Lebanese Cinema as Resistance: Nadine Labaki’s Rejection of Orientalism and Reclamation of Female Identity

Abstract

A dichotomy between the Eastern ‘Orient’ and Western ‘Occident’ was constructed by the West, according to Edward Said. Said’s theory of ‘Orientalism’ proposes the construction of the East as a whole by the West, where the East is subordinate to the West and is constructed through academia, literature, religion, politics, economy, media representations, amongst others. The West and East are more recently referred to as Global North and Global South, respectively, which is still problematic seeing that this binary is problematic in that it essentially creates disparities between the conditions of both, with the global north having more advantages to the south. Orientalism allows for a distorted image of Eastern societies in general, and the Lebanese society in particular, and this thesis examines how Nadine Labaki’s films Caramel and Where Do We Go Now? challenge oriental tropes. This research also integrates Sara Ahmed’s theory of Queer Phenomenology to study the manners in which bodies and identities are constructed in accordance with the spaces they are situated in, and the objects that surround them, challenging the stereotypical representations of Arab Lebanese identities. Furthermore, Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is examined in relation to Labaki’s films, as I argue the films resist stereotypical representations of women that objectify them, and as such, is contributing to feminist filmmakers before her, and to feminist critics like Mulvey. The research demonstrates that Nadine Labaki’s films offer a complex and active representation of Lebanese communities for who they truly are and contributes to broader discussions on orientalism and female representation in Arab cinema.