제삼세게 영화의 정체성과 가능성: 프레드릭 제임슨의 ＂민족적 알레고리＂ 개념의 재고 = Identity and potentiality of the Third World Cinema: Rethinking Fredric Jameson's Idal of "National Allegory"

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In the current configuration of post-modern cultural politics, all countries except the United States are considered as the third world, constituting the third culture. This also partly explains the decline of post-colonial discourse, which has focused on the relations between the first and the third worlds, the center and periphery and the Western subject and the colonial subjects. It is because the strong marginality the third culture once had tends to be obliterated in the name of the post-modern global culture. From this understanding, it is worthwhile to reconsider the infamous argument of Fredric Jameson: "all third-world texts are necessarily allegorical, and they are to be read as national allegories." The apparent essentialism and the very desire for generality in his wording (and the following totalizing effect on patterns of discourse on third world cultural products) have invited rigorous polemics. Among them, it is especially worth remembering Aijaz Amad's insistence that the proper discourse on the third world can be neither directed by such dogmatic guideline nor represented by scholars who have been educated in the West. However, I would like to focus on Jameson’s short response to Amad’s refutation, in which Jameson explains that his contention was in fact addressed to the first world, and intended to offer a way of conceptualizing the relationship of politics and literary activities. To be more specific, he wants to intervene in the first world literary and critical situation in which the individual psychology dominates interpretive modes as well as productive drives, thereby blurring the potentiality for political awareness and actions.
By reading Jameson closely, with two exemplary interpretations of Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou, 1989/1990) and Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007), this essay reveals that the concept of national allegory plays an ambivalent role for the discourse of the third world in the present time. In other words, this study proves that the third world can function as a space that remains untainted by and oppositional to those repressive social processes which have homogenized the real and imaginative terrain of the western subject. Realizing such function of the third world (and its interpretive links with nationhood) will be a necessary step for us in playing a significant role in formulating the global culture, either in the middle of mainstream or as a centripetal force of the periphery.
Lastly, revealing the validity of "national allegory" for the third world discourse is not to advocate its absolute value or truth, but to try another productive interpretive mode working for both the first and the third worlds, if, that is, there is still valid demarcation between them. Experiment on this ambivalent and alternative methodology of national allegorization is necessary only to prove the possibility of subversion in the awareness of Otherness and the realization of oscillating value in relations, which is much stronger than any dogmatic guideline.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In the current configuration of post-modern cultural politics, all countries except the United States are considered as the third world, constituting the third culture. This also partly explains the decline of post-colonial discourse, which has focused on the relations between the first and the third worlds, the center and periphery and the Western subject and the colonial subjects. It is because the strong marginality the third culture once had tends to be obliterated in the name of the post-modern global culture. From this understanding, it is worthwhile to reconsider the infamous argument of Fredric Jameson: "all third-world texts are necessarily allegorical, and they are to be read as national allegories." The apparent essentialism and the very desire for generality in his wording (and the following totalizing effect on patterns of discourse on third world cultural products) have invited rigorous polemics. Among them, it is especially worth remembering Aijaz Amad's insistence that the proper discourse on the third world can be neither directed by such dogmatic guideline nor represented by scholars who have been educated in the West. However, I would like to focus on Jameson’s short response to Amad’s refutation, in which Jameson explains that his contention was in fact addressed to the first world, and intended to offer a way of conceptualizing the relationship of politics and literary activities. To be more specific, he wants to intervene in the first world literary and critical situation in which the individual psychology dominates interpretive modes as well as productive drives, thereby blurring the potentiality for political awareness and actions.
By reading Jameson closely, with two exemplary interpretations of Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou, 1989/1990) and Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007), this essay reveals that the concept of national allegory plays an ambivalent role for the discourse of the third world in the present time. In other words, this study proves that the third world can function as a space that remains untainted by and oppositional to those repressive social processes which have homogenized the real and imaginative terrain of the western subject. Realizing such function of the third world (and its interpretive links with nationhood) will be a necessary step for us in playing a significant role in formulating the global culture, either in the middle of mainstream or as a centripetal force of the periphery.
Lastly, revealing the validity of "national allegory" for the third world discourse is not to advocate its absolute value or truth, but to try another productive interpretive mode working for both the first and the third worlds, if, that is, there is still valid demarcation between them. Experiment on this ambivalent and alternative methodology of national allegorization is necessary only to prove the possibility of subversion in the awareness of Otherness and the realization of oscillating value in relations, which is much stronger than any dogmatic guideline.

참고문헌 (Reference)

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3 Edelman, Rob, "“Ju Dou.” "

4 James,Caryn, "“Ju Dou (1990) Review/Film Festival; On Oppression of Women in China.” New York Times. 22 Sept. 1990"

5 "Wikipedia. Lust, Caution. under the heading of “Box office and business.” "

6 David, Steven R, "Why the Third World Still Matters" 17 (17): 127-159, 1992

7 Jameson, Fredric, "Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism" 15 : 65-88, 1986

8 Rothman,William, "The ‘I’ of the Camera:Essays in Film Criticism,History and Aesthetics" Cambridge UP 2004

9 Bhabha,Homi, "The other question: Stereotype, discrimination and the discourse of colonialism. The Location of Culture" Routledge 66-84, 1994

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14 Leung, William, "So Queer Yet So Straight: Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet and Brokeback Mountain" 60 (60): 23-42, 2008

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21 Freud, Sigmund, "Fetishism. Sexuality and the Psychology of Love" Touchstone 1963

22 Berry,Chris, "A Nation T(w/o)o: Chinese Cinema(s) and Nationhood(s). Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema. Ed. Wimal Dissanayake" Indiana UP 1994

23 Jameson, Fredric, "A Brief Response" 17 : 26-27, 1987

24 "<홍등> (장예모 감독, 1991)"

25 "<헐크> (이안 감독, 2003)"

26 "<쿵후선생> (이안 감독, 1992)"

27 "<음식남녀> (이안 감독, 1994)"

28 "<와호장룡> (이안 감독, 2000)"

29 "<센스 앤 센서빌리티> (이안 감독, 1995)"

30 "<색계> (이안 감독, 2007)"

31 "<브로크백 마운틴> (이안 감독, 2005)"

32 "<국두> (장예모 감독, 1989/1990)"

33 "<결혼 피로연> (이안 감독, 1993)"