Cinematic Adaptation and the Problem of Citizenship: Mapping Women’s Diasporic Authorship in a Post-9/11 World DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Susan Catherine Brennan, M.A. Graduate Program in Women's Studies The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Professor Linda Mizejewski, Advisor Professor Cricket Keating Professor Mytheli Sreenivas Copyright by Susan Catherine Brennan 2010 Abstract Scholarly attention to cinematic adaptation remains a neglected site of inquiry in contemporary cinema, literary, and cultural studies. The lack of attention may be due in part to the theoretical limitations of scholarship on adaptation and the moralistic systems of evaluation it relies upon, usually aimed at assessing a text’s faithfulness to source material. This dissertation intervenes in traditional understandings of cinematic adaptation by proposing that adaptation is a site of social transformation, and an important technology in the mapping of historical and social time. In this dissertation, I address the distinctive racial logics instigated by the events of September 11, 2001, and the role of the adaptive process in shaping their circulation in American culture. I argue that adaptation and post-9/11 racial logics share similar meaning-making processes. They both transplant ‘old’ narratives into new settings, signifying a new location in time and space through repetition and reiteration. This alignment allows racial logics to appropriate the adaptive process, and introduce particular racial narratives and ideologies into the textual meaning-making process. Not only do these narratives articulate regimes of space, time, gender, and race that reflect the effects of racialization after 9/11, but they also help to create models of citizenship complicit with a post-9/11 racial order. Focusing on women writers and filmmakers from the South Asian and Iranian diasporas, I examine how post-9/11 racial logics align with cinematic adaptation through ii three sites of citizenship formation: the transformation of women’s political performance and self-making in the adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s novel Persepolis; the creation of female cosmopolitan subjects in Gurinder Chadha’s retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in her film Bride and Prejudice; and the distinct engagement between gender and the nation in the representations of South Asian American citizenship in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake and its adaptation by filmmaker Mira Nair. The influence of post-9/11 racial logics on the adaptive process, in each of these texts, results in images of female citizenship that adhere to a post-9/11 racial order, prefacing modernness, cosmopolitanism, and a Westernized, liberal feminist point of view. While cinematic adaptation works as a technology of racialization, the female-female authorial pairings that I examine in this dissertation do on occasion subvert the patriarchal regimes that keep post-9/11 racial logics in place. As a result, Chadha, Satrapi, and Nair also use the adaptive process to speak back to the masculinist narratives of loss, heroics, and hostilities popularized in the wake of 9/11. iii Acknowledgments I am sincerely and deeply grateful to the people who have made this dissertation possible. Their support, guidance, and assistance have been invaluable, and they have made the daunting task of writing a thesis an exciting, and ultimately rewarding, endeavor. My dissertation committee has played a large role in facilitating the completion of my dissertation. I first wish to thank my advisor, Professor Linda Mizejewski. I am incredibly fortunate to have an advisor who is generous in both mentorship and patience. Linda has provided me with intellectual and professional support throughout my candidacy, and she has encouraged me to approach my research with creativity, excitement, and optimism. I am also grateful for the mentorship of Professor Mytheli Sreenivas. I am particularly appreciative of Mytheli’s careful and thoughtful readings of my chapter drafts. Her constructive criticism encouraged me to clarify my writing, and our discussions about those drafts were invaluable in crafting the overall argument and theme of my thesis. Professor Cricket Keating has provided endless enthusiasm and encouragement throughout the dissertation writing process. In addition, her thought provoking questions during our conversations – both near and far – have helped me to iv conceptualize my project through the broader lenses of Women’s Studies and transnational feminist studies. The support of my committee is a testament to the vibrant intellectual and professional community in the Department of the Women’s Studies. Many faculty members have served as mentors throughout my time in the department. I do, however, want to express special thanks to Professor Nadine Ehlers for tirelessly shepherding me through many of the works of Michel Foucault. I also want to thank department chair and Professor Jill Bystdzienski for her support, as well as the direct financial support of the department in the form of travel grants. My family has selflessly given their unconditional love and support throughout the writing process, keeping me both sane and grounded. Amanda Maddock has read every page of this dissertation twice. Her unremitting optimism and confidence in my abilities have kept me afloat in the roughest of seas. I am also incredibly grateful for my parents’ support. Their commitment to my education is truly extraordinary, and a blessing that I am thankful for every day. Throughout my graduate career, they have furnished me with a seemingly endless supply of frequent flyer miles, hotel rooms, cars, books, films, and pens – and not once questioned the relevance of a degree in Women’s Studies. I owe them both a debt of gratitude, among other things. v Vita January 24, 1979............................................Born, Norristown, PA May 2001 .......................................................B.A. English and Women’s Studies, Drew University (Madison NJ) June 2005 .......................................................M.A. Women’s Studies, The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) 2003 to present ..............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Women’s Studies, The Ohio State University Publications “Mira Nair.” Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers. Ed. Tasker, Yvonne. New York: Routledge, 2010. Fields of Study Major Field: Women's Studies vi Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………...……………………………………………….ii Acknowledgements……………………………………….………………………………iv Vita……………………………………………………….……………………………….vi Chapters: 1. Introduction: The Racial Politics of Cinematic Adaptation in the Post-9/11 World.......1 2. ‘Translating’ Jane Austen and Bollywood Cinema in Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice ………………………………………………………………………………...65 3. Corporeality, Gendered Political Performances, and Self-Making in the Cinematic Adaptation of Persepolis .................................................................................................118 4. Space, Time, and the Politics of Model Minority-hood in The Namesake: Adapting South Asian American Identity in the Post 9/11 Era …………………………………..160 5. Conclusion: Fidelity Regimes and Female Authorship in Cinematic Adaptation after 9/11……………………………………………………………………………………..209 Bibliography…….…………………………………………………………………….. 236 vii Chapter 1 Introduction: The Racial Politics of Cinematic Adaptation in the Post-9/11 World In February 2010, the Bollywood-produced film My Name is Khan premiered to a global audience, debuting over one weekend in Mumbai, Berlin, and Abu Dhabi. My Name is Khan is a notable film in a number of ways, including its star power, its geographic scope, and visual narrative.1 The most significant feature of My Name is Khan, however, is its subject matter: the film addresses the mistreatment of Muslim Americans (specifically the South Asian Muslim community) in the U.S. following the events of 9/11. Shahrukh Khan portrays Rizwan Khan, an Indian Muslim man with Asperger’s Syndrome who immigrates to San Francisco. He falls in love with a Hindu woman, Mandira (portrayed by Bollywood star Kajol), and the two marry despite the objections of Rizwan’s family. The events of 9/11 reunite the divided family, but also instigate the brutal beating of Rizwan’s stepson. After his stepson is killed, Rizwan wanders around the U.S. in pursuit of a meeting with President Bush, in hopes to challenge the characterization of Muslim individuals and communities as a threat to American society. My Name is Khan catalogues the discrimination Muslims faced after 9/11, including general harassment, hijab pulling, surveillance and detainment by the government, and tension between Muslim Americans and other ethnic groups. It also 1 retains the epic, melodramatic style of a Bollywood film, unabashed in its portrayal of the pride Rizwan feels for both his religion and his adopted country. My Name is Khan is a refreshing response to the more muted Hollywood depictions of the post-9/11 racial landscape, where representations of racial, cultural, and religious difference in films like Crash and Babel often revolve around white characters’ experiences and point of view. Instead, the film attempts to place South Asian Muslim identity at the center of the American dream, and, more significantly, rewrites several national narratives in order to include Muslim communities