Interesting Mike. I'm sitting here reading an article by Nancy Fraser on
"dependency" and how this normal, honourable condition became stigmatised
and narrowed in its definition, now mostly attributed, according to Fraser,
to single, black mothers. One of the points she makes is how the term
originally referred to whole groups of people, not individuals, in respect
to social position, but in the 20th century entered "the
moral/psychological register" - the 'natives' were not dependent because
they had been conquered, they had been conquered because they were dependent.
Seems to have a parallel in the way patriarchy is cast in modernity?
Andy
At 05:00 PM 13/03/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>Last evening, to continue our education and reflectiona about herrschaft,
>my wife and I went to see "Osama," an Iranian film about a girl who goes
>through puberty as the Taliban take over in Iran. It was a very painful
>experience, but one we both recommend.
>
>The ending is not a happy one.
>
>We got home early. There was an American movie about a girl who is sexually
>assaulted and murdered.
>
>The aesthetics and cultural contexts were wildly different, the fates of
>the two girls slightly different (the Iranian girl is not killed, but no
>one reading this message will wish to trade places with her or allow
>themselves
>to dwell too much on it). But the cultural assumptions underlying the
>two stories bear some eery similarities.
>
>Common, of course, is male violence against females. De facto assumed in
>the American film, de jure/de facto in the Iranian film. The supernatural
>plays an important role in both stories. Ismlamic fundamentalism in one case,
>psychics in the other. But what most distinguishes the films at the
>ideological level is where responsibility is placed. In the Afghan film,
>responsibility is at the socio-cultural level. There are individual
>differences
>and decent men, but overall, the society has condoned/been coerced into
>accepting draconian, generalized, public herrschaft. In the American film
>its a matter of individual personality disorder, as if, an abberation, that
>a persistent mother and a psychic overcome, but require men, using their
>strength, to pervail.
>
>Altogether thought provoking and disturbing. And, although a film, I believe
>excellent material for theoretical analysis of culture, gender, and
>development.
>mike
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