My war, your war: understanding conflict in Africa and the Middle East through fiction film: Hotel Rwanda and The Kingdom

• Main Author: Sakota-Kokot, Tanja
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/7727

ABSTRACT This research will focus on how we understand conflict through fiction film. The thesis will analyse the two case studies Hotel Rwanda, Terry George, (2004) and The Kingdom, (Peter Berg, 2007), by focusing on three areas of study, namely, globalisation, fictional narratives, and how we remember conflict. The discussion begins with globalisation with reference to narrative content and the economic and distributive authority of Hollywood. This will be linked to film as a commodity and how popular culture (through fiction film) intersects with the ‘real’, historical world and promotes ideological perceptions of the events. Through an analysis of the narrative structure, this research shall investigate how each narrative creates ‘preferred’ readings around ethnic groups and how it assumes a truthful depiction of its referents. The discussion shall focus on how the Classic Hollywood narrative, voice and rhetoric emerge within the two films. The investigation will also examine how the films are located within memory of conflict and how they create ‘othering’ through their representation and ‘voice’. This message provides a framework within the global environment. The research will show that although the films are fictional, their global message is very much the same as to what is emerging within global media regarding mainstream as opposed to the marginalised ‘other’, whether this relates to Cultural Imperialism, fantasy others, mythical others or cultural and political associations of others.