Western Utopia and Dystopia in Feldman's Novel Unorthodox and the Homonymous Netflix Series
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Western Utopia and Dystopia in Feldman's Novel Unorthodox and the Homonymous Netflix Series By Ioannis Salaounis A Thesis submitted to the Department of English Literature and Culture, Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English and American Studies Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Aikaterini Kitsi Aristotle University of Thessaloniki March 2021 Salaounis 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................ 3 Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 6 Chapter One: The Depiction of the West as a Utopia and an Escape for Oppressed Women, as Seen Through Esty's Eyes ................................................. 14 1.1 Deborah's Doubts About her Community ...................................................... 15 1.2 Esty's/Deborah's Ordeal in the Hasidic Community and her Escape to Berlin. ............................................................................................. 17 1.3 The Scene in the Lake .................................................................................... 26 1.4 A New Lifestyle ............................................................................................. 29 1.5 Education and Cosmopolitanism .................................................................... 33 Chapter Two: Dystopian West ................................................................................. 39 2.1 The Depiction of the Hasidic Community in Unorthodox ............................. 41 2.2 Western and non-Western Woman ................................................................. 45 2.3 Femonationalism in Unorthodox …………….………………………..........50 2.4 Women's Exploitation .................................................................................... 54 2.5 The Superiority of the West Versus the Other Man........................................................................................................................56 2.6 The "Threat" of the "Un- Emancipated"........................................................................................................60 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 63 Works Cited ................................................................................................................ 65 Salaounis 3 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Aikaterini Kitsi, for her guidance and support throughout my undergraduate years and of course, for the completion of this thesis. Also, I would like to thank my beloved parents and my brother who have helped me all these years and believed in me. I would like also to thank Marianna Setsidou for her invaluable help. A special thank you goes to all my other professors as well, who have helped me during all those years that I have spent in Aristotle University. A big thank you to all my relatives and friends, who have supported me in any ways imaginable and still do every day. Without all this help, I could not be here today and for this support I am grateful. Especially, during this difficult year, their aid was priceless. Salaounis 4 Abstract Deborah Feldman's book Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots was published in 2012 and depicts the writer's life in a Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. In this memoir, Feldman narrates her life's experiences in this closed religious community, which insists on practicing Orthodox Jewishness and adhering to the traditions of Eastern European Jews. Deborah, the main character in the memoir, confesses how hard it is for a woman to endure her position in this authoritarian, patriarchal society, where women are not allowed to educate or entertain themselves or even make decisions about their own body, clothes, appearance etc. These particularly harsh circumstances that are imposed on every Jewish woman who lives in this Hasidic community are a means of controlling their lives and sexuality. Women's sole role is reproduction; as a consequence, they are not allowed to indulge in anything that the community regards as inappropriate for them because their only focus should be to bear as many children as they can in order to make up for the Holocaust Jewish victims. For Deborah Feldman and Esty as well (the character that functions as Feldman's persona in the mini-series which is based on the book) the only salvation from this confined life is their passage to a westerner's way of living. The flight to Berlin is for both characters an escape from their dysfunctional marriage and the promise of new opportunities for them and their children. This essay will explore how the West, which in this case is presented to the reader through the depiction of Berlin in the mini-series, functions as a Utopia for Esty because it offers her whatever the Hasidic community of Satmar in NY denied her; a meaningful life, full of opportunities and possibilities. Using feminist and film theories, this thesis will argue how Berlin is presented as a western Utopian place Salaounis 5 where every dream can be fulfilled. The latter chapter of this thesis will propose a different reflection of the West. More specifically, through the prism of Sarra Farris' notion of femonationalism and Chandra Talpade Mohanty's post-colonial feminist thinking, this essay will also argue how the western Utopia that is presented in the Unorthodox mini-series, is in fact a Dystopia due to the fact that it exploits women in a different way. West's depiction of women that belong to religious and cultural, non- western backgrounds is inaccurate due to the fact that the West wants to portray the non-western woman as the submissive victim of the evil, oppressive and misogynist Other Man who controls her. Then, this essay will show that the West strongly encourages these non-western women (like Esty) to conform to western ideologies and values in order to escape their oppression and through this assimilation, become "members" of the western civilization and thus serve other purposes and practices which will be originating from westerners themselves. Non-western women are a valuable workforce for the West and also a way through which the West can present its (false) superiority to other cultures. Salaounis 6 Western Utopia and Dystopia in Feldman's Novel Unorthodox and the Homonymous Netflix Series Introduction At the beginning of the fourth episode of the Unorthodox Netflix mini-series, Esty Shapiro's family is present at the holy holiday of Passover Seder. Passover Seder is a ritual feast that marks the beginning of Passover. The youngest child that is able to attend it both physically and spiritually is requested to ask the holy Four Questions, that are included in the Haggadah,1 by an elder. Esty's grandfather answers to the little boy's questions by reciting the Haggadah and speaks of the great ordeals that Jews underwent in the past and how they were liberated by God through Moses (Part 4 53:55-52:00). This is one of the many scenes that indicate one of the many issues that this Netflix mini-series explores: the Jewish Hasidic culture of the Satmar community in Williamsburg, New York. Other issues that this particular TV series touches upon are the oppression of woman in the Hasidic community and the benefits of living outside of such religious communities. The Unorthodox TV series, which streamed online on Netflix in March 2020, was created by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski, the former being an American writer and producer who currently lives in Berlin and the latter a German director, while the direction was undertaken by Maria Schrader, a German director as well. The Unorthodox mini-series is inspired and partially based on Deborah Feldman's memoir called Unorthodox: The Rejection of my Hasidic Roots (2012). Feldman is a Jewish writer who resides in Berlin at the moment, just as Winger, and was born in the Hasidic community of Satmar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. She was raised as an Ultra-Orthodox Jew in a very restricted, fully religious environment where 1 A Jewish text that is being read during the holiday of Passover Seder as a way of conveying (especially to young Jews) stories that are included in the book of Exodus and fulfilling this particular holy ritual-holiday. Salaounis 7 women's sole life purpose is to give birth to children in order to make up for the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. In her memoir, Feldman analytically narrates her childhood, her experiences in this strict community and how she eventually fled from it with her son due to the fact that she could no longer bear this kind of life. Through her book, she explicitly explains how difficult it was, especially for a girl like her, who lacks parental support,2 to be raised in such a patriarchic community. Being denied the right to education and entertainment, Deborah realized that she had to escape this religious community. This thesis will argue through the use of feminist and film theories, how and in what ways Deborah's Hasidic community is oppressive towards women and how Winger' and Karolinski's TV series makes an attempt to create and present a utopian western