Yang 1 Alicia Yang December 14, 2022 WGS100 Transnational Feminism: Half the Sky Oppression of women has always been a widely discussed and controversial topic. This topic has drawn many heated discussions and a variety of perspectives, all searching for reasons why oppression exists in hopes of improving the situation. Many times, activists and other social workers would use different forms of literature and media to draw attention to this issue, but at the same time, their works would also leave out the core contexts of the issue at hand. The film Half the Sky is one such example. Half the Sky is a film inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sherly WuDunn's book of the same name. Filmed across ten countries, Half the Sky discusses the most profounding women's issues in these countries by introducing victims and survivors of said issues. It was a very influential film that caused an entire "movement" to come about. Even though, to this day, Half the Sky remains a film of empowerment and a blueprint for transformation, it still contains a key flaw; this film reflects “discursive colonialism”. This essay will present a critical analysis of the film Half the Sky from a transnational feminist perspective. Before we begin to analyze the film Half the Sky, we first need to understand what “discursive colonialism” is. Based on Mohanty, “discursive colonialism” is best described as indirectly controlling or influencing other nations (imperialism) through the Western representation surrounding women in the “Third World”. Half the Sky's content, language, and structure all help convey this idea. We will first discuss how the content helps contribute to a "discursive colonialism" ideal. The film begins to portray this idea by reinforcing the image Westerners have painted of “Third World” women. Yang 2 The film first starts with the gender-based violence women and girls face in Sierra Leone before moving on to the struggle of sex trafficking in Cambodia and then the problem of education in Vietnam. In all of the issues presented in the film, we see a common theme, where women (and girls) in the "Third World", "are defined as victims of male violence", "of male control", of economic development, of pretty much everything (Mohanty 23-24). Although the film intends to increase the number of international women's advocates by emphasizing their victim status and generalizing how all "Third World" women are victims, the film takes power away from them by doing so. Homogenizing the experiences of the women presented in the video will make the issue seem more alarming and increase the likelihood that viewers will take action, but, at the same time, it reinforces the notion that all women in these countries ("Third World" countries) are weak. This idea takes away each individual voice of women in the "Third World" and effectively decreases the impact they can make on the feminist movement. It depicts one unified image that the "Third World" is full of helpless women, preventing Westerners from fully understanding the issue, and leading them to stereotype "Third World" countries as terrible places. The most prominent example of this is when Meg Ryan referred to Phnom Penh as the "Wild West", even going as far as stating, "There are these kinds of waves of sadness that run through it" (Half the Sky 46:12-46:23) despite the fact she has not even met the people involved in the oppression. This perspective Meg Ryan has of Phnom Penh solely came from the background information she already knew (the information given by Nicholas Kristof and whatever information is available in Western countries), not from personal experience. In addition, we can also see a clear contrast between the women (and girls) whose stories are getting presented and the women who came from the "First World" accompanying them (the celebrities participating in the film). The lack of knowledge the actors had on the problems (Half Yang 3 the Sky) discussed in the film Half the Sky just came to show how different the "First World" women's life and experience are compared to "Third World" women (Mohanty 22). It magnifies the struggles "Third World" women experience and conveys the message we need to save them, "we" being people from the "First World" or Westerners. (Abu-Lughod 784) Throughout the film, we see a recurring appearance of this theme; the "Western savior" who has come to rescue "Third World" women by giving these people, who are invisible to the world, a voice and the attention they need to improve their situation. The "Western savior" also takes a more literal sense when Nicholas Kristof actively took part in rescuing the girls by participating in a brothel raid in Cambodia (Half the Sky 1:02:06-1:05:00) or helping the rape investigation in Sierra by offering the investigators a ride (Half the Sky 29:53). In a way, this film reflects an unequal relationship where a binary is formed, with Westerners being the dominant group and non-Westerners as the subordinate group. The language and relationships in this video further distinguish this binary. The language used throughout the film seems to subconsciously acknowledge the "superiority" of people from the "First World". In this film, there were many times Nicholas Kristof or the current actor would fail to refer to the women involved as "women". Instead, they would overuse the term "girl" or "girls" to label almost all the victims and survivors mentioned in Half the Sky. This consistent use of "girl" to label women seems to reflect a paternalistic attitude, almost seeming to put the "girls" from the "Third World" below "women" in the "First World". In addition, Nicholas Kristof's interactions and relationships with the affected "girls" seem to come from a colonialist stance where Nicholas Kristof is given more control over the situation than the people involved. Yang 4 This message persists not only throughout the video but also through the structure of this film. Based on how the film was structured, its intended audience was people from the "First World", particularly women from the "First World". All the celebrities that participated in the film had a prominent presence in the "First World" and would draw the attention of Western viewers. The focus on women's struggles would then attract the attention of women from the Western world, particularly women who participate in social work or are activists. After grabbing the attention of its intended audience, the film would build its credibility based on the momentum created by the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide released before and through the participation of Nicholas Kristof, one of the actual authors of the book. Once credibility is established, the film begins to show a moral story where the commentary expresses astonishment and sympathy for the events occurring. The credibility of the film and the moral story would all come together to become a powerful tool to draw sympathy and support from its viewers. (Petchesky 266-267) The ideological power of the film prevents its viewers from digging deeper but instead persuades viewers to accept the truth shown in the video. To make a long story short, while the intention of the film Half the Sky was to help improve the oppression of women globally, the methods displayed in this film only serve to maintain the current status quo. Many of the ideas presented in the video retain Western concepts (like colonist attitudes) and fail to delve deeper into the reasons why these struggles exist. Most of the time, this film generalizes the experiences of women in the "Third World" as victims and focuses on how "we" (Westerners or people from the "First World") are helping them. While this approach appeals to the audience of this film, it does not help resolve the outstanding issues that exist globally. Instead of only highlighting details that will motivate Westerners to take action, Yang 5 this film should also introduce solutions that allow the local government and community to take action. We need to stop this belief that Westerners need to save the people (whether female or male) from their own country in order to initiate improvement and instead support the local people and government so they can hasten the improvement process. Bibliography Abu-Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 783–790. https://doi.org/10.2307/3567256 Chermayeff, M. (Director). (2012, October 1). Half the Sky. 1091 Pictures. Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. In Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity (pp. 17–42). Duke University Press. Petchesky, R. P. (1987). Fetal Images: The power of visual culture in the politics of reproduction. Feminist Studies, 13(2), 263–292. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177802
