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5
best, and at worst, dangerous. I saw this taboo reflected in the ways the American mass news
media and entertainment industry produce distorted representations of Palestine that reflect
favorably towards the state of Israel.13 I saw it reflected in the history of domestic terrorism and
state repression perpetrated against Palestinian-American activists and civil rights
organizations.14 And I saw it reflected in what Arab American and Middle East Studies scholars
have documented as a general culture of self-censorship that has existed around Palestine-related
studies in the US academy.15 This is why it came as a surprise to me to find Palestine Film
Festivals not merely existing, but thriving in places, which, in many ways, could be considered
the cultural and institutional nerve centers of compulsory Zionism in the United States. Places
such as my hometown of Cambridge, MA and the greater Metro Boston area, which I had
13 Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (New York:
New York University Press, 2012); Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters : Culture, Media, and U.S.
Interests in the Middle East Since 1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Luke
Matthew Peterson, Israel-Palestine in the News Media: Contending Discourses (New York: Routledge,
2015); Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Northampton, MA: Olive
Branch Press, 2009).
14 A series of domestic terror attacks were perpetrated against Palestinian-American civil rights activists
and Arab-American civil rights organizations during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972, Robert Steven
Manning, who was then a member of the Jewish Defense League, was convicted of bombing the Los
Angeles home of Palestinian-American activist. In 1985, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC) was the target of a several attacks: ADC’s west coast Director, Alex Odeh, was killed
by a bomb planted at the regional office in Santa Ana, CA; the national office in Washington, D.C. was
ransacked and set ablaze; and a bomb which had been planted at the New England regional office in
Boston, MA injured two police officers who attempted to diffuse it. Eric Malnic, “Ex-JDL Activist Found
Guilty in Bombing Death.” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1993. Accessed March 18, 2016.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-15/local/me-46008_1_bombing-death; John Ward Anderson, “FBI
Probes Attacks on Arab Group: FBI Probes for Rights Violations In Attacks Against Arab Group.” The
Washington Post. December 6, 1985, accessed March 8, 2016,
http://search.proquest.com/docview/138412894.
15 Many scholars have written on the challenges faced by Arab American studies and Middle East studies
scholars in the American academy. For details, see: Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar. Anthropology’s
Politics: Disciplining the Middle East (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015); Steven Salaita,
Uncivil Rights: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015);
Therese Saliba, “Resisting Invisibility: Arab Americans in Academia and Activism,” Arabs in America:
Building a New Future. Michael Suleiman, ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2000).
Object Description
| Title | Cinematic activism: film festivals and the exhibition of Palestinian cultural politics in the United States |
| Author | Cable, Umayyah |
| Author email | cable@usc.edu;umayyah.cable@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | American Studies and Ethnicity |
| School | College of Letters, Arts and Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2016-04-19 |
| Date submitted | 2016-06-07 |
| Date approved | 2016-06-07 |
| Restricted until | 2018-06-07 |
| Date published | 2018-06-07 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Gualtieri, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Halberstam, Jack Keeling, Kara Harrison, Olivia C. Alsultany, Evelyn |
| Abstract | Cinematic Activism examines how marginalized or underrepresented identity-based and cause-based groups leverage film culture in order to foment social, cultural, or political change. I explore this in detail by analyzing how Palestine-themed film festival organizing in the United States has emerged as a method for the open expression of Palestinian cultural politics within a broader cultural context that is marked by hegemonic institutional and political support for the state of Israel, or what I call “compulsory Zionism.” I draw on queer and feminist theory in order to illustrate how the social power relations within the United States construct Palestinian cultural identity and politics as the politically and culturally queer Other within the context of compulsory Zionism. ❧ This project is based on oral history interviews with participants of the Boston Palestine Film Festival, film festival participant observation, visual analysis of films and festival materials, and qualitative analysis of print news discourses on Palestinian cinema. I trace the emergence of Palestinian cinematic activism to the 1980s and 1990s, wherein controversies over the exhibition of Palestinian cinema in cities such as Boston and San Francisco made the institutional and cultural censorship of Palestinian cultural politics highly visible while simultaneously identifying film exhibition as a powerful tool by which to dismantle institutionalized compulsory Zionism. At the same time, these controversies were frequently cast in relation to controversies over the expression of LGBT/Q cultural politics through art and cinema. This project therefore also historicizes the relationships between Palestinian cultural politics and LGBT/Q cultural politics, which continue to interact today within the realm of film festivals, such as Outside the Frame: Queers for Palestine Film Festival, Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, and the Out in Israel Film Festival. Cinematic Activism is ultimately a study of culture and power that interrogates cinema’s role in the production of transnational solidarities and political activism. |
| Keyword | Palestinian cinema; Arab Americans; activism; film festivals; cultural politics; film; media; Zionism; racism; queer theory |
| Language | English |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Cable, Umayyah |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-CableUmayy-4424.pdf |
| Archival file | Volume8/etd-CableUmayy-4424.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 14 |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 5 best, and at worst, dangerous. I saw this taboo reflected in the ways the American mass news media and entertainment industry produce distorted representations of Palestine that reflect favorably towards the state of Israel.13 I saw it reflected in the history of domestic terrorism and state repression perpetrated against Palestinian-American activists and civil rights organizations.14 And I saw it reflected in what Arab American and Middle East Studies scholars have documented as a general culture of self-censorship that has existed around Palestine-related studies in the US academy.15 This is why it came as a surprise to me to find Palestine Film Festivals not merely existing, but thriving in places, which, in many ways, could be considered the cultural and institutional nerve centers of compulsory Zionism in the United States. Places such as my hometown of Cambridge, MA and the greater Metro Boston area, which I had 13 Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11 (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters : Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East Since 1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Luke Matthew Peterson, Israel-Palestine in the News Media: Contending Discourses (New York: Routledge, 2015); Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009). 14 A series of domestic terror attacks were perpetrated against Palestinian-American civil rights activists and Arab-American civil rights organizations during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972, Robert Steven Manning, who was then a member of the Jewish Defense League, was convicted of bombing the Los Angeles home of Palestinian-American activist. In 1985, the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) was the target of a several attacks: ADC’s west coast Director, Alex Odeh, was killed by a bomb planted at the regional office in Santa Ana, CA; the national office in Washington, D.C. was ransacked and set ablaze; and a bomb which had been planted at the New England regional office in Boston, MA injured two police officers who attempted to diffuse it. Eric Malnic, “Ex-JDL Activist Found Guilty in Bombing Death.” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1993. Accessed March 18, 2016. http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-15/local/me-46008_1_bombing-death; John Ward Anderson, “FBI Probes Attacks on Arab Group: FBI Probes for Rights Violations In Attacks Against Arab Group.” The Washington Post. December 6, 1985, accessed March 8, 2016, http://search.proquest.com/docview/138412894. 15 Many scholars have written on the challenges faced by Arab American studies and Middle East studies scholars in the American academy. For details, see: Lara Deeb and Jessica Winegar. Anthropology’s Politics: Disciplining the Middle East (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015); Steven Salaita, Uncivil Rights: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015); Therese Saliba, “Resisting Invisibility: Arab Americans in Academia and Activism,” Arabs in America: Building a New Future. Michael Suleiman, ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2000). |
