with monstrous gaze that eats into the mind. As in Babel, this film also challenges cultural norms by globalization and takes a deeper look into the common difficulties with communication. Most evidently, a cultural misunderstanding revolves around religious beliefs in the Middle East (Benedict, 2012). Nawal was a Christian who got disgraced when she fell in love with a Muslim refugee. Her brothers promptly murdered her boyfriend. Nawal’s baby was taken from her and her grandmother sent her to a distant university in another city. Civil war broke out and religious animosity heightened. Right wing Christians massacred Muslims as Muslims massacred Christians in revenge. One of the youths in search for their father, Simon, found his mother distant and unreliable (Edelstein, 2013). Jeane, the graduate student teaching pure mathematics in Montreal travels to the Middle East to learn about the mother she barely knew. These many contemporary social issues discussed in this film that leaves audience with emotional trauma and a third world perspective that brings audiences out of their comfort zones. The global film has a simple connection between the settings in Canada and the Middle East. Jeanne is the connection between the plots in Canada and the Middle East. Incendies’ global reach is conditioned by Canadian perspective. Both Babel and Incendies are world cinemas, as they possess most aspects of global cinemas. Other than having settings in more than one geographical location, the films explore global issues. They have commercial ability to sell in different parts of the world, as their themes are relevant to several parts of the globe. Incendies fits into Shaw’s article in a number of ways. Foremost, the film talks about globalization as evident in the aspects already discussed. Further, the film shows relationships between citizens that have been affected by different global atmosphere. Whereas Jeanne who had grown in Quebec was gentle and mild, her brother who had grown up in the hostile Middle East was strangely antagonistic. This creates a scenario of difficulty in communication between the siblings that Shaw expounded upon in his article. The film also creates thematic link between people in the different global settings. Through the relationship between Jeanne and her mother and Simon, the film brings together the settings and plots in Canada and the Middle East. Works Cited Benedict, A. (2012). Imagined Communities: Reflections on Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso Publishers. Carruthers, L. S. (2007, June 2). The Manchurian Candidate and the Cold War Brainwashing Scare. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013, from Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01439689800260031 Deborah, S. (2009). Rebel and the Global Holywood Gaze. Rebel and the Global Holywood Gaze , 23. Edelstein, D. (2013, June 21). A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Horror. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Horror: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/22/135541389/a-heartbreaking-work-of-staggering-horror Media Capital. (2011). Media Capital: Towards the Study of Spatial Flows. International Journal of Cultural Studies , 21-54. Rosenstone, R. A. (2009, June 3). The Reel Joan of Arc: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of the Historical Film. Retrieved Dec 3, 2013, from Jstor Library: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/tph.2003.25.3.61 . Read More