Browsing by Author "Laltha, Samiksha."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Diasporic identities, divine presences and the dynamics of power in Deepa Mehta's filmography (1996-2008)
(2014) Laltha, Samiksha.; Stobie, Cheryl.
This dissertation explores Hindu diasporic identities through the medium of four films directed by Deepa Mehta. The analysis of Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Water (2005) and Heaven on Earth (2008) reveals the contrary nature of Hindu culture, while simultaneously providing measures to negotiate a culture that is thousands of years old. The film texts were selected as they have caused controversy while also initiating debate, both within the Indian sub-continent and the Indian diaspora. Utilising post-colonial and feminist discourses, I explore the ability for marginalised individuals (women, children and queer individuals) to gain access to power through structures that have previously resulted in oppression and subjugation. These structures include culture, gender, sexuality and the forces of colonialism. I reveal how subjects, despite their oppression, are able to gain some agency, voice and cohesion. Within contemporary society the social standing of women, both within the diaspora and the Indian sub-continent, needs re-evaluation. My research therefore illustrates how marginalised individuals are positioned within Hindu culture and demonstrates that there is no justification for the mistreatment of such individuals. Hindu culture is one of the few cultures that is primarily devoted to the worship of the female figure. An in-depth and critical analysis of Hindu mythology places the Goddess and female figure at the centre of Hindu culture. This stands in contrast to the patriarchal elements that have come to define Hindu culture. Re-affirming the place of women within Hindu culture bestows them with power, equal to that which men wield. Through her filmography, Mehta uses Hindu mythology to reveal the double standards that Hindu culture embodies. Mehta also exposes the endless possibilities that mythology exhibits for the change in treatment towards marginalised individuals.
“My life is nothing but a comedy”: madness and revenge tragedy in Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019)
(2022) Akoo, Selma.; Laltha, Samiksha.
This dissertation analyses the employment of madness and the revenge tragedy in the contemporary Hollywood film Joker (dir. Phillips, 2019). By focussing on the causation that leads to the protagonist’s tragic fate, I argue that the protagonist’s use of blood revenge is due to the city’s indifferent nature towards its marginalised and mentally ill citizens. Though the protagonist’s crimes cannot warrant any justification, an empathetic understanding can be bridged to the audience due to the intimate portrayal of his suffering. Madness is most certainly loaded with diverse histories and persists as an anomaly to humans. The current interpretation of madness, within the context of mental illness, greatly differs from its early understanding incorporating societal rejection of those who failed to uphold the standards of societal convention. In Joker, it is further attributed to individuality and liberation from the constraints of societal convention. My research maintains that the film deploys madness as a defensive and coping mechanism against the tyranny of societal structures, through which the protagonist emancipates his dangerous and powerful Joker persona. In addition, I analyse the portrayal of mental illness in Joker. I impartially explore the film’s rally for mental illness awareness and compare it to its damaging depiction of a violent and murderous mentally ill protagonist. The film essentially embodies both redeeming and harmful portrayals of mental illness. I henceforth assess the presence of the revenge tragedy in Joker by examining the formula of the genre’s leading precedent, The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd, [1592] 1898). The Kydian formula establishes the structure of a revenge tragedy narrative employing blood revenge as its primary method of retribution, and it is through this formula that I am able to locate and justify the presence of the revenge tragedy in Joker (dir. Phillips, 2019). Due to the cold-blooded vengeance the protagonist undertakes, I evaluate the cautionary tale around the mistreatment of the mentally ill which gave rise to the events in the film. As a result of this, my research asserts that the protagonist ultimately occupies the seat of the anti-hero despite the brutal nature of his crimes. The societal system reigns as the true villain of the film, because if it were not for the systematic marginalisation of Gotham’s disadvantaged and mentally ill citizens, as well as the callous nature of society, then the protagonist may have not walked down the dark path that he did.
The rebel hero and social anxieties in selected cinematic representations of the twenty-first century hollywood dystopian and science fiction imaginary.
(2017) Laltha, Samiksha.; Stobie, Cheryl.
This thesis focuses on the rebel hero located within four twenty-first century Hollywood films. These films are Equilibrium (2002, dir. Kurt Wimmer), The Island (2005, dir. Michael Bay), The Giver (2014, dir. Phillip Noyce) and Ridley Scott’s science fiction film Prometheus (2012). Drawing from a cultural studies perspective, this analysis focuses on heroism through rebellion, by discussing the psychological journey of the hero within each film text. The first three films focus on the male rebel hero. By contrast, Scott’s film offers an analysis of the female hero (and female alien) through my employment of a feminist lens. More broadly, this thesis explores the social, cultural, technological and psychological anxieties that utopian and science fiction films project onto the viewer. These anxieties focus on the psychological impacts of war and trauma, the use and dangers of technology, the power of totalitarian regimes and the female body, as represented by a female hero and the female alien. Utopia and its filmic representation are dependent on the lens of science fiction. The texts in this study show the capacity for the genre of utopian and science fiction film to explore trauma studies. The films that form part of this analysis are initially introduced as seeming utopias, even projecting eutopian elements. The hero at the centre of each narrative is initially compliant with the utopia. The moral awakening of the hero signals the emergence of dystopian elements in each utopia. Dissent on the part of the hero brings about an alternate utopia, one accompanied by hope for the future. Through journeying (physically and psychologically) each hero’s characteristics for rebellion are revealed, which they use to transform their respective societies. In relation to heroism, this thesis ultimately draws a distinction between the psychological journey of the female hero with that of the male hero. This study illuminates the capacity for utopian and science fiction film to act as warnings for the present and the future, drawing from dystopian elements in human history. This analysis therefore places an emphasis on history and remembering rather than on the projected future, revealing the value of utopian and science fiction film for our current time.
Wit(h)nessing trauma in Han Kang’s the white book (2016)
(2020) Judd, Ruby.; Laltha, Samiksha.
This dissertation presents a literary analysis of The White Book (2016) by the South Korean writer, Han Kang. In a series of semi-autobiographical prose passages, The White Book (2016) explores the socio-political and spiritual need to process trauma in a cross-cultural, globalised landscape. My aim is to examine how the text offers an alternative, feminine paradigm for representing, reading and bearing the burden of another’s pain. The narrative voice identifies herself as a Korean woman living in Poland. She foregrounds her role as a writer in poetically recounting and rewriting her sister’s life and death. Her metafictional thoughts are reflected through a series of short vignettes or prose passages that meditate on the colour white. Whiteness is closely aligned with the womb, feminine symbols, corporeality, transformation, spirituality, mourning rituals, and transitional and shifting landscapes. I argue that the narrator shares a common zeitgeist with the revisionist thinking of Bracha Ettinger, an Israeli artist, and academic of French psychoanalytic feminism. Going beyond the archetypes of motherhood and creativity, both artists use the pregnant-maternal body as an entry point for expanding our understanding of the aesthetic representation of trauma. For Ettinger, pregnancy forms the basis for a new connection-based, embodied mode of remembering through art she terms wit(h)nessing. Similarly, the narrator of The White Book’s (2016) concern with the colour white as a symbol of border-crossing, instability and maternity, creates a poetry that seems to mediate trauma via visceral connections. Through the lens of Ettinger’s theory, I interrogate how womb imagery and whiteness in the text—both the symbolic representation of the colour as a poetic motif as well as the vast white spaces and photographs which form part of the layout of the text—come to represent a distinctive mode of wit(h)nessing and mourning the death of another through poetry/art.