Transnational Cinema: Comedy or Tragedy?

When reading studies on transnational cinema, we come across with some sub genres like “cinema of duty” and “cinema of pleasures and hybridity”, that makes it possible to analyze transnational films from a context based perspective rather than analyses focused on production, when needed. Cinema of duty is generally used to describe social-issue-based, problem portraying films that somehow have a darker side. Cinema of pleasures and hybridity, on the other side, stands for a cinema that is closer to the comedy genre that celebrates ethnic and cultural differences through colorful representations.

According to some scholars there is a shift from cinema of duty towards cinema of hybridity and pleasures since 1990s (Deniz Göktürk, 2000). Although it is not very easy to determine which genre of transnational cinema is more efficient in building a stronger image about diaspora and migrant cultures, we should still be critical towards what image is being constructed. There are times when we see the rise of transnational films that refer to a specific culture or nation and there are times when a certain subject is left out of the picture. Power struggles among states play an important role in here; cinema is a great political instrument when there is a need to build up a new image in people’s minds. For instance, when we look at the list of holocaust films, we see that Israeli films, compared with United States or Germany are very little in numbers. In some way, this means that U.S. and Germany (as a country who contributed a lot to the strengthening of the concept of holocaust) has still more things to say than the real victims of holocausts on cinema.

Cinema of pleasures and hybridity can be seen as a more gentle, empathetically successful and anti-violent genre of cinema. Therefore, its effects on viewers are usually commemorated with laughter, sympathy and joy. This is the point where this type of a cinema may become dangerous: the previously known image about a certain culture, perhaps a stereotype, is subject to change. This is one of the reasons why transnational cinema examples should also be analyzed from a historical and political perspective as well: the events that occurred in history should be taken into consideration while looking at these films. The reframing of minorities and diaspora cultures is a double-ended discussion; the objectivity of cinema should always be questioned because there are more double standards than we can actually see. U.S. film industry is gigantesque when compared to Israeli or Turkish cinema; therefore it has more budget and more power to create while “3^rd world” countries have to be cautious in spending their precious money.

Reference:

- D. Göktürk, 2000. Turkish delight - German Fright: Migrant Identities in Transnational Cinema. School of Modern Languages, University of Southampton

Further Reading:

- Katherine Pratt Ewing, 2006. Between Cinema and Social Work: Diasporic Turkish Women and the (Dis)Pleasures of Hybridity. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 21, Issue 2, pp. 265–294, ISSN 0886-7356

- Barbara Mennel, 2010. Politics of Space in the Cinema of Migration. GFL Journal, N.3, Gainesville , Florida