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LITR 5831 World / Multicultural Literature Colonial-Postcolonial |
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Film / Video Highlights |
Video highlights: The Quiet American
Presenter: Caryn Livingston
17 November 2015
Major
Characters
Thomas Fowler: British journalist – Michael Caine
Alden
Pyle: supposed aid worker, actual CIA operative – Brendan Fraser
Phuong, lover to both men - Đỗ Thị Hải Yến
Setting: Vietnam, 1952 – nearing the end of French-Indochina War
7:26
– 9:30: Dangers to Democracy
1.
What
are your impressions of Pyle, and how do his American views of democracy around
the world apply to what we’ve been learning about colonialism this semester?
2.
Issues of American ignorance of larger world and alternative worldviews – does
American resistance to or ignorance of postcolonial criticism react to this
discourse’s development from outposts of the former British Empire and French /
Francophone traditions?
26:00
– 27:30 “We’re not colonialists”
1.
How
does the violence depicted as a result of the colonial war relate to other
violence we’ve read of this semester? How does this scene relate to the
incursion into Africa in Heart of
Darkness?
2.
How
authentic is Pyle’s claim about America’s involvement in colonized regions? Is
America (USA) an imperial, colonial, or neo-imperial nation? Or an “empire in
denial?”
1:02:15 – 1:03:30 Treatment of Vietnamese women
1.
Observing representations or repressions of gender in male-dominant fields of
cross-cultural contact – how might women be viewed in colonial and post-colonial
literature as another resource to exploit?
2.
In
what ways do colonized women seek to benefit from the colonial relationship? Are
they only exploited victims, or is the relationship in some ways reciprocal?
1:10:30 – 1:12:30 and 1:16:00 – 1:18:00 Truth revealed
1.
How
does America’s involvement in foreign government, as depicted here, relate to
colonialism as we have studied it thus far? Is maneuvering foreign governments
rather than setting up a branch of your own still colonial?
