Cuerpos en transito : efectos de la globalizacion en el cine social
      contemporaneo

Caballo-Marquez, Reyes.

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Caballo-Marquez, Reyes.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references.; Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. This dissertation analyzes a filmic corpus emerging in the transatlantic area that shows an ambiguous relation with Otherness. This corpus includes the movies Maria Full of Grace, Dirty Pretty Things, Princesas, Flores de otro mundo, Babel, and Paris je t'aime--with particular attention to its short film Loin du 16e. I argue that this cinema is different from other current and past manifestations of sociopolitical cinema because it is affected by globalization at its core. This new emerging cinema--which I call "cine social global"--gives visibility to marginality at the same time that it uses the Other as a strategic tool for its own marketability. In this dissertation I analyze three of its "filmic bodies" affected by globalization: 1) its individual bodies. All these movies include feminine migrant narratives. In them, the female protagonists have entered, or are on a journey to enter, the economical and cultural centers of the West. These narratives denounce the (mis)treatment of their bodies in those cultural centers, but there is an evident tension between the denouncing message and the way the Other is represented visually and aesthetically in them. This tension is derived by the current conceptualization of the body in the West, and it is a result of the nature of our current economical markets; 2) its cinematography--understood as a body in the sense that it is a strategic way of "wrapping up" the Other for the audience--is also globalized as it makes use of a language more accessible to a wider, multicultural audience. Its constant focus on corporeality might be one of the reasons why its filmic language is transnational, and it proves to be a strategic tool to facilitate this cinema's entrance into the global markets; 3) its own materiality. Some of these movies are the direct result of the new technologies that have become available in the globalized era. These new technologies have an impact on the way the Other is viewed, conceptualized, and consumed. They also give the Other more visibility, as well as make it more marketable.