Thought Piece On “Stereotype, Realism, and the Struggle over Representation” by Shohat and Stam
MACS 361: Film Theory and Criticism
Fall 2011
Professor Sarah Projansky
Shohat and Stam discussed the meaning and function of cinematic Realism in their article, and raised the issue of self-representation concerning language use in Hollywood film. Using The Debt as an example, I will further their arguments, and illustrate my understanding of “the real” in cinema—there is no absolute real but the re-presented real; it is a textualized real, perceived by audiences.
Shohat and Stam assert “although there is no absolute truth [in cinema], no truth apart from representation and dissemination, there are still contingent, qualified, perspective truths in which communities are invested”(179). This is what Mikhail Bakhtin called “artistic representation”; they are “textualized” and “themselves social and historical” (180). The Debt is an example. First, the anti-Nazi or anti-war-criminal theme is “social and historical”, and sympathized by audiences, which is one reason for its recurrence in cinema (e.g. The Reader). Second, on the question of how real a film is, the audiences are smarter than we think. In The Debt’s case, the plot and characters are apparently fictional; however, the spirit of bringing Nazi war criminal to trial is real. Instead of asking for the real-life prototypes for the Israel Mossad agents, audiences might be more interested in the question if there were emissary action of crusading against Nazi war criminal historically—considering how people would respond to the notorious evil of Nazis postwar with background knowledge of espionage, the basic plot of The Debt seems legit—so the answer is probably yes. And this is all what matters; this is “the real” to the audiences. Thus, no matter how fake the plot and characterization are, they can be recognized and accepted. In this sense, although the story is not real, The Debt “succeeded” in re-presenting the real.
Yet, The Debt also failed in Realism on a basic level—if one cares to observe—the language. Shohat and Stam bring up the fact that Hollywood films are always in English no matter in its own (American) stories or those of other nations. As a result, Hollywood language, namely English, “becomes the model of ‘real’ cinema” (193); this is particular true to audience whose first language is not English—I myself am an example. Although I know German as a third language, I often feel more comfortable with English-speaking even it is a German film. Partially it is because my English skill is much better. But it is more of that, in the context of globalization, the dominant Hollywood cinema makes me have this impression that (foreign) films are supposed to be in English, which functions as a world language, and even better with some American accents. Applying for The Debt (2011)—it is a remake of an Israel film in 2007 and tells stories of Israeli secret agents, which is supposed to be in Hebrew. Instead, it is mainly in English with pretended accent (because of characters’ identities), and the castings are English-speaker actors and actresses. Then there is an immediate question—which version of this film is more authentic, or more real? Conventionally, the Israeli version should be more authentic because it is the original, and the Hollywood version is already unreal on language in the first place. Yet, without watching both versions because of a language preference, I really could not choose a “more real”. Lastly, to say the least, I would not really think of “the linguistics of domination” as an issue on representing “the real” if I hadn’t read the Shohat and Stams’ article before watching, as I would had been too immersed in the film.
As a summary quoting Shohat and Stam, “spectators themselves come equipped with a ‘sense of the real’ rooted in their own experience, on the basis of which they can accept, question, or even subvert a film’s representations” (182). In other words, we all know there is no absolute real in cinema, and Hollywood filmmakers also know that we know that –that’s where they approach to re-present the reality in the way we might feel more believable or more comfortable.
