LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 18:2 February 2018
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

Language in India www.languageinindia.com is included in the UGC Approved List of Journals. Serial Number 49042.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2016
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Depiction of Tribal Culture in English Movies:
A Critical Analysis

Ravindra Gomaji Vaidya, M.A.


Abstract

The present paper explores the nuances of the depiction of tribal culture in the new age medium the movies. Tribe and tribal culture sporadically gets represented in the medium of expressions controlled by capitalist and aristocratic elites. It is true in case of both traditional print medium as well as the new technologically advanced medium like movie. The pertinent question in this regard would be: when it gets represented, is it really unbiased? Does the medium perpetuate the discrimination based on race, religion, skin color and many other factors that have been prevalent in discriminating and dividing the world into binaries such as: white-black, west-east, occident-orient, man-woman, and so on? Do these movies fall for stereotypes or bring forth the real picture of tribal life and culture to the audiences? The paper while seeking answer to these questions focuses on how the first cinema movies (dominant Hollywood productions) perpetuate colonial ideology of degrading the subjects to relegate them to the secondary positions.

Keywords: tribal culture, English movies, representation, binary, medium, first cinema, capitalist, aristocratic.

Introduction

In the digital age, movie as a medium has evolved to be the most popular as well as effective medium of mass communication. Traditional print media, viz. newspaper, journals, articles, and above all literary expressions have, so far, been the mirrors of the society. Yet the print medium could not become the universal medium in the sense that these forms of expression were the sources of information as well as entertainment for the literate population. The knowledge and perspectives of life imbibed within them had limited impact. In fact, these media have been restricted to the elite classes of the society. And, therefore, only the issues and perspectives comfortable to the elites, (of course there are exceptions) had accommodated the pages of these expressions. Even the seemingly revolutionary literary pieces have hidden agendas to protect the interests of the dominant classes. Movie, on the other hand, being a blend of technology and art soon became the most popular, universal and the first industrialized art form. It is viewed as the medium with utopian possibilities of social change. The movie as a text caters to the needs of both the literate and the illiterate alike.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ravindra Gomaji Vaidya, M.A.
Head, Department of English
New Arts, Commerce and Science College
Shevgaon 414502
Maharashtra
India
vaidya.ravindra20@gmail.com

Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.