Cinema and its socio-political context

Abstract

Cinema, as well as other media, literary and factual, can, from time to time illustrate a link to identity (Campbell, 1998). Identity can apply to individuals as well as institutions and societies. Identity can be positive, negative and expressive of ideas, values, norms and even reasons behind foreign policy. Often we accept identity as linked closely to our being. It characterizes those things we treasure as well as habits and customs that can be conscious or unconscious. Identity can attach to good things and bad. It can represent a utopian view of ourselves, and even be contradictory. It is contradictory when we acquire a new identity. This can evolve as people migrate or emigrate to a new society. Identity can be challenged. We can be segregated in a society; we can be thought to be deviant in society; we can be thought to be different in some way such as racial, ethnic, gender or religious. Most societies have such differences within their own nations. Further, as we encounter other societies, we see what Edward Said would have said is “other” behavior. Practically every society is partially “other” to other societies. The Cold War was an example of two “others” fearful of each other. That is because “otherness” can challenge one’s own identity. The cold war saw a challenge to capitalism on one side; to communism on the other side. To ward off “other” behavior, we construct barriers. We protect borders. We are fearful and therefore, we may project our fear on the other as an enemy. Further, we may assume that any member of an “other” group is the same and therefore, a potential enemy. Cinema has been used to portray identities either normative or imagined. During the Weimar Republic, and later, German movies portrayed the Alpine settings of Germany as clean, fresh and inspiring. This was the “heimat” (homeland) with which all Germans could identify. It was the symbol of life in Germany. Other societies were not as clean, fresh and pure. Hitler and the Nazis used the heimat to build an affiliation with the German homeland. Others had tried to humiliate Germany at the Treaty of Versailles. Germans were paying for this literally and figuratively. The Nazis wanted to rebuild German character in order to revivify hope and national pride. Cinemas were also used to counteract others both inside (for example, Jews) and outside (for example, communists). Such movies not only energized Germans ravished by inflation and humiliation but set the foundation for transferring their anger to Jews, Bolsheviks and others who threatened to derail capacities of the German people. Identity can change. Some Germans left Germany, not only Jews but artists, musicians, actors/actresses and academics. Some went to East Germany, some went to the U.S. and others went elsewhere. They left to get away from potential physical and psychological harm by the Nazis. Some returned later, after World War II and after the Cold War. But they had encountered a new identity having lived elsewhere. German films in the 21st century illustrate the change and contradictory aspect of the new identity now encountering the old heimat. The thesis explores these themes including some references to Soviet and American films. The stories are the same: identity and the possibility of change and a conflicting identity. One thing is clear. Identity is important. It can change or stay the same. But it cannot be obliterated forever. If denied, it can resurface.