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The Colonial Gaze in Film: re-wathching Roland Joffé's "The Mission"

I thought I was so smart coming up with this idea after learning about the male gaze several years ago. Let us refresh our minds and re-examine the wiki defining "In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_gaze. Last accessed July 22, 2021). There is an abundance of quality explanations and explorations on this topic from a variety of points of academic rigour. I personally will be using Mollie Bowman as a guide and model and inspiration. I need direction.



Of course I will not be the first one to apply this technique to the ideas of a colonial gaze. This will be the first time that I have re-watched a film while critically reflecting on the colonial gaze. "The Mission" was assigned as a reading in our Colonization/Decolonization NAIITS course. I will be re-watching using time codes and note taking with subtitles on. I will talk about the watching in a future post.

When we simply look at those involved in filming, producing, casting, scoring, and directing--there are no indigenous people. Then look at the actors. There were 5 credited indigenous actors, none of them received top-billing or even an actual name in the film. 

Let's watch!

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