Presentation

“That conflictual economy of colonial discourse which Edward Said describes as the tension between the synchronic panoptical vision of domination – the demand for identity, status – and the counter pressure of the diachrony of history – change, difference – mimicry represents an ironic compromise.”

The colonizer wants to create a distinctive “other” that can be recognized as similar to the colonizer, but clearly not the same. The points of difference between the colonizer and the colonized can be what eventually reflect poorly on the ways of the colonizer.

The irony of colonial mimicry is when the camoflouge of mimicry eventually turns the mimicer into the observed. Bahba talks about this effect of mimicry, in that the reflection of the naturalizer, things can be highlighted which make the naturalizer seem unnatural.

When the colonized take on the role of the observed, they often disgard their own ways of life in order to take on the ‘normal’ habits and culture of the colonizers.

“In ‘normalizing’ the colonial state or subject, the dream of the post-Enlightenment civility alienates its own language of liberty and produces another knowledge of its norms.” (86)

When the observer becomes the observed, there is a shift in power that throws off the entire colonial backbone, this shift cannot be remedied until the point of interdiction, which will return the colonized back to their way of life, and allow them to throw off the repressive glove of colonization.

I used Mean Girls to represent this idea of colonization and mimicry as a mockery as well as a tool of camoflouge and the struggle for power. The following clips go along with the sequence of events described above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpkA3bADtrk&NR=1 : 3:45, Kady love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S0MehzTqVk&feature=related : 2:00, boob cutouts

Scene montage: Kady wearing a pony tail and her reg clothes, Kady wearing the giant pink shirt, Kady dressed as a monster amongst the skanks, Kady falling into the trash can, Regina telling Kady she is a less pretty version of her.

Above: The distinctive “other”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um7Aj8BdaiI&feature=related 3:35, rules of being a girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iowxMm9fXx4&feature=related : 6:40, less pretty version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cND6MjsngjY&NR=1 4:40, overthrow of power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAYAQnlrT6I&NR=1 :10 , :50, just like Regina