Voice and agency / 5 broken cameras

Question 1

“Stereotype, Realism and the Struggle over Representation,” excerpts from pages 178-219 (Shohat & Stam)

Answer 1

• Stereotypes are not an error of perception but a form of social control - “prisons of images”

“Positive images”
- The exclusive preoccupation with images, whether positive or negative, leads to a kind of essentialism, as less subtle critics reduce a complex variety of portrayals o a limited set of reified formulae

Question 2

whats the problem with Essentialism

Answer 2

• Stereotypes are not static, neither is language
• Stereotype analysis fails to account for change
• focus on problem not cure

Question 3

whats the Problem with “positive representation”

Answer 3

• Character is privileged over narrative
• Places the burden on the oppressed group to be “good”, instead of the dominant group to be held accountable
• Revokes right to be multifaceted
• The US can make war films without fear of being seen as violent
• “Rather than deal with the contradictions of a community, “positive image” cinema prefers a mask of perfection”
• Where is truth in perfection

Question 4

What does the stereotype deny

Answer 4

• The right to exist

Question 5

What is the difference between language and dialect?

Answer 5

• Language doesn’t have an army/navy/airforce

Question 6

What is the problem of “speaking for the other” (spivak)

Answer 6

• Implies the group is not entitled to self representation
• Entails a process of compartmentalisation - that a person “representing” one thing can only be one thing
• The group with more power get to represent themselves and the other

Question 7

What’s the problem with the problem!
Alcoff

Answer 7

1. The hegemonic group gets out of the responsibility!!
   - It is not always the case that it is bad to speak for others no to be spoken for
   - Culture does not know clear demarkations - it confines us to one thing
2. Problem of speaking for the self
   - Being expected to represent a certain group places the expectation 1: that you are one thing 2: that you must represent the whole
   - This is a burden on minorities

Question 8

5 broken cameras

Answer 8

Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, 2011

Question 9

Metonym

Answer 9

Metonym (extension) = a substitute for something that represents its entirety

Question 10

what is the metonymic 6th camera

Answer 10

6th Camera is metonymic because it is the physical camera and also the title cards, the VoiceOver, distribution - representing the (perhaps conflicting) creative voice of agency of Davidi
- The metonymic 6th camera is everything except the raw footage

Question 11

politics of collaboration

Answer 11

• Davidi lived in Palestinian community
• He was the experienced voice - had to be Brought into the process
• BUT the power asymmetry is implicit
• The film would not exist
• Gives the story
• Gives the “voice” but it is constructed

Question 12

conflict of 5 broken cameras

Answer 12

• Conflict - Israeli or Palestinian film?
• Two directors - Israeli jewish and Palestinian from occupied territories
• Is David “speaking for” since he wrote the narration???
• Lopsided power dynamics when a film is transnational across nations with conflict

Question 13

5 broken cameras plot

Answer 13

Emad Burnat, a Palestinian villager, documents his village’s resistance against Israeli land seizures and violence using a camera he received when his fourth son was born. Despite facing arrests, shootings, and destruction of cameras, Burnat collaborates with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi in 2009 to create a documentary from the footage, depicting the struggles faced by his community.