Shooting the Family : Transnational Media and Intercultural Values

Abstract

Do contemporary movements of migration and the ever-increasing abundance of audiovisual media correspond to - or even cause - shifts in the defenition of both the bourgeois nuclear family and the tribal extended family? In Shooting the Family, twelve authors investigate the transfigured role of the family in a transnational world in which intercultural values are negotiated through mass media like film and television, as well as through particularistic media like home movies and videos. "Shooting the Family" has a double meaning. On the one hand, this book claims that the family is under pressure from the forces of globalization and migration; it is the family that risks being shot to pieces. On the other hand, family matters of all kinds, including family values, are increasingly being constructed and refigured in a mediated form. The audiovisual family has become an important medium for intercultural affairs - this is a family that is being re-established as a place of security and comfort in times of upheaval; it is the family shot by cameras that register and simultaneously create new family values.

Onder invloed van media als sateliettelevisie en cinema, is de rol van de familie in de hedendaagse, multiculturele samenleving aan het veranderen. Als gevolg van globalisatie en migratie staat de familie onder druk: de familie 'shot to pieces'. Maar tegelijkertijd keren zowel nieuwe als traditionele familiezaken weer terug in gemedieerde vorm: het 'family shot' in films of op foto's. In Shooting the Family worden twaalf specifieke 'case studies' scherp en kritisch geanalyseerd, variërend van 'home movies' van migrantenkinderen in Nederland tot Hollywoodfilms van Ang Lee en auteurs- en migrantencinema in Europa. De auteurs laten zien dat deze gemedieerde families een belangrijk medium zijn voor interculturele waarden, waarbij vooral de rol van de vader opvallend onder druk staat.