Transcript Teresa (Terry) Cutler Areas of Expertise

Monsters in Germany:
Pre-WW II silent film
Just how did the Nazi party convince
normal Germans that the Jewish
population was a threat?
 A process called
“othering”
 Part of a discipline
called Cultural Studies
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Cultural Studies
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Concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life—the
ways people do things and the meanings attached to those things
marriage practices
 performances
 gatherings
 political structure
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Draws from the fields of literary theory, anthropology, psychology,
sociology, film/video studies to look at specific cultural phenomena
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race
social class
gender
identity
Here be Monsters
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Othering
A way of defining and securing
one’s own identity by stigmatizing
another… an other
 Different from self
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Depict other people as monsters—
to isolate, to hate… to kill
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Pre-WW II German silent film
used exaggerated Jewish
characteristics (caricatures) to
depict their monsters.
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Same process of othering used
today.
Here be Monsters
Germany pre-WW II
 country was devasted
 hungry for a leader/strength
 looking for structure
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WW I ended 1918
Along came Hitler
Nazi party formed 1920
“Shake off your Jewish leaders… The Russian government is
9/10 Jewish… Bolshevism is a Jewish swindle.”
Violence ensued – Nazi propaganda offered direction for anger,
resentment, need to retaliation.
Nazi propaganda was built on an already strong
base of early German film monsters.
Here be Monsters
The Golem
1920 Paul Wegener & Carl Boese
Here be Monsters
Nosferatu
1922 F.W. Murnau
Here be Monsters
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What we know: monsters are evil, we must kill them
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Equation:
Jews are different than we are…
 Jews are monsters
 I.e., we must kill them
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Easy for Hitler
Easy for everyone
Classic way “othering” works
Otherwise, how do people commit this kind of atrocity?
Here be Monsters
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Today, othering functions as it
always has: to create monsters
throughout the world.
Muslims
 Arabs
 Jews
 American
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Each group (can) create
monsters of the others.
Effect: “we must kill the
monster(s)….”
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i.e., each culture/country
believes it must rid the world
of all the monsters =
whomever their othering has
designated as dangerous.