Love Juliet... and Keep Her away from Palestine. Gendered and Orientalist Representations in Strangers

The Israeli film Strangers (Erez Tadmor/ Guy Nattiv, 2007) loosely integrates elements from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and uses the archetype of the star-crossed lovers to approach the Middle East conflict. This paper questions how the original structure, which relies on a rivalry between t...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/eces,
1. Verfasser: Garraio, Júlia
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Sprache:Anglais
Veröffentlicht: e-cadernos CES 2015
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Online Zugang:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:The Israeli film Strangers (Erez Tadmor/ Guy Nattiv, 2007) loosely integrates elements from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and uses the archetype of the star-crossed lovers to approach the Middle East conflict. This paper questions how the original structure, which relies on a rivalry between two identical parties, is transposed to a setting where the power relations are marked by inequality. By examining the political meanings and the Orientalist overtones that are embedded in the process of gendering Israel and Palestine through the protagonists, this paper argues that Strangers affirms Israel’s cultural and moral superiority and silences the structural violence of both the occupation and the dispossession of the Palestinians. Granted that a key element in Shakespeare is the final reconciliation between the families, this paper finally questions the pertinence of Shakespeare’s play as a hypotext to address the realities of the Middle East.