THE “CLOSED WORLD” OF THE EXOTIC LEELO SINGERS: THE
REPRESENTATION AND RECEPTION OF THE TITLE CHARACTER AND OTHER
SETO WOMEN IN THE FILM TAARKA
by
Kerli Kirch
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of
The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL
August 2014
Copyright by Kerli Kirch, 2014
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to her thesis advisor, Dr.
Christine Scodari, and the thesis committee members, Dr. Becky Mulvaney and Dr.
Susan L. Brown, for their encouragement, determination, and patience during the writing of this thesis. The author also wishes to thank the professors who have mentored her throughout her academic career including Dr. Noemi Marin, Dr. David Williams, Dr.
William Trapani, Dr. Shara Pavlow, Dr. Patricia Darlington, Dr. Fred Fejes, and Dr.
Nannetta Durnell-Uwechue. Special thanks for the Estonian supporters, Dr. Linnar
Priimägi, Dr. Evar Saar and Mariko Faster, whose knowledge and advice helped the author to start her research on minority culture’s media representation in Estonia. Last but not least, the author would like to thank her family and friends for their everlasting encouragement, support, and inspiration.
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ABSTRACT
Author: Kerli Kirch
Title: The “Closed World” of the Exotic Leelo Singers: The Representation and Reception of the Title Character and Other Seto Women in the Film Taarka
Institution: Florida Atlantic University
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Christine Scodari
Degree: Master of Arts
Year: 2014
This thesis utilizes a multi-perspectival cultural and media studies approach analyzing the production, filmic text, and reception of Taarka, the first film about Setos, that is advertised as a (docu)drama. However, the analysis shows that it can also be interpreted as an ethnographic film. It examines which intersecting identities related to
Seto women are depicted in the film and whether audiences and critics recognize the power dynamics of these intersections. It also analyses how the Estonian cultural economic environment, the filmic text, audience comments and critics reviews reinforce or challenge hegemonies connected with these intersections. Drawing on the principles of postcolonial feminism, intersectionality, and other critical theories, the thesis concludes that even though the filmic text challenges traditional gender roles, it still reinforces the
Estonians’ one-sided portrayal of an exotic, commodified Seto ethnicity. Moreover, the cultural economic environment and reception of the film also bolster this view of Seto ethnicity.
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THE “CLOSED WORLD” OF THE EXOTIC LEELO SINGERS: THE
REPRESENTATION AND RECEPTION OF THE TITLE CHARACTER AND OTHER
SETO WOMEN IN THE FILM TAARKA
List of Figures ...... xi!
Chapter One: Introduction ...... 1!
1.1. Background ...... 1!
1.1.2. Conducted Research on Seto Culture ...... 2!
1.1.3. Power Relations Within the Seto Community ...... 4!
1.1.4. Seto Women ...... 5!
1.1.5. The Film Taarka ...... 7!
1.2. Issues to address ...... 10!
1.3. Literature Review ...... 11!
1.3.1. Social Constructionism Theory ...... 11!
1.3.2. Critical Theory ...... 14!
1.3.3. Class Identity and Critical Class Theory ...... 16!
1.3.4. Ethnic Identity and Crtical Race Theory ...... 17!
1.3.5. Gender Identity and Feminist Theories ...... 19!
1.3.5.1. Standpoint Theory ...... 21!
1.3.5.2. Intersectionality & the Matrix of Domination ...... 23!
1.3.5.3. Post-Colonial Feminism ...... 25!
1.3.5.4. Feminism in Estonia ...... 28!
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1.3.6. Media and Cultural Studies ...... 31!
1.3.6.1. Feminist Cultural Studies ...... 34!
1.3.6.2. Post-Colonial Cultural Studies ...... 34!
1.3.7. Ethnographic Film and Docudrama in Film Theory ...... 35!
1.4. Methodology ...... 39!
1.4.1. Production Analysis ...... 40!
1.4.2. Textual Analysis ...... 41!
1.4.3. Reception Analysis ...... 42!
1.5. Chapters’ Layout ...... 44!
Chapter Two: Production Analysis ...... 45!
2.1. The Estonian Cultural Economic Environment ...... 45!
2.1.1. Funding of Taarka ...... 46!
2.1.2. Distribution of Taarka ...... 50!
2.2. Interviews with the Filmmakers ...... 51!
2.2.1. Taarka as an Ethnographic Film ...... 52!
2.2.2. Taarka as a Woman ...... 54!
2.2.3. Representing Setos in Taarka ...... 55!
Chapter Three: Textual Analysis ...... 58!
3.1. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community ...... 59!
3.1.1. The Intersecting Oppressions of Gender and Class ...... 60!
3.1.1.1. “How’s a girl supposed to get married without adornments?” ...... 60!
3.1.1.2. “I was mocked because of her!” ...... 64!
3.1.2. The Intersecting Oppressions of Ethnicity and Gender ...... 66!
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3.1.2.1. “But she’s strange blood from her father’s side.” ...... 66!
3.1.3. The Intersecting Oppressions of Class & Ethnicity ...... 69!
3.1.3.1. “Well, your mother is Vassilissa. She won’t keep home.” ...... 69!
3.1.4. Challenging the Hegemonies of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity ...... 70!
3.1.4.1. “I’ll drown myself to the river rather than marry some jerk.” ...... 70!
3.1.4.2. “Singing mother” ...... 74!
3.1.5. Reinforcing the Hegemonies of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity ...... 76!
3.1.5.1. Punishment and Regrets ...... 76!
3.1.6. The Construction of the Film ...... 79!
3.2. Setos as the Other in Estonian Society ...... 82!
3.2.1. The Film’s Critique of the Outsider’s Representation of Setos ...... 83!
3.2.2. Seto Ethnicity’s Subordination ...... 85!
3.2.2.1. “God forbid” for Being a Seto ...... 85!
3.2.2.2. “Even Estonian women don’t have them that big.” ...... 87!
3.2.3. Reinforcing Seto Stereotypes ...... 89!
3.2.3.1. “Noble savages” ...... 89!
3.2.3.2. “I’ll pour you a drop, too.” ...... 91!
3.2.3.3. Feckless Seto Men and Vigorous Seto Women ...... 92!
3.2.4. The Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity ...... 94!
3.2.4.1. The Forced Indigenous Seto Cultural Identity ...... 94!
Chapter Four: Reception Analysis ...... 97!
4.1. Critics’ Reviews Analysis ...... 97!
4.1.1. Ethnic Hegemonies ...... 98!
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4.1.1.1. “Mocked ethnography” – The Commodified and Exotized Setos ..... 98!
4.1.1.2. “So, this is the way you, Estonians, see us.” – Seto Stereotypes ..... 101!
4.1.2. Gender Hegemonies ...... 104!
4.1.2.1. “Who do you think will have a better change to survive?” ...... 104!
4.2. Audience Analysis ...... 107!
4.2.1. Gender Hegemonies ...... 108!
4.2.1.1. “How can Seto women have normal children when they are
soaked with ether and alcohol?” ...... 108!
4.2.2. Ethnic Hegemonies ...... 110!
4.2.2.1. “Setos are well-known drunkards” – Seto Stereotypes ...... 110!
4.2.2.2. “An expedition to Setomaa” – The Commodified and Exotized
Setos ...... 112!
Chapter Five: Conclusion ...... 116!
5.1. Production Analysis: Findings & Implications ...... 116!
5.1.1. Implications for Ethnic and Gender Hegemonies ...... 116!
5.2. Textual Analysis: Findings & Implications ...... 120!
5.2.1. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community: The Film’s Depiction of
Intersecting Oppressions ...... 120!
5.2.2. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community: Implications for Gender,
Class, and Ethnic Hegemonies ...... 121!
5.2.3. Setos as the Other in Estonian Society: The Film’s Depiction of
Intersecting Oppressions ...... 123!
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5.2.4. Setos as the Other in the Estonian Society: Implications for Ethnic and
Gender Hegemonies ...... 124!
5.3. Reception Analysis: Findings and Implications ...... 126!
5.3.1. Film Critics’ Reviews: Implications for Ethnic Hegemonies ...... 126!
5.3.2. Audience Comments: Implications for Ethnic Hegemonies ...... 128!
5.3.3. Critics’ Reviews and Audience Comments: Implications for Gender
Hegemonies ...... 129!
5.3.4. Implications: Taarka as an Ethnographic Film ...... 130!
5.4. Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research ...... 132!
Works Cited ...... 134
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: A close-up of Tato’s face when she is being raped (screen grab from
Taarka)...... 81
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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background
Setos (Seto: setokõsõ, Estonian: setud) are an indigenous cultural and linguistic minority in Estonia. The historical location of Setos is called Setomaa (the land of Setos) which is a unique area where different ethnicities, nationalities, languages, cultures, and religions collide. Setomaa is located in southeast Estonia near the Russian border in Võru and Põlva counties, and in northwest Russia. Seto history is strongly tied with the shifting border between Estonia and Russia (Kaiser & Nikiforova). Setos who live in Estonian territory hold Estonian nationality. However, Seto ethnicity differs from that of Estonian.
One of the most important features of Setos’ cultural and ethnic identity is Seto language. Seto belongs to the Finnic group of the Uralic languages. Estonian government has not given Seto an official language status, which is why it is formally called Seto dialect and not a language. Seto, along with Võro, is considered dialect of the South
Estonian dialect group of Estonian language. Some Estonians see Seto as a sub-dialect of
Võro; however, Setos generally don't identify as Võro speakers and vice versa. Today,
UNESCO classifies Võro-Seto language “definitively endangered” in the five level classification of language endangerment (Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger).
Consistent with the Estonian Population and Housing Census (2011), there are around
12,285 Seto speakers among 1,294,455 Estonians and only 4,035 of them live in Võru and Põlva counties where Setomaa is located (“Setomaa Kultuuriprogramm 2014-2018”
3). The majority of Setos are bilingual, speaking Estonian and Seto.
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Another cornerstone of Seto ethnicity is leelo, an ancient polyphonic singing tradition which was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. Seto leelo “features a lead singer who delivers a verse line followed by a choir that joins in for the final syllables and then repeats the whole line” (Valkna & Suurväli). Leelo choirs that usually consist only of women “are the hubs of [Seto] community and the embodiment of local identity” (Valkna &
Suurväli). Leelo singing used to accompany various everyday activities in Seto community. Today, however, leelo is kept alive mostly as a stage concert at the community events and is often performed for tourists. Throughout Seto history, there are several women, such as Hilana Taarka and Anne Vabarna, who are known as famous
“Mothers of Song.” Moreover, Anne Vabarna is the oral author of Seto epic, Peko.
Furthermore, there are numerous other characteristics, such as ethnic clothing, jewelry, Seto wedding and funeral traditions, etc., which have been part of Seto ethnic identity throughout centuries. Many of these cultural traditions and artifacts are directly related to Seto women. For instance, the special Seto female’s silver jewelry that can weigh up to 13 pounds (6 kg) marks the marital status of Seto women. Seto females are also known for their ethnic dishes and handicraft. There is an old saying in Seto culture that states: if something is going on in Setomaa, the reason behind it is Seto woman
(Tamm).
1.1.2. Conducted Research on Seto Culture
Seto culture has “been considered a deviation from Estonianness since the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries” and Setos have been seen as “people who need to be normalized and civilized, yet left as they are, contesting and reflecting the essence of
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what is Estonian as well as non-Estonian” (Annist 6). In the beginning of 20th century,
Karl Ustav named Setos “the lost son of Estonia” (my translation) whose backwardness needed to be liquidated by providing Setos with proper education and cultural knowledge
(Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 15). However, their backwardness and illiteracy made Setos ideal sight for folklore researchers who hoped that these “primitive
Estonians” would help to shed light to Estonian history (15).
Thus, throughout history, Setos have been described mostly from the researchers’ perspectives, while the voice of Seto people appears to stay in the background (Kalkun,
Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 15). One of the earliest descriptions of Seto culture can be found in German writer, Christian Hieronymus Justus Schlegel’s travelogue
(1831) where Schlegel depicts Setos as strange, primitive, romantic “noble savages” who live in poverty (qtd. in Kalkun 56; my translation). In Estonian culture, Setos have been often considered as the “ethnic other” (Annist) or as “Estonians with dual identity” (Jääts
126; my translation). At the dawn of Estonian folklore research (the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century), two of the most influential folklore researchers, Friedrich
Reinhold Kreutzwald and Jakob Hurt, collected Seto folk songs that were considered the most authentic Estonian folk songs. In 1912 – 1923, Finnish folklorist, Armas Otto
Väisänen, conducted six expeditions to Setomaa to collect Seto folk music. Väisänen’s trips to Setomaa are also pictured in the film Taarka.
More contemporary research on Seto cultural heritage incorporates authors, such as Aet Annist, Andreas Kalkun, Kristel Kuutma, Indrek Jääts, Pille Runnel, etc.
According to these authors, in present-day Estonia, Setomaa is still seen as a “living museum” (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 138) and Setos symbolize
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something “exotic” and “authentic” that can be compared and contrasted to the rest of
Estonia (Annist 4; Toe 19). For instance, in Estonian media, Setos are usually defined as
“Them,” while Estonians are described as “Us” (Toe 53).
Setos themselves, however, stress that they are Estonians and oppose themselves to Russians (Toe 63). Nevertheless, Setos also acknowledge their differences from other
Estonians by emphasizing their unique cultural characteristics, regional economic backwardness (Toe 63), peripheral location, and their disappointment with Estonian government (Runnel 69) in relation to the border agreement with Russia in 1991, according to what Estonian politicians “accepted the Soviet border as it was in 1957”
(Annist 7). Dividing Setomaa between Estonia and Russia significantly affected locals’ lives. Setos see it as “a betrayal of the Tartu Peace Treaty [1920] and the restorative ideals of independent Estonia, which were to overcome the injustices done during the
Soviet years” (7).
1.1.3. Power Relations Within the Seto Community
Setos’ “exotic otherness need not be seen only as a label from the outside, developing somehow against the local views,” but it can also be seen “as part of the identity of the locals, and even become part of their self-empowerment” (Annist 5).
Annist explains that because “[t]he preservation of Seto cultural authenticity and uniqueness” is not only vital from Setos’ perspective but also important for Estonian
“rural economic diversification and for the attraction of business potential” (9), Seto heritage related activities are sponsored by national and international sources. For instance, Estonian Ministry of Culture has created a program titled “Setumaa
Kultuuriprogramm” that is supporting “the maintenance, restoration, and development of
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the authentic Seto cultural heritage” and encourages more Setos to participate in activities related with Seto culture (“Setumaa Kultuuriprogramm 2010-2013” 3; my translation).
This kind of support “influences the peripheral regions by framing and defining, structuring, maintaining, and channeling the authenticity of local environments” (Annist
10). In Seto’s case, it leads to “defining Setoness as restrictively heritage related” (16).
These funding schemes empower a small group of Setos who actively promote the aforementioned heritage related form of Seto culture. These Setos have gathered their
“living spaces and activities at the center of funding, tourism, public attention, and the creation of Seto identity” (16). However, other Setos living in Setomaa, who are not actively involved in promoting Seto heritage, become “the new social and topological
Other” who, contrarily to “heritage-related Setos,” do not “benefit from their otherness”
(15). These “other Setos” and their locations, e.g. “the apartment blocks of ex-Soviet centralized villages …[,] are seen as a hybrid, as a challenge undermining the effective representation of Setomaa as a cultural heritage landscape” (15).
1.1.4. Seto Women
Although the Seto community has been a patriarchal society, Seto women have found ways to express their thoughts and stories, mostly through their traditional leelo songs (Kuutma 5) that can be considered their “safe spaces” (Collins 105). Seto songs are feminine and regularly sung by women (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos
27). For example, the Seto epic, Peko, matured in the cooperation between Seto leelo singer, Anne Vabarna, and a folk collector, Paulopriit Voolaine. While the main storyline can be forced into the frame of a masculine heroic epic, a closer look demonstrates that the dominant symbols of the epic are the female body and control over it, and everyday
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dramas of Seto women (40).
A part of Seto leelo songs are Seto women’s autobiographies that originate from the beginning of 20th century, describe their everyday lives in the patriarchal Seto community and can be considered as therapeutic texts that help Seto women to lament about their unfair destiny (Kalkun, “Pihtivad naised. Seto naiste eluloolaulud”). Usually, these texts are designed for the future readers who live in a different society. These leelo songs often describe the opposition between a female’s life as a single girl in her father’s house and her life as a married woman in her husband’s home (Kalkun “Pihtivad naised.
Seto naiste eluloolaulud”). The marriage often arrives too early for Seto girls and is believed to be changing their lives traumatically, which is why the weddings are usually accompanied by crying rituals. A newly married Seto woman’s position in her new home is the lowest in the family hierarchy. Kalkun describes how Seto females’ autobiographies often include the motives of suicide caused by fear of getting married.
Some Seto women even blame their mothers for not killing them before the marriage.
Other common motives describe the cultural, verbal, and physical violence (often caused by drunk Seto men) towards Seto women. It is also a common characteristic that Seto women regret being too straightforward in their autobiographies and apologize for their texts being inappropriate. Besides describing Seto females’ unfair life in the patriarchal
Seto community, leelo also accompanies different chores assigned to Seto women.
Moreover, it is one of the media for discussing everyday events, news, and gossip.
Kalkun has also analyzed Seto women’s improvised songs captured by Väisänen in 1922. The songs were mainly collected from older widowed women because married females were not allowed to communicate with strangers (Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika
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Ajaloos 158). Seto women’s improvised songs and autobiographies often oppose Setos’ and women’s “closed world” to Estonians’, Finns’, and men’s world (162).
1.1.5. The Film Taarka
At the beginning of Soviet Union times, Seto, similar to other minority cultures in
Estonia, “narrowed down into fairly private traditions and customs” because Soviet politics did not favor indigenous cultures (Annist 7). Because of the fading cultural traditions, many young Setos moved away from Setomaa to bigger cities where they got assimilated with Estonian mainstream culture and Estonian language. Estonian media, especially radio and television, have also played an important role in Seto deterioration.
After the collision of Soviet Union, at the end of 1980s and beginning of 1990s, started the revitalization process of Seto culture (Tähepõld, Alumäe & Keinast). This process includes reconstructing their ethnic identity through media (Almasude). As
Kellner explains, “media stories provide the symbols, myths, and resources through which we constitute a common culture and through the appropriation of which we insert ourselves into this culture” (7). Thus, Setos have their local newspaper, Setomaa Ajaleht, various books and plays, websites that introduce Seto culture, etc. Moreover, in 2010,
Seto Institute, that promotes Seto related research and literature, was founded.
However, it is not just Seto media that reconstructs Seto ethnic identity. Setos are also depicted by Estonians in Estonian media, including the Internet, newspapers, radio, television, and now also a film. In 2008, Taarka – the first and so far the only full-lenght film about Setos – was released. The majority of the official creators of the movie and the cast are Estonians, not of Seto ethnicity; though some of them are from south Estonia, representing Võro culture (e.g. Ülle Kauksi; Ain Mäeots). However, a local Seto woman,
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Õie Sarv, who was elected for Setomaa Sootska (king) in 2009, has been an adviser of the film. Taarka is a 94-minute drama directed by Ain Mäeots and produced by small
Estonian production company, Exitfilm, in cooperation with the Union of Rural
Municipalities of Setomaa (taarka.exitfilm.ee). Taarka premiered on August 11th 2008 in
Tartu, Estonia. The distributor of the movie is Exitfilm OÜ in cooperation with Forum
Cinemas. Taarka has received several domestic prizes: the audience award in Tartu Love
Films Festival (PÖFF: tARTuFF), the debut feature-filmmaker award for Ain Mäeots from the Estonian Audiovisual Arts Endowment of Estonian Cultural Capital (my translation), the Seto culture award (my translation), and it was titled “the film of the year” by Estonian national television culture broadcast, OP! Taarka has also been featured in three international film festivals: Filmfest Hamburg (Germany, 2008),
Toronto International Film Festival (Canada, 2008), and Cape Winelands Film Festival
(South Africa, 2010).
Taarka talks about a real Seto folk-singer, Hilana Taarka (1856 – 1933), and is partly based on the eponymous book and a play written by Ülle Kauksi in 2004. The film depicts Taarka as a “despised woman and a worshipped singer” who becomes the
“Mother of Song” and the hero of Seto people (taarka.exitfilm.ee). According to film’s official website, Taarka was not accepted as a woman or as a member of Seto community because she was “an unmarried mother of children in poverty” and sexually more liberal than the historic Seto traditions allowed a woman to be. To stay alive, Taarka had to beg her bread and do odd jobs, such as sing in different parties. Although she was detested as a woman, her singing skills were known as the best in the Seto community. With the help
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of Finnish folk researcher, Armas Otto Väisänen, Taarka brought international fame to
Seto women by singing for the Finnish president.
Taarka is advertised as a drama or a feature film. However, because it is dramatizing the life of a real person, Hilana Taarka, the film can also be considered a docudrama, which is a filmic genre that combines facts and fiction, or as Lipkin puts it: weds documentary with drama (1). Wesley Mathew has argued that docudrama can be viewed as an “alternative form of re-presentation in ethnographic film” (18). Thus,
Taarka that talks about the life of a real person and contains various ethnographic elements that attempt to describe Seto culture, society, and historical events, may also be interpreted as a form of an ethnographic film. Although Ain Mäeots, the director of
Taarka, has mentioned that the movie is not an ethnographic film but rather a dramatic story about Seto heroine Taarka, it nevertheless depicts the life of a real person, Seto history, culture, people, ethnic clothing, leelo, wedding and funeral traditions, etc.
According to Vincent J. Bisson, filmmakers should not “hide behind the shroud of mere entertainment” if they “are advertising historical knowledge” (169). It is also worth noticing that the main consultant of the film was Seto activist, Õie Sarv, and the director claims that Seto people have advised every ritual, dance, and song showed in the movie.
Moreover, 90% of the film was shot in Setomaa and over 100 Seto people participated in certain scenes (“Exitfilmi pressiteade”). As MacDougall (1976:136) puts it, “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another” can be considered as an ethnographic film
(qtd. in Mathew 18).
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1.2. Issues to address
Taarka, depicting the lives of Seto women, demonstrates how various characteristics of identity, such as gender, ethnicity, class, location, etc., intersect and form different experiences and oppressions. Thus, when discussing the experiences of
Seto women, we cannot reduce it to just the females’ experiences. By concentrating only on their gender, we would strip away other important parts of their identities that also affect their situation. For example, a Seto woman who lives in a post-communist Estonia experiences the world different than an American female who resides in a capitalist society, even though both belong to the group, females. Moreover, Seto woman’s experience may also differ from Estonian woman’s experience, despite the fact that both share the same gender, race, and nationality. And even within the category of Seto women, different individual females experience world their unique ways. Therefore, gender, class, ethnicity, race, etc., should be described in relation to each other.
This thesis is hoping to provide insight to not just the experiences of women living in former Soviet Union countries, but to take one step further, and examine the situation of women who represent an ethnic minority in post-communist society. In short, this thesis will shed light on the experiences of Seto women in Estonia. Taking into account the postcolonial feminism, the principles of intersectionality and standpoint theory, this study is examining how various intersections in Seto women’s identities are working together to produce oppression. It utilizes a post-colonialist (post-communist) cultural media studies approach to analyze the filmic text, production, and reception of the film Taarka. This thesis poses following research questions: (1) Which intersecting identities of Seto women are depicted in the film Taarka? (2) Which intersecting
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identities of Seto women are recognized and discussed in film critics’ and audience members’ comments? (3) What kinds of hegemonies are revealed in the filmic text, meta- and paratexts in connection with the intersections in Seto women’s identities? (4) Are the
Estonian cultural economic environment, filmic text, and comments from the filmmakers, critics, and audience members reinforcing or challenging these hegemonies? (5) Can the film be considered an ethnographic film?
In order to address these problems through textual analysis, this thesis is going to concentrate on the narrative, dialogue, and visual images displayed in Taarka. It will also include production analysis that concentrates on the Estonian cultural economic environment and the monetary funds available for Estonian films, and the interviews with the filmmakers. Finally, the thesis will conduct a reception analysis that examines critics’ reviews and audience comments for the film.
1.3. Literature Review
1.3.1. Social Constructionism Theory
According to the social constructionism theory, our reality is socially constructed.
Social constructionism indicates that the meanings and ideas we believe in are created in interaction with other people and are implanted in society in the process of institutionalization (Berger & Luckmann 28). Social world is created “through our words, our actions, and our media products” and within this socially constructed reality
“[i]nteraction is no less a social accomplishment than is the creation of a film” (Leeds-
Hurwitz 893). Thus, according to social constructionism theory, by examining different images, words, and actions reflected in the film Taarka that, is part of our socially created
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reality, can contribute revealing various past and contemporary oppressing intersections present in Seto women’s identities.
Social constructionism theory suggests that every social group creates their unique understanding of the world based on their cultural, historical, economic, and political background (Leeds-Hurwitz 891). “Whether one understands the world in terms of men and women, pop music and classical music, urban life and rural life, past and future etc., depends upon where and when in the world one lives” (Burr 3-4). Socially constructed understandings do not only vary among different cultural groups but can also change over time (Leeds-Hurwitz 892).
As consistent with social constructionism, our identities are also mutually created within the social world that surrounds us (Berger & Luckmann; Butler; Hall; Katzenstein;
McNay; Fearon & Laitin; Burr; Leeds-Hurwitz). Identity can be considered as “mutually constructed and evolving images of self and other” (Katzenstein 59). It refers to social categories where a person belongs. Social category can be, for example, female,
Estonian, Seto, lower class, middle-aged, Christian, Catholic, etc. Although social categories may often seem natural and inevitable, they are not fixed by human nature, but rather by social and cultural convention and practice. Fearon and Laitin explain social categories following:
Social categories are sets of people given a label (or labels) and distinguished by
two main features: (1) rules of membership that decide who is and is not a
member of the category; and (2) content, that is, sets of characteristics (such as
beliefs, desires, moral commitments, and physical attributes) thought to be typical
of members of the category, or behaviors expected or obliged of members in
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certain situations (roles). We would also include in content the social valuation of
members of this category relative to others (contestation over which is often
called ‘‘identity politics’’). (848)
Diverse identities that individuals from different cultures hold are closely tied to the core values of those cultures. Thus, we need to look at identities as representations in specific contexts (Leeds-Hurwitz 892). For instance, a white heterosexual female in the
United States can hold a quite different identity than a white heterosexual woman in
Estonia. And even within one country, identities can vary, for example, across urban and rural areas, among the younger and older generation, etc. As said by Berger and
Luckmann, “identity is objectively defined as location in a certain world and can be subjectively appropriated only along with that world” (132).
Individuals may define themselves and can be defined by others based on endless variety of characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, language, etc. Hall describes how “[i]dentity emerges as a kind of unsettled space, or an unresolved question in that space, between a number of intersecting discourses”
(“Ethnicity: Identity and Difference” 10). Instead of considering identity as some kind of fixed point, we need to see it as a process, as something that is not stable, and is constantly changing and transforming (Olssen 35). As Hall puts it, “identities are never unified and, in late modern times, increasingly fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices, and positions” (“Introduction: Who needs “identity”?” 4). Social categories aka identities most relevant from this thesis viewpoint are gender, ethnicity (including cultural, religious, lingual, and regional perspectives), and class.
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1.3.2. Critical Theory
The original source of critical theory is Frankfurt School (Corradetti). Around
1950s, Frankfurt School laid the basis on the theory of “the culture industry” according to what, “mass consumption and culture were indispensable to producing a consumer society based on uniform needs and desires for mass-produced products and a mass society based on social organization and conformity” (Durham & Kellner 8). In short, according to Frankfurt School, mass media is a product of dominant ideology. The members of Frankfurt School, such as Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas, who practiced modernist critical theory in twentieth century, were mostly concerned
“with the forms of control and injustice that accompanied the evolution of industrial and corporate capitalism” (Lindlof & Taylor 54). Postmodern critical theorists, such as
Lyotard, Foucault, Barthes, and Baudillard, however, leave the idea of a universal social science aside. Instead, they are discussing social problems within their cultural and historical contexts and believe that knowledge is “defined by the multiplicity of people’s subject positions” (Agger 117).
Critical theory contributes to this thesis by offering a framework that helps to examine structures of domination, marginalization and resistance in different societies.
What connects critical theory with social constructionism is that “critical theorists use social life and lived experience as the site of inquiry for analysis and interpretation with the hope that they might find ways to make societies more open and equitable for marginalized groups” (McKinnon 237). In the center of critical analysis, is to critique inequality that dominant structures produce while privileging certain groups in society
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and marginalizing others, and to create opportunities to change these social relations. The purpose of critical theory is to liberate people from forms of dominance (238).
Consistent with various critical theorists, such as Marx, Horkheimer, Adorno,
Benjamin, Habermas, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc., domination is established by ideology.
Ideology can be considered as “systems of beliefs that serve as the foundation of a group's worldview and perception of reality and consciousness” (McKinnon 239).
Ideologies reproduce the relations of domination, “they legitimate rule by the prevailing
(dominant) groups over subordinate ones, and help replicate the existing inequalities and hierarchies of power and control” (Durham & Kellner 5). The structures of domination that ideologies are producing are called hegemonies. Antonio Gramsci, the Italian
Marxist thinker, was the first one to introduce the term hegemony (Lull 33) as an
“intellectual and moral leadership” of a dominant group that is established through the process of institutionalization where institutions like media, schools, and churches have a part in forming hegemonies (5). Hegemonies do not only concern economic classes studied by Marx, but we can also talk about hegemonies regarding gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, culture, language, location, etc.
As Lull explains, “hegemony never exists passively: it is continually renewed, modified, and re-created in response to challenges from counterhegemonic forces” (19).
Hegemony theory includes the analysis of dominant forces who hold the “hegemonic authority,” as well as counter-hegemonic groups who are challenging the ruling hegemony (Durham & Kellner 7). Lindlof and Taylor describe that according to Gramsci,
“[h]egemonic communication … does not so much instruct audiences what, specifically, to think, feel, or act but more generally how they should do so (e.g. by valuing particular
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premises over others)” (55). Hegemony does not usually operate using direct force, but is rather softly suggesting following the dominant ideology. Thus, people are often
“unaware that their actions and beliefs reinforce the dominant group's interests,” which is why “critical scholars are called to intervene by analyzing social practices, norms, and conditions to challenge the eminence of particular ideologies” (McKinnon 239).
1.3.3. Class Identity and Critical Class Theory
Even though the earliest definitions of social class consider it specifically a socioeconomic category, the latest conceptualizations examine “social class through multiple perspectives—socioeconomic, class consciousness, and social class identity”
(Shuter 91). When socioeconomic class typically discusses people’s income and occupation, class-consciousness usually concentrates on “the psychological and sociological dimensions of social class,” including “class identification, social outlook associated with class, and class opposition” (91). Class opposition refers to “the perceived conflict between one's social class and other social classes” (91-2). The latest formulation of social class stresses class identity that examines the “processes of culture, lifestyle, and taste” (92).
Social classes are present in every society. However, the characteristics of social class may differ among various nations. For instance, when “in a developing society” socioeconomic class is defined based on “a father’s occupation,” then in more advanced areas people’s social class may be determined based on their education (Shuter 93). The most important class issues examined in this thesis are a Seto woman’s socioeconomic class and her position in the Seto community based on her martial status. When socioeconomic class typically benefits people based on their income and occupation, then
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marital class privileges “some forms of personal life over others” (Rosenbury 769).
According to Rosenbury, “marriage was historically an economic exchange between families and it remains a mechanism designed to distribute resources to this day” (769).
The reason why marriage is privileged in various societies is that it was “originally recognized … in order to provide incentives for white men to privatize the dependency of white women and their children” (769). Thus, by unquestionably believing in the privilege of legal marriage, people are naturalizing the advantages of married people over single ones, but also the male supremacy in family settings.
Rosenbury goes on to explain how “the unearned privileges of marriage intersect with other unearned privileges, including white and monoracial privilege” (769). To discuss Taarka’s situation in the Seto community in the textual analysis section, the author would also add the marriage privilege’s intersection with the economic class privilege. Rosenbury finds that the best way to resist the oppression caused by person’s unmarried status would be “loosening, if not releasing, the ideal of family” by displaying and practicing a “broader range of relationships” (769).
1.3.4. Ethnic Identity and Crtical Race Theory
National identity can be seen as a collection of following fundamental characteristics: “(1) an historic territory, or homeland; (2) common myths and historical memories; (3) a common, mass public culture; (4) common legal rights and duties for all members; (5) a common economy with territorial mobility for members” (A. Smith 14).
Ethnic identities, however, are defined “mainly by descent rules of group membership and content typically composed of cultural attributes, such as religion, language, customs, and shared historical myths” (Fearon & Laitin 848). Another aspect that some researchers
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also consider to be part of ethnicity is location, which comprises “both material and nonmaterial spheres of life, the latter including rights and entitlements and the expression thereof, political power, status, prestige, and influence” (Wegren 53).
Thorughout the history, Setos have been subordinated in Estonia because of their different ethnicity. When interpreting and describing Seto culture, Estonians tend to apply an ethnocentric view that considers Estonian culture central and judges Seto culture, including language, customs, religion, etc., from Estonians’ perspective.
According to Hooghe, ethnocentrism refers to a “basic attitude expressing the belief that one’s own ethnic group or one’s own culture is superior to other ethnic groups or cultures, and that one’s cultural standards can be applied in a universal manner” (11).
While Estonians tend to subordinate Seto people, Setos, like many other Eastern
Europeans, carry racist attitudes towards Gypsies who have different ethnic features and darker skin than Setos. Nicolae Gheorghe discusses Gypsy ethnicity’s subordination in
Eastern European countries and explains that there has been a lot of “racist prejudice and hostility against Romanies” in these regions (832). Gypsies (Romanies) are often socially marginalized through painful stereotypes that describe them as thieves, rebels, hooligans,
“stateless persons,” refugees, etc. Therefore, many Romanies are forced to “ask for political refuge on grounds of alleged ideological, racial, or ethnic persecution” (838).
According to primordialism, conflicts between different ethnic groups and nationalities exist because of static fundamental features of the members of these categories, such as biological factors and territorial location (Fearon & Laitin 848). Social constructionism, however, refutes this statement, by arguing that ethnicity, as well as
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nationality, is socially and historically constructed term depending on the time and place of where they are being used (Fenton 23).
As consistent with critical race theory (CRT), “society racializes different groups in different ways at different times” (Stefancic & Delgado 455). Even though CRT was originally concerned with the black and white binary, various researchers today interpret race and racism “beyond a simple black-white paradigm” by examining “issues such as immigration, accent or national-origin discrimination” (455). This thesis is criticizing the racial ideologies that are grounded in socially constructed ethnic identities, such as
Estonian, Seto, and Gypsy (or Roma).
1.3.5. Gender Identity and Feminist Theories
West and Zimmermann explain that it is important to separate the terms “sex” and
“gender.” While sex is something that is “ascribed by biology,” gender is “an achieved status: that which is constructed through psychological, cultural, and social means” (125).
Gender roles “focus on behavioral aspects of being a woman or a man (as opposed, for example, to biological differences between the two)” (127). According to Butler, gender is a representation of an internalized notion of culturally constructed gender roles and it is created by the performance of this notion of gender (8). Males and females learn to behave according to their gender roles in the process of gender socialization. It is extremely difficult or even impossible to act as a man or a woman ignoring socially accepted gender roles (McNay 318).
Margaret Mead has described that because gender roles are not connected with our sexual features but depend on the societies they are constructed in; socially accepted gender norms may vary among different cultures (Leeds-Hurwitz 892). According to
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Inglehart and Norris who conducted the World Values Survey in more than 70 countries, found that culture and traditions largely affect people’s worldviews, including their understandings about femininity and masculinity (8). That is why the members of one culture may expect men to be breadwinners, while members of another culture expect the same thing of women.
For an individual, gender construction can depend on whom the individual is interacting and also on the other intersecting identities the person has. Gender, ethnicity, race, class, nationality, sexuality, etc., can all cause numerous oppressions that depend on each other and create unique forms of oppressions. For example, Hurtado explains how white women and women of color do not experience gender the same way when it comes to their relationship with white men, because white women are subordinated through seduction (“wooed into joining white men with the expectation of sharing privilege with them”), while women of color are suppressed through rejection (“denied the patriarchal invitation to privilege, and seen primarily as workers and objects of sexual aggression”)
(qtd. in West & Fenstermarker 168).
One of the aims of this thesis is to analyze how the film Taarka is reinforcing or challenging traditional gender roles, masculine hegemony, and heteronormativity in Seto society. According to Connell, traditional gender roles cause inequality that is secured through “hegemonic masculinity,” which is the “gender practice” that represents “the currently accepted answer to the problem of the legitimacy of patriarchy which guarantees … the dominant position of men and the subordination of women“ (77).
Fahey explains, “Idealized forms of masculinity become hegemonic when they become widely accepted or unnoticed in a culture and when their acceptance in turn reinforces the
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dominant gender ideology” (134). Trujillo summarizes hegemonic masculinity by identifying five elements: “(1) physical force and control, (2) occupational achievement,
(3) familial patriarchy, (4) frontiersmanship, and (5) heterosexuality” (291).
The term heteronormativity does not only refer to “normative sexual practice but also to “normal” [quotation marks added by the author] way of life” (Jackson 107). It privileges “monogamous coupledom” (110) and nuclear family (Jackson & Scott 3), which consists “of a married, co-resident couple and their biological children” (Ericsson
89). Heteronormativity also honors heterosexual relationships that posit women as passive and men as active in sexual interactions by permitting only “normal” sex acts that are not driven by female sexual desires. A man must take the initiative in all points, including approaching a woman, proposing sex, and proposing marriage. Women, however, should not express their desires. Women’s heterosexuality has been linked to housework, child rearing, and vaginal intercourse (Gerhard 11). Feminists claim that a heterosexual marriage objectifies women and treats them as property. Mary
Wollstonecraft has described heterosexual marriage as female oppression in her revolutionary 18th century essays (Lumsden 42).
To examine gender oppression in Setomaa, this thesis utilizes feminist cultural studies, post-colonial feminist theory, standpoint theory, and the principles of intersectionality and the matrix of domination.
1.3.5.1. Standpoint Theory
A place, from which person views the world and also socially constructs it, is called a standpoint (Borland 804). Standpoints always involve more than one factor. That is why, for instance, two white, middle-aged females who are part of different social
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classes, hold standpoints that are not entirely the same. However, there are some central themes that tie together certain groups of females, such as Seto women, whom all recognize Seto ethnicity as part of their identity. Thus, collective standpoints for various groups of women do exist (Collins 26). These standpoints are located in different intersections of various social factors and are connecting certain females, such as women of the same cultural minority, as one group (23).
Standpoint feminism originates “from the Marxist position that the socially oppressed classes can access knowledge unavailable to the socially privileged, that different social groups have different points of view for gaining knowledge, particularly knowledge of social relations” (Bank 18-9). Hartsock has explained that because the positions of women and men are structurally different, “the lived realities of women’s lives are profoundly different from those of men” (19). Thus, a sociological theory that is formed by men gives a one-sided picture of women's experiences (D. Smith).
Nevertheless, according to the third wave and postcolonial feminism, there is no universal experience that applies to women all over the world. The way women experience the world, depends on their cultural and social contexts. Therefore, we cannot talk about a singular women’s standpoint. Instead, we need to look at sexism in interaction with other forms of domination, like racism, colonialism, classism, etc. This means that, in different contexts, oppressed ones can become privileged ones. However, if every woman’s standpoint is unique, should we even talk about the different standpoints of diverse groups of women? Collins, who uses the examples of Black women, explains this issue following: although there is no “homogenous Black woman’s standpoint,” there are still certain issues that tie Black women together (28). Thus, it is
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possible to talk about a “Black women’s collective standpoint” (28). She argues “that group location in hierarchical power relations produces common challenges for individuals in those groups” and that their “shared experiences can foster similar angles of vision leading to group knowledge or standpoint” (300).
1.3.5.2. Intersectionality & the Matrix of Domination
In contemporary societies, various social factors, such as gender, age, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, etc., are overlapping and mutually constructing our experiences, social status, and inequalities (Collins 23). These crisscross systems of oppression that are determining our understandings and social position are called intersectionalities. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who first introduced this term in 1989, has claimed that any research that does not take into account intersectionality is not precisely addressing the way in which women are subordinated (DeFrancisco & Palczewski 8).
To better understand women’s social location within various intersecting systems of oppression, Collins has offered a framework of intersectionality. It is an “analysis claiming that systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age” are mutually constructing various experiences and inequalities (299). Intersectionality functions within the “matrix of domination: the overall organization of hierarchical power relations for any society” (299). In the matrix of domination “intersecting systems of oppression, e.g., race, social class, gender, sexuality, citizenship status, ethnicity and age,” are institutionalized through four interrelated domains of power: “structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal” (299).
The structural domain of power concerns “organized practices in employment, government, education, law, business, and housing,” and “operates through the laws and
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policies of social institutions” (Collins 301). The disciplinary domain of power “relies on bureaucratic hierarchies and techniques of surveillance” (288). The hegemonic domain of power operates through ideas, ideology, and culture (284; 299). The interpersonal domain of power functions in the level of people’s relationships and everyday lived experiences
(287; 299).
Because this thesis concentrates on the cultural artifact, the film Taarka, and also the critiques and comments of this film, it mostly focuses on the functioning of the hegemonic and interpersonal domains of power. The hegemonic domain of power works as a connection between the structural, disciplinary, and interpersonal domains (Collins
284). It shapes our consciousness by “manipulation of ideas, images, symbols, and ideologies” (285). In the hegemonic domain, dominant groups’ ideologies are reinforced through “[s]chool curricula, religious teachings, community cultures, and family histories” and lately largely through mass media (284). Thus, the film Taarka can be viewed as one of the means for reinforcing or challenging dominant hegemonies.
According to Collins, there are two possible options to gain empowerment in this domain. First, subordinate individuals and groups need to adopt a critical consciousness to see through hegemonic ideologies. Second, they should construct new knowledge that creates alternative perspectives for seeing the world.
The interpersonal domain of power, on the other hand, “functions through routinized, day-to-day practices of how people treat one another (e.g., microlevel of social organization)” (Collins 287). Such “practices are systematic, recurrent, and so familiar” that they can be often overlooked (287). In this domain, challenging ruling ideologies is up to each individual. This thesis will examine if the audiences’ attitudes
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and practices seem to be rather resisting or reinforcing ruling hegemonies.
The empowerment for oppressed can be gained through collective voices, but also through individuals’ self-definition in their everyday lives. Collins describes how black women have created “safe spaces” (100) that give them opportunities for self-definition that helps them to resist domination and “objectification as the Other” (101) in their everyday lives and “speak freely” (274) apart from dominant hegemonies. Collins describes three types of safe spaces: (1) “Black women’s relationship with one another,” which includes informal relationships with family and friends, and more formal relationships with black churches and various black organizations (102); (2) “the Black women’s blues tradition,” which gives Black women an opportunity to express and define themselves (105); and (3) “the voices of Black women writers,” who “expand the use of scholarship and literature into more visible institutional sites of resistance” (108-
9). Similar kinds of safe spaces can be also applied to other oppressed groups, including
Seto women.
1.3.5.3. Post-Colonial Feminism
People’s experiences, understandings, and beliefs depend greatly on various social groups they are part of (Griffin 446). Different societies deal with different hegemonies. Thus, a Seto woman who lives in a post-communist society has a different viewpoint than an American woman who lives in a capitalist society. Therefore, we cannot study Seto women’s experiences from Western feminists point of view, but instead need to take into account a postcolonial feminist approach that encourages to examine the experiences and oppression of non-Western women within their own social, cultural, political, historical, and economic contexts. McEwan states, “Postcolonial
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feminisms can contribute to new ways of thinking about women in similar contexts across the world, in different geographical spaces, rather than as all women across the world” (106).
Post-colonialism is trying “to recover the lost historical and contemporary voices of the marginalized” by confronting “the notion of a single path to development”, and stressing the “diversity of perspectives and priorities” (McEwan 94-5). From post- colonialism perspective, it is important to recognize “how location, economic role, social dimensions of identity and the global political economy” create different development opportunities for different groups (96). According to Spivak, we can talk about post- colonialism not only in the areas that were ruled by Western ideologies, but also in post- communist societies (Kelertas 4), such as Estonia.
An important concept used within post-colonial cultural criticism is hybridity.
According to Kraidy, hybridity “entails that traces of other cultures exist in every culture”
(148). Homi Bhabha counters hybridity with the term authentic culture by explaining that culture is often too strictly defined. The idea of a specific authentic culture can originate from the members of a dominant culture who define minority culture from the outsider’s perspective and often in exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of subordinated culture to define themselves. Stuart Hall discusses how ethnicities are
“hegemonized” because people believe that cultures exist in some “pure, pristine state”
(“Cultural Identity and Diaspora” 233). However, contemporary cultures are “always- already fused, syncretised, with other cultural elements” (233). According to Hall, cultures should not be defined “by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary
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heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of 'identity' which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity” (235).
The principles of post-colonialism are often combined with the values of feminism. Therefore, the ideas of post-colonial feminism, which challenge white Western feminism, shall be discussed. McEwan describes, “Until the 1980s, … Western feminists assumed that their political project was universal, and that women globally faced the same universal forms of oppression” (96). Today, however, feminism is seen as a global phenomenon that is unique to each society. Although there are issues, such as gender equality, that unite women all over the world, we need to also keep in mind matters, such as race, class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, religion, etc., that “have proved more divisive within and across nations than western theorists acknowledged or anticipated”
(96) and may cause opposition among women themselves (105). Each culture and society has their own values and beliefs, which is why we should not try to apply Western feminism, which is grounded in Western ideologies, to study women’s oppression in non-
Western societies, such as East, Third World, and the post-communist countries.
The idea of post-colonial feminism and the foundation of “ethnicity-based” or
“multiculturalist forms of feminism” (Weedon) have created a possibility to examine gender inequality together with other forms of oppressions inherent in specific societies.
Post-colonial feminism is part of the third wave of feminism that criticizes the essentialist understanding of a universal female identity and stresses the experiences of upper- middle-class white women. Third wave feminism that started in 1990s celebrates the diverse nature of each woman's lived experience and is, among other things, “inspired by
… a generation of the new global world order characterized by the fall of communism,
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new threats of religious and ethnic fundamentalism” (Kroløkke & Sørensen 17).
Post-colonial feminism challenges white Western feminism and requires the ability “to see, responsibly and respectfully, from another’s point of view” (McEwan
105). Ghodsee has warned us not to try to create “feminism-by-design” that attempts to study women’s issues as unique all over the world using Western feminism approach, but instead to view the concept of gender outside of capitalist setting (“Feminism-by-Design:
Emerging Capitalisms …”). Therefore, this thesis draws on the post-communist
(feminist) cultural studies to analyze Seto women’s situation within Estonian (and Seto) political, cultural, and historical environment. However, it is also informed and supported by Western cultural studies framework.
1.3.5.4. Feminism in Estonia
As mentioned above, women from different cultures experience various intersecting oppressions. At the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century many American white middle-class women felt oppressed mostly because of their gender, so they started to fight for women’s rights. Conversely, women living in communist countries, such as
Estonia (including Setomaa), felt more repressed because of the economic and political dictatorship of Soviet Russia than their gender. Even after Estonia gained its re- independence in 1991, issues, such as political affiliation, restoration of national identity and economic independence, were more important for Estonians than accomplishing gender equality.
Even today, Estonia can be considered one of the countries where people do not really acknowledge gender inequality as a problem (Kase). According to Estonian feminist, Eve Annuk, traditional gender roles are often seen as natural, especially among
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the older generation and people living in rural areas. Setomaa is considered both a countryside and periphery, which means that Setos specifically do not necessarily see traditional gender roles as something abnormal. The results of Estonian population survey also demonstrate that although there has been a slight improvement compared to year
2005, the overall awareness of gender equality in Estonian (including Seto) society is low
(Järviste). Moreover, there was not even an exact equivalent to the word “gender” in
Estonian (neither in Seto), so the women studies’ academics had to come up with the term that would translate as “social sex” (sotsiaalne sugu) which is difficult to understand for the people who are not involved in gender research.
Estonian feminist, Dagmar Kase, has discussed the importance of audience meaning-making of media texts. She explains how gender hegemonies and anti-feminist attitudes are reinforced in the readers’ comments for newspaper articles that talk about feminism in Estonia. According to Kase, Estonian people have described feminism as “an evil subversion that splits the society and shakes young people’s firmness;” some believe that “equality between men and women has never existed and never will” and that “being a mother is every woman’s holiest responsibility;” others claim that “this so-called gender equality produces fags and heartless mid-gendered creatures who only care about their individual desires.” (The previous comments are my translation.)
Western feminist ideas have not had a big breakthrough in post-communist societies for several reasons. First of all, females in this region do not see women’s emancipation obtained through communism as a truly positive phenomenon (Goldfarb).
Although Soviet Union promoted women’s involvement in public sphere, it did not encourage men to take liability in the private sphere, which “resulted in what has been
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called the ‘double’ or even ‘triple’ burden of women under communism: the obligation to be a devoted wife and mother, a dedicated worker, and an active member of the community” (Ghodsee, "Red Nostalgia? …” 27). Thus, after Soviet Union collapsed, this
“over-emancipation” had drained women out and staying home did not mean necessarily a disempowerment for them. It was seen rather as a “freedom that women did not have under communism when housewives were ostracized by the state” (32; 33).
Second, it is difficult for the societies that have been enforced to live under major ideologies like communism, to psychologically accept “propaganda, ideology, political messianism, … [or other] big liberatory ideas” (Busheikin 14). Because Western feminists are “influenced by Marxism, and still seem to speak in its language of liberation, exploitation, and internationalism, … they are rejected not only as aliens, but as representatives of a worn-out politics that has been central to past oppression”
(Goldfarb).
Third, in the post-socialist societies, economic status and political affiliation tend to play more important role in constructing women’s identities than gender. The reason behind it is that “in socialist theory, men and women needed to stand together and fight for the equality of all classes and sexes,” which set worker’s issues over the women’s issues and generated “a dichotomy between gender and class analyses that still divides feminists to this day” (Ghodsee, "Red Nostalgia? …” 32). Consequently, women in post- communist societies see often fewer problems in creating alliances with post-communist men who share their economic struggles and political views than with Western women who are “on the opposite side of the political spectrum” (32).
Fourth, when Western feminists are concerned with and defending women’s
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individual rights, then females in the former Soviet regions are often protecting their private sphere (family) against “public invasion” more than they are defending their individual rights within their families (Goldfarb). For instance, Estonians tend to support the idea of women being responsible for upbringing the children and managing housework, while men are seen largely as breadwinners (“Soolise Võrdõiguslikkuse
Monitooring 2009” 186). Consequently, this kind of “division of labor at home has its impact on opportunities for managing [women’s] working life” (186).
However, all of these reasons do not mean that gender equality in post-soviet countries, such as Estonia, does exist. For instance, women are underrepresented in leading positions; Estonian gender pay gap is one of the biggest in Europe; taking care of family and children is still greatly dominated by women, etc. (Estonian Human
Development Report 2012/2013 119). Consequently, women’s movements that are supported and informed by Western feminism are developing in these societies. For instance, as of 2007, there were more than hundred women organizations in Estonia
(Laane), including Naisliit, Tiina, Eesti Naisteühenduste Ümarlaud (ENÜ), Eesti
Naisuurimus- ja Teabekeskus (ENUT), etc. Barbi Pilvre, one of the “front-feminists” in
Estonia, has stressed the necessity to not only discuss gender inequality in Estonian labor market but to also pay attention to media’s one-sided depictions of women.
1.3.6. Media and Cultural Studies
Cultural studies originates from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. It is not a cohesive theory but a diverse academic field of study that includes various theoretical and methodological perspectives. It involves
“history, literary studies, philosophy, sociology, and psychology” (Dines & Humez xii).
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Unlike the scholars of Frankfurt School who assumed that there is a passive audience,
British cultural studies believe in an active audience who creates meanings. Thus, the purpose of cultural studies is to analyze different cultural practices and their relation to power (Sardar & Loon 9). It looks at how ideology and hegemony operate, but also how
“the ruptures in dominant discourses … leave possibility for agency and revolution”
(Chávez 271). In other words, how subordinate cultural groups can resist dominant groups’ ideologies by constructing their own counterhegemonic identities that differ from mainstream identities.
British cultural studies “came to concentrate on the interplay of representations of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality in cultural texts, especially concentrating on media culture” (Durham & Kellner 11). As consistent with social constructionist theory, we create our identities based on the cultural norms and values that rule in our societies; and “the mass media are among the most important reproducers of such norms and values” (Dines & Humez xi). Kellner explains how we use film, television, radio, and other media products to construct “our very identities; our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be a male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of ‘us’ and ‘them’” (7).
According to contemporary criticism, all cultural artifacts, including television, newspapers, films, popular music, etc., contain social meanings that reproduce or oppose the values of the dominant social groups. As Durham and Kellner put it, “culture is ordinary, a familiar part of everyday life, yet special cultural artifacts are extraordinary, helping people to see and understand things they’ve never quite perceived, like certain novels or films that change your view of the world” (4). Therefore, media texts can have
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a substantial ideological impact on our understandings and they should not be considered just as innocent reproductions of reality, but rather as powerful tools that can help to reinforce or undermine the dominant ideologies (e.g. produce racism, sexism, and other biases against subordinate social groups).
However, concentrating only on the media texts may often not give an overview of how the audiences are receiving these texts. In order to fully understand how certain media texts either reinforce or undermine the dominant systems of oppression (e.g. gender, ethnic, and class inequalities), Kellner has proposed a multi-perspectival approach to critical cultural studies that interprets cultural text taking into account its production and political-economical context, the textual analysis, and the reception of that text (10). First of all, it is important to examine media texts “within their system of production and distribution” that often dictates which media products should be produced and shown (10). Production analysis can include, for example, the consideration of political economy, media ownership and giant media corporations, the relationship between capitalism and ideology, etc. Second, media texts should also be approached from the textual analysis perspective. Text in cultural studies can be seen as a written text, “but it is more often used to refer to any artifact that requires reading or interpretation” (Chávez 270). Things like the film’s point of view, narrative, style, imagery, characterization, and construction of the film, need to be taken into account when conducting textual analyses. Third, because the reading of a cultural text is subjective, it is also important to study how audiences receive and interact with these texts in “culturally and historically specific contexts” and create different meanings
(Chávez 270).
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1.3.6.1. Feminist Cultural Studies
In the crossroads of cultural studies and feminism, lies a wide-ranging field called feminist cultural studies that “reject the notion of a singular (male) vantage point from which knowledge and discourse are developed” (Agger 124-5). Feminist cultural studies exposed “the patriarchal ideological messages encoded in mass cultural forms” and insisted “that feminine audiences were not passive receptacles for these messages”
(Meagher 270). Stuart Hall describes feminism’s intrusion to cultural studies as a
“ruptural” event. He explains how feminism changed the object of study in cultural studies by approaching to “personal as political,” how it expanded the perception of power and helped to understand it through gender and sexuality (“Introduction: Who needs “identity”?” 268).
Feminist cultural studies can be considered as “a set of intellectual engagements that aim to call attention to women's cultural experiences, to justify further exploration of women's experiences of cultural formations, and to use women's experiences to formulate new theories of culture” (Meagher 269). Not all women experience the same types of subordinations with the same intensity. Besides the gender, there are various other aspects of women’s identities, such as race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc., that shape females’ experiences. Therefore, when examining women from various cultures, the principles of standpoint theory and intersectionality need to be taken into account.
1.3.6.2. Post-Colonial Cultural Studies
Because this thesis is concentrating on the power relations in post-communist society, the author uses a post-colonial (post-communist) cultural studies approach that offers “an alternative way of analyzing Eastern Europe from a local-global,
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democratically inclusive, and culturally tolerant perspective” (Roman 33). Post-colonial cultural studies facilitate “the study of new, globalizing political identities, while empowering local subjectivities to voice the specificity of their culture, politics, and society within an increasingly pluralistic, global- local international community” (v).
Although post-colonial cultural studies “avoids mainstream, Cold War essentialist, derogatory thinking” (33), its analytical framework nevertheless has to adopt certain issues inherent in Western cultural studies (36). This thesis, for instance, looks into the matter of domination and subordination, gender equality, identity construction, nationality, ethnicity, media cultural studies, etc.
1.3.7. Ethnographic Film and Docudrama in Film Theory
Ethnographic films provide “visual representation of people, places, things, and ideas” (Enevoldsen 412) and even though they do not always have to be created by
“trained” ethnographers, they can be seen “as part of … the analysis of culture” (413).
Cohen describes an ethnographic film as "visual anthropology" and explains that it “is both a form of anthropological explanation and a vehicle for its representation” (1).
According to Ruby, ethnographic films must include the following characteristics:
(1) [T]he major focus of an ethnographic work must be a description of a whole
culture or some definable unit of culture; (2) an ethnographic work must be
informed by an implicit or explicit theory of culture which causes the statements
within the ethnography to be ordered in a particular way; (3) an ethnographic
work must contain statements which reveal the methodology of the author; and
(4) an ethnographic work must employ a distinctive lexicon-an anthropological
argot. Each element will now be discussed and elaborated upon. (107)
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Even though anthropologists interpret ethnographic films as documented representations, various film theorists explain that ethnographic films can never be merely descriptive and thus, in certain cases, the category “ethnographic films” can also include narrative films. MacDougall (136), for instance, considers “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another” an ethnographic film (qtd. in Mathew 18). Paul Henley suggests distinguishing an ethnographic film from an anthropological film. He explains that while “anthropology is concerned with general theoretical issues about human culture and society, ethnography is more a matter of the description of particular cases”
(217). Since ethnographic film takes into account “the analytical posture of the filmmaker” and “the circumstances under which the film was made,” it can never be
“purely descriptive” (217). Kyle Enevoldsen also stresses the importance of the film creator’s perspective when trying to describe the lived experiences of the Other and believes that the difference between the representer and representative is one of the reasons why ethnographic films “cannot … reproduce the “reality” of the day-to-day life of a particular society” (411). Another reason accurate “reality” cannot be reproduced in ethnographic film is the “filmviewer” who “experiences the given, limited filmic representation in a unique environment” that contains his/her prior knowledge (416).
Therefore, “certain conventions in the production of ethnographic film have been established as methods of constructing the closest or “most suitable” account of reality”
(Mathew 17). The most recognized “method of ethnographic filmmaking” has been a documentary that is supposed to represent the “reality” in more objective way (19).
However, since knowledge is “situated in a particular time and place which cannot be fully communicated as it was experienced” (VanSlyke-Briggs 337), it is not possible for a
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documentary to reproduce an accurate “reality.” Hence, when comparing documentary with fiction film, it can be argued that the latter ones are even “more “truthful” in their representations because they create their own contexts” (Enevoldsen 417).
Thus, an alternative way to represent ethnographic findings in a film is to use
“cultural and artistic methodology” (Hobson 18) that combines drama and ethnography.
In other words, an ethnographic film can also take the form of docudrama. Docudrama which weds facts with fiction should not be seen as “a “betrayal” of anthropological principles but[,] in fact[,] a more holistic and thorough account of reality, when engaged with by an active audience” (Mathew 18). Conversely, to a documentary, this genre admits that absolute truth does not exist and that the knowledge and meaning are created
“through the lenses of the people involved” (VanSlyke-Briggs 343). Docudrama
“acknowledges its own framing” (Speer 45) and “challenges textual authority” by adding
“the un-documented” alternatives to the “real” (30). By blending “primary source material with fiction,” docudrama refuses “to privilege one narrative” and “allows more room for varied perspective” (43). The potential to interrupt dominant narratives and give a voice to the “marginalized subjects” makes docudrama “a promising medium” that could be used by feminist scholars (5).
Because docudrama lets the “reality” and fiction work together and allows the filmmaker to take the camera to “places that actuality footage simply could not” (Mathew
21), the audience can engage with docudrama “in a manner that is simply more comprehensive than the documentary” (20). This gives docudrama the power to serve as an ideological tool (Matthew; Hoerl; Lipkin). Hoerl claims that (commemorative) docudramas “are frequently constructed in the interests of political leaders and
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mainstream political ideology” (64). Lipkin also states that docudrama functions as a persuasive argument and is a powerful ideological tool because it re-presents actual people and events by using melodramatic narrative structure that appeals on audience’s emotions. Docudrama creates relatability by transforming “the character/conflict/closure structure of the classic Hollywood narrative film into melodramatic configurations of victim, trial, and articulation” (Lipkin 100). Thus, functioning as a “melodrama, a film in this mode not only advocates a moral truth in its re-presentation of the actual people, places, events, and actions at its source but also serves up an argument highly appealing to its audience” (13).
Docudrama does not only depict historical events or persons, but also presents
“real-life contemporary problems in dramatic fashion on television” (Hoffer & Nelson
64). Ebbrecht adopts Guido Knopp’s term, “historical event television,” to describe docudrama. He explains that in “historical event television” historical occurrences not only become history and “archive of collective memory”, but that it also works vice versa, meaning that when connected to audiences’ everyday lives, history can also become a present-day occasion (Ebbrecht 37).
In short, ethnographic film and its forms, docudrama and documentary, can never be an accurate representation of reality. The way the Other is depicted in these films depends on filmmaker’s and film viewer’s perspectives. Thus, ethnographic films
(including documentaries and docudramas) can serve as ideological tools that either reinforce or challenge ruling hegemonies.
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1.4. Methodology
Because the aim of this thesis is to analyze the power relations in post-communist society, the author uses a post-communist (post-colonial) cultural studies approach that offers “an alternative way of analyzing Eastern Europe from a local-global, democratically inclusive, and culturally tolerant perspective” (Roman 33). As an Estonian and a member of a linguistic and cultural minority called Võro, which is closely related to
Seto culture and language, the author hopes to bring some situational knowledge to this thesis by studying a phenomenon that is not totally foreign to her. At the same time, being a member of Võro, and not Seto culture, will hopefully help the author to be less biased when analyzing the situation of her ethnic neighbors and not the condition of her own people.
In order to examine the situation of Seto women, the author will conduct production, textual, and reception analysis of the film Taarka. The movie has been chosen for this thesis because it is the first film in Seto that tells a story of a Seto woman while also depicting Seto people, their history, and culture. According to contemporary criticism, media texts have a substantial ideological impact on our understandings, and they contain social meanings that reproduce or oppose the values of the dominant social groups. Taarka can also make a persuasive argument as it re-presents actual person and actual culture by using dramatic narrative structure that appeals on audience’s emotions.
The film was first rented through Estonian website filmilaenutus.delfi.ee and watched three times over a two-month period. The author took comprehensive, detailed notes on the computer during the second and third time of watching Taarka. All the issues connected with the construction of Seto women’s gender, class, and ethnic identity
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(including nationality, culture, religion, language, and location) were paid special attention while taking notes. Later, the film was watched for the forth and fifth time on
DVD. The existing notes were complemented, and additional notes were taken.
To interpret the film Taarka, the author used a ‘multi-perspectival approach’ to critical cultural studies (Kellner 10) that takes into account the film’s production and political-economical context, its textual analysis, and audience and critics’ reception of that text.
1.4.1. Production Analysis
Because this thesis is examining an Estonian (Seto) film that is viewed within
Estonian (and Seto) context, it is important to keep in mind that unlike in the United
States, Estonian film industry is not divided between giant media corporations. Aet
Laigu, the producer and general manager in OÜ Metoriit (Estonian production company), explains that in Estonia, the professional profit-oriented film industry does not exist
(Taruste). This is due to a too small local market and filmmakers high dependency on national monetary funds (Tafel-Viia et al. 35). Monetary means for producing Estonian movies are mostly received from three organizations: Eesti Filmi Sihtasutus (EFS)
(Estonian Film Institute), Eesti Kultuurkapital (KULKA) (Estonian Cultural Capital), and
Kultuuriministeerim (Estonian Ministry of Culture) (Eesti Filmi Arengusuunad 2012-
2020 11). The funding system does not so much take into account “films’ profitability or competitiveness, but rather their effectiveness on promoting and ensuring the existence of
Estonian national culture” (Taruste; my translation). Besides domestic funding, Estonian film production also depends on the European Union support. Thus, to analyze the film
Taarka from a production perspective, this thesis will look at its monetary
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funds/supporters, the size of its audience compared to other Estonian movies coming out in Estonia in 2008.
The interviews with the people working in the culture industry can also be a part of production analysis. Interviews with the producers, writers, editors, actors, etc., often reveal “the attitudes and opinions” of the moviemakers (Stokes 93). In order to examine the filmmakers’ intentions when creating Taarka, all the interviews with the filmmakers that were published in Estonian largest newspapers, culture pages, and the local Seto newspaper will be analyzed.
1.4.2. Textual Analysis
The textual analysis will utilize the principles of identity construction, post- colonial cultural studies, post-colonial feminism, standpoint theory, intersectionality, and the matrix of domination, which the author has explained in the first chapter. To examine which intersectionalities of Seto women’s identities are depicted in Taarka and whether these depictions reinforce or challenge ruling hegemonies, this thesis applies various critical theories in order to identify hegemonies of gender, class, ethnicity, and intersected identities. The examination of the film’s textual features is necessary to reveal the ruling cultural ideologies and culturally reproduced specific ideals and values (Stokes
144).
The textual analysis also explores the way in which the story is represented - it looks at the construction of the film concentrating on the male gaze and close-ups displayed in the movie. Johnston mentions that besides examining the narrative and dialogue in the film, we should also look at the way in which the story is represented, in other words, the construction of the film (29). For example, although the female
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protagonist may be a strong feminist character, the film might eroticize her and picture her through the male gaze, especially in the nude scenes (Blaney 442). The male gaze means that the subject of the gaze (the one who is looking) is male, and the object of the gaze is female (Mulvey). According to Michele White, the gaze “can be defined as a form of power-laden staring [that] produces and enforces gendered positions … [and] reinforce[s] gender norms and provide[s] erotic views” (9). The male gaze can include displaying naked female bodies, as “the female nude in artistic representation is an affirmation of patriarchal control of the female body” (Nead 334). In short, the male gaze visually objectifies women.
Roof suggests also examining close-ups’ function in feminist films. He describes how close-ups of the women can be contrasted with long shots picturing the patriarchal context as safe and rational. Close-ups can be seen as “a lure that distract us from the conditions that produce their pre-eminence” (Roof).
1.4.3. Reception Analysis
The reception analysis draws on the principles of media convergence, participatory culture, encoding/decoding, and projection and introjection. Henry Jenkins believes that consumers heavily affect media circulation and that the “participatory culture” plays an important role in our media consumption (3). He encourages viewing contemporary media through the lens of media convergence that “occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others” (3).
Audience members create their “personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources” that help them to understand their everyday lives (3-4). Therefore, we cannot just analyze the
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enforcement or opposition of ruling hegemonies within cultural texts, but we have to also study how audiences read these texts. Consequently, besides analyzing the filmic text and its production, this thesis is also examining audience responses to the film Taarka.
When examining audiences’ reception, it is important to pay attention to encoding and decoding in the communicative exchange. In other words, how audiences receive produced messages and how do they respond to these messages (Mankekar 255).
According to Stuart Hall, the audience does not always decode the message in a way encoder created it. He offers three possible ways the audiences can read the media messages: dominant, negotiated, and oppositional (Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” 281). The dominant reading means that the receiver decodes the message utilizing the dominant code and accepts the hegemony it embodies. The negotiated reading refers to a strategy where the audience adapts and opposes the hegemonic view at the same time. Finally, the oppositional reading happens when the audience ignores the dominant encoded message even though they understand it.
When analyzing the audience identification with the filmic text, Scodari and
Mulvaney have suggested studying Stacey’s examples of projection and introjection when analyzing the audience identification with the filmic text. According to Stacey, the projection helps “viewers automatically interpret screen culture subjects to possess the same attitudes, values, and/or behaviors as they” (qtd. in Scodari & Mulvaney).
Introjection, on the other hand, allows audiences to “unconsciously adopt the attitudes, values, and/or behaviors they associate with screen culture subjects” (Stacey qtd. in
Scodari & Mulvaney).
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To analyze which intersecting identities of Seto women are discussed by the audiences, and whether their comments reinforce or challenge the ruling hegemonies, the critics’ reviews and audience members’ comments for Taarka will be analyzed. The examination includes all of the comments and reviews that are displayed in Estonian largest newspapers’ and culture pages, and on the film’s official website.
Hopefully, this critical analysis of the film Taarka will contribute to critical media literacy and help us to pay attention to unequally distributed cultural and economic resources in our society and encourage a more even distribution of these resources. The author also hopes that this thesis will elucidate its readers about the intersecting characteristics of Seto women’s identities that determine their position in the society.
And finally, maybe this thesis will help more Setos and other ethnic minorities in Estonia to become active critics and creators of their own culture.
1.5. Chapters’ Layout
The analysis part consists of three separate chapters. Chapter two provides production analysis that includes the examination of the Estonian cultural economic environment and the interviews with the filmmakers. Chapter three conducts a textual analysis that scrutinizes hegemonies of gender, class, ethnicity, and intersecting identities. Chapter four focuses on reception analysis that incorporates both critics’ reviews of and audience comments for the film Taarka. Finally, chapter five will conclude the thesis by describing the implications of the study and suggesting future research.
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CHAPTER TWO: PRODUCTION ANALYSIS
Production analysis consists of two parts. First, the Estonian cultural economic environment will be analyzed to study the cultural and financial conditions under which the film Taarka was released. This will help to shed light to how Seto ethnic subordination is established already in the structural domain of power that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions” (Collins 284; 301). The second part of production analysis is comprised of interviews with the filmmakers that will help to further discover their intentions when creating the film Taarka.
2.1. The Estonian Cultural Economic Environment
A professional, profit-oriented film industry in Estonia does not exist (Taruste).
The simplicity of the native film market creates an industry where filmmakers are highly dependent on national monetary funds (Tafel-Viia et al. 35). The Estonian film production market “consists of tens of independent micro- and small enterprises that operate in the areas of film production, post-production, and distribution” (Tafel-Viia et al. 38; my translation). The products of these small Estonian filmmakers have to compete with the Hollywood films showed in Estonian movie theatres and the reality is that “only about tenth of all the cinema visits in Estonia have to do with watching Estonian films”
(36; my translation). For example, in 2008 when Taarka was released, Estonian cinemas screened 265 films, including 20 Estonian, 173 American, 65 European, and seven other countries’ films (“KU07: Filmilevi”). Out of approximately 1,6 million moviegoers in
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2008 only 119,570 viewed domestic movies. That makes Estonian films’ market share just 7.3% (“Filmistatistika”). Hence, many Estonian filmmakers are trying to make their way into the international market by exhibiting their movies in global film festivals.
However, due to their small fame, it is quite a challenge (Tafel-Viia et al. 35).
2.1.1. Funding of Taarka
The funding for filmmaking in Estonia comes mostly from national and European funds and only a very few film enterprises claim to have earned significant revenues from box office sales, DVD and digital sales, and television licensing (Tafel-Viia et al. 30).
Domestic monetary means are mostly received from three organizations: Estonian Film
Institute (EFS), Estonian Cultural Capital (KULKA), and Estonian Ministry of Culture
(“Eesti Filmi Arengusuunad 2012-2020” 11). European financial support comes mainly from the MEDIA Programme, the European Union’s support program for the European audiovisual industry (Tafel-Viia et al. 31). The funding system for Estonian filmmakers is normally project based, which makes their situation in the market very unstable. There are limited funds available, and competition is high, which means only a fraction of films will receive the necessary funding. Moreover, in order to receive national funding for the film, the companies have to also be able to partly self-fund their project, which is usually done by requesting money from other funds (31).
Another problem with the national financing is that funding varies for different types of movies. This regulation is influencing what kinds of films are being produced
(Tafel-Viia et al. 37). For example, in 2014, EFS’s contribution rate for fiction films is
450,000 euros (approximately 618,480 USD), while documentaries are only being supported with a maximum of 50,000 euros (Kajamäe). Also, it is easier to get funding
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for films that are somehow promoting and ensuring the existence of local cultures
(Taruste). As Stokes mentions, often the “support for media and culture industries has been justified on the grounds that cultural products can help to forge national identities or push political agendas” (Stokes 77).
Taarka is produced by the domestic enterprise “Exitfilm OÜ in cooperation with the Union of Rural Municipalities of Setomaa” and distributed by “Exitfilm OÜ in cooperation with Forum Cinemas” (taarka.exitfilm.ee). Exitfilm OÜ, founded in 1992, is a small Estonian production company whose main activity is producing documentaries and feature films. As of today it has “produced and co-produced over 11 feature films, 12 short-films, and 36 documentaries,” and has also “contributed to the production of various international films” (exitfilm.ee; my translation).
On Taarka’s official website, there are 21 featured partners that helped with the making of the film (taarka.exitfilm.ee). The first ones mentioned are the three biggest domestic monetary supporters: EFS, KULKA, and the Estonian Ministry of Culture. The budget for making Taarka was 506,819 euros, of which EFS provided 293,610 euros
(57.93%). This percentage was the highest compared to the other five full-length domestic movies supported by EFS in 2008 (“Eesti Filmi Arengusuunad 2012-2020” 15).
It is also worth mentioning that, according to EFS website, in 2008 all of the supported movies were full-length feature films, and none were documentaries. This may be one of the reasons why the film director utilized the drama genre instead of documentary and decided to tell “the story of Seto people through the life story of their charismatic heroine” (Kass; my translation).
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Another major domestic sponsor, KULKA, has supported Taarka through its program titled Setomaa riiklik kultuuriprogramm (The National Culture Program of
Setomaa) that is designed especially for preserving Seto cultural heritage. One of the objectives of this program is to fund “the maintenance, development, and introduction of
Seto culture and identity in local and national media through Seto literature and films that reflect Seto ethnic traditions” (“Setomaa Kultuuriprogramm 2006-2009” 16; 17; my translation). Similar to the objectives of “Setomaa riiklik kultuuriprogramm,” the constitution of a local supporter, The Union of Rural Municipalities of Setomaa, also declares “the preservation, promotion, and presentation of Seto ethnic culture and the appreciation of Seto cultural heritage” as one of its objectives (“Setomaa Valdade Liidu
Põhikiri” § 2, 2.1; my translation).
The local contributors are not the only ones who wish to preserve Seto cultural heritage. Taarka has also received support from the European Union program MEDIA.
MEDIA is a program that supports the European audiovisual sector by helping
“independent European filmmakers to develop new films, and to find partners and audiences beyond national borders” (“Overview MEDIA 2007-2013”). It often finances
“small and medium-sized businesses” that would otherwise be left without monetary means. Through its contributions, MEDIA helps to maintain Europe’s cultural diversity and heritage, and enhance “cross-border understanding of other cultures” (“Overview
MEDIA 2007-2013”). As it appears, one of the objectives of many of Taarka’s contributors is to support the activities that help to preserve indigenous and heritage- related cultures, such as Seto.
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At first sight, these kinds of funding systems seem to work in Setos’ favor by helping to introduce, maintain, and spread their culture to a wider audience. When analyzing these support schemes from gender/ethnicity intersection, we first need to look at what types of Seto cultural traditions are being preserved and presented.
Visitsetomaa.ee mentions the following Seto traditions and cultural artifacts that are being maintained and advertised to tourists: Seto leelo, language, jewelry, ethnic clothing, dishes, handicraft, village parties (kirmased) and fairs, weddings and funerals,
Seto Kingdom Day (Seto Kuningriigipäev), etc. Many of these traditions and activities are exclusively linked to Seto women. For example, females are practicing Seto leelo, wearing Seto jewelry, handcrafting Seto ethnic clothing, and preparing Seto dishes. They also often sing in village parties, weddings, and the Kingdom Day. As mentioned above,
Seto women’s leelo singing tradition is among the cultural practices that receive the most attentiveness and recognition because it is added to the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage. Moreover, when looking at the people who are introducing Setomaa and its traditions to tourists, than eleven out of thirteen Setomaa excursion guides who are listed on visitsetomaa.com are females. Thus, the Estonian cultural economic environment especially empowers a certain group of Seto females who actively promote their cultural traditions and artifacts.
However, by supporting mostly Seto heritage-related activities, and not paying that much attention to the other areas, which also need to develop in Setomaa, the
Estonian government and European Union are shaping the nature of Setomaa, Setos, Seto women, and Seto culture to a specific direction. “Seto” should be an “authentic” and commodified representation of the Estonian ancestry to the world. This limited
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description of the Seto people (including Seto females) restricts hybridity among Setos
(including Seto women). As Bhabha has explained, the term “authentic culture” often originates from the members of a dominant culture who define minority culture too strictly from an outsider’s perspective and usually in an exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of subordinated culture to define themselves. Because Setomaa is a peripheral and economically backward region, Seto people have to choose either poverty or funding from the state in the condition that they maintain and introduce the heritage-related and commodified representation of Setos and their culture. This, in turn, creates unequal power relations within the contemporary Seto community, where Setos who are involved with maintaining and introducing their culture receive more resources and recognition than Setos who are not participating in these types of culture-linked activities.
2.1.2. Distribution of Taarka
When analyzing the cultural economic environment of the film Taarka, we also have to pay attention to its distribution and the number of viewers, which tells us how many people’s vision of Setos is possibly being affected. Taarka was distributed in cooperation with Forum Cinemas AS, one of the two multiplex cinemas that existed in
Estonia in 2008 – the year Taarka was released. Out of 168 new films that screened for the first time in Estonian movie theaters in 2008, Forum Cinemas distributed 114
(Tuumalu 14). As mentioned in the introduction chapter, Taarka was also shown in three international film festivals and received several domestic prizes.
Despite of the support from the Estonian and European major funding organizations, the domestic culture awards, and the opportunity to screen in the Estonian
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largest multiplex cinema, the general audience did not find the film as appealing as two other full-length domestic feature films that came out the same year. When compared to all twenty domestic films that were screening in Estonian cinemas, in 2008 (including short films and documentaries), Taarka held a considerable third position with 9,445 viewers. Still, the first and second place in domestic rankings – Detsembrikuumus (an action drama about the 1924 Estonian coup d'état attempt) and Mina Olin Siin (a feature film about 17-year-old Estonian boy who becomes a drug dealer), had significantly more viewers, 50,369 and 46,561 respectively. It is worth noticing that both of these Estonian films have male heroes, unlike Taarka that is featuring a female protagonist. When competing with all 168 new films shown in Estonian cinemas in 2008 (including
American, European Union, and other countries’ films), Taarka held only 49th rank, while Detsembrikuumus landed on seventh and Mina Olin Siin on eighth place (Tuumalu
14). This may indicate that Estonians are more interested in masculine films that show action, war, men, drugs, and crimes, and concentrate on Estonian nationality and history than the movies in minority language that are reflecting minority culture and the hard life of a minority woman.
2.2. Interviews with the Filmmakers
In order to examine the filmmakers’ intentions when creating Taarka, the following interviews and comments are analyzed: (1) interviews with the film director,
Ain Mäeots, published in Eesti Päevaleht, SL Õhtuleht, Postimees, Eesti Ekspress,
Vanemuine.ee, and Tartu Postimees; (2) interview with the screenwriter, Mart Kivastik, published in Postimees; (3) comments from the actress, Marje Metsur, published in SL
Õhtuleht; (4) comments from the production assistant, Anneli Lepp, published in
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Lõunaleht; and (5) comments from the producer, Anneli Ahven, published in Tartu
Postimees.
2.2.1. Taarka as an Ethnographic Film
First of all, to answer one of the research questions – whether the film Taarka can be considered as an ethnographic film – the filmmakers’ intentions will be analyzed. On one hand, the director of the film, Ain Mäeots, has said that Taarka is supposed to be a feature film and not “an anthropological documentary” (Märka; Kübar; my translation).
The director explains that when compared to the eponymous play, also directed by
Mäeots, the movie concentrates on the Taarka persona over Seto culture and community.
Mäeots clarifies that even in the play, his intention was not to create some “pure Seto thing,” but rather demonstrate his view and interpretation of Taarka and Seto people. He says that although the film and play embody many historical events, there is also plenty of fantasy (“Ain Mäeots: me ei püüa teha üdini setu asja”; my translation). On the other hand, Mart Kivastik, one of the film’s screenwriters, says that even though the movie cannot be classified as “an ethnographic film about Setos,” it cannot be considered as “a feature film of Taarka with a strong narrative” either (Kübar; my translation). Kivastik, who originally wanted to create a strong story of Taarka, finds that because of the numerous rewritings of the script, the film’s perspective and form became too vague.
Returning to the research question about the film’s genre, the film contains various ethnographic elements. First, Mäeots has claimed that 90 percent of the film was shot in Setomaa on Seto’s watch. Second, “Seto women have guided every ritual, dance, and song,” and the film’s main consultant was a Seto activist, Õie Sarv (Märka; my translation). Another local activist, Aare Hõrn, also gave some advice. Third, the film
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includes local leelo choirs, and around 150 Setos in the mass scenes, dressed in their ethnic clothing and jewelry (Feldmanis). Even Mäeots has stressed that “everything needs to look as natural as possible” and that “an open-air museum milieu” should be avoided in the film (Aeltermann; my translation). In addition to these ethnographic elements, the film’s producer, Anneli Ahven, has emphasized the importance of Seto culture being captured in Taarka. Ahven is glad that she has had a chance to support the maintenance of these traditions through the movie (“Tartus esilinastub maailma esimene setokeelne mängufilm ‘Taarka’”).
These filmmakers’ comments articulate that although Taarka is not a pure, unchanged ethnographic reflection of the Seto community and its aim is to rather dramatize the life of Taarka; it still contains various ethnographic elements. These elements attempt to articulate Seto culture, society, and historical events and portray the life of a real person, which is why the film can be considered as a docudrama that combines facts with fiction. Docudrama “acknowledges its own framing” (Speer 45) and
“challenges textual authority” by adding “the un-documented” alternatives to the real
(30). Drawing on MacDougall’s argument, “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another” (1976:136) can be considered as an ethnographic film (qtd. in Mathew 18),
Wesley Mathew claims that the docudrama can be viewed as an “alternative form of re- presentation in ethnographic film” (18). Therefore, although Taarka is not an ethnographic film in the form of documentary, according to some film theorists, it can still fall under the ethnographic film category in the form of docudrama that weds documentary with drama while recognizing its own framing. Lipkin stresses that docudrama functions as a persuasive argument and is a powerful ideological tool because
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it represents actual people and events by using melodramatic narrative structure that appeals on the audience’s emotions (100). Bisson explains that it is important to study the impact of the films that advertise historical knowledge because these films “have become a pervasive and influential medium” for people to gain historical understanding “and multicultural awareness” (1). The verdict on whether the audiences interpret Taarka as an ethnographic film will be explained in the reception analysis chapter.
2.2.2. Taarka as a Woman
Ain Mäeots describes Taarka as a controversial and interesting woman and explains that the film depicts “the conflict between the individual and the community”
(Laks; my translation). Mäeots tells about the contrary reactions from Setos when he decided to dramatize Taarka’s life. He admits that there were people who thought that capturing the life of “a slut and a drunkard” is not worthy, even though Taarka’s rhymes, metaphors, and songs were highly valued (Laks; my translation). Marje Metsur, who plays the old Taarka in the movie, mentions that if Taarka drank and slept with men, then that is how she should be represented (“Marje Metsurist sai seksikas setu vanaeit”).
However, Taarka’s lifestyle was not the only thing that Setos did not approve. Mäeots explains that because the historic Setomaa was an “extremely closed” society, Setos did not accept Taarka also because of her “dark blood and gypsy origin” (Märka, my translation). Nevertheless, he believes that Taarka’s tragic portrayal in the film managed to touch Setos’ hearts and “for the first time; they started seeing her as a real human with a rough destiny and not just a stone statue by the lake of Obinitsa” (Laks; my translation).
The comments from locals, who did not originally approve the idea of seeing
Taarka in the film, show that traditional gender roles still have a ground in the Seto
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community. When looking at this problem from gender/location perspective, we find proof for Annuk’s statement that traditional gender roles are often seen as natural especially among people living in rural regions and the older generations. Thus, a talented woman who brought international fame to Seto people, but was too liberal and did not follow rules established for Seto females, is still thought of as an outcast in the
Seto community.
2.2.3. Representing Setos in Taarka
A former Seto king and activist, Aare Hõrn, commented on Vikerraadio (Estonian radio station) that Setos were not happy of how the Estonian filmmakers depicted their culture, traditions, language, and community. For example, the movie includes many drinking scenes, although contemporary Setos are sensitive to being shown as people who exaggerate with alcohol. Hõrn also claims that some traditions were not depicted properly. Mäeots understands Setos’ concerns about their depiction in the film “because one thing is to describe the black sheep of their community, while it’s a totally different thing to represent the community itself” (Märka; my translation). Nevertheless, he believes that there is no one specific way to represent Seto culture (“Setod keerasid
"Taarka" filmitegijatega tülli”) and admits that his intention was not to create an anthropological documentary of Setos, but rather demonstrate his view and interpretation of Taarka and the Seto community (“Ain Mäeots: me ei püüa teha üdini setu asja”).
Therefore, just like previous research has indicated, Setos are continuously being described from an outsider’s perspective, who defines them as the Other, when their own voices have been put in the background (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos
15).
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The outsiders’ representation of Seto culture is also reflected in the filmmakers’ choice of actors and actresses for Taarka. The majority of them are Estonians who do not speak Seto, but learned it for the movie. Many locals did not like their inexperience with the language. For instance, Mäeots’ decision to give Siiri Sisask, an Estonian singer and musical theatre actress, Taarka’s role in the film, caused a heated discussion among Setos and in Estonian media. Sisask is not of Seto origin and had to learn the language for the role. Many people preferred to see Seto actress, Merca (Merle Jääger), as the protagonist.
Jääger is fluent in Seto and has starred in the majority of Seto female roles in theatres.
She also played Taarka in the eponymous play directed by Ain Mäeots. The director explains that Merca, who is a pure Seto, looks nothing like a “foreign-blooded gypsy,” but Taarka needs to be perceived as alien in the Seto community (Kerge; my translation).
He believes that even though Sisask’s Seto language is not clean, she embodies this foreignism and is more Taarka-like than Merca. Even though this may not be the filmmaker’s intention, the decision to cast an Estonian actress as a protagonist instead of
Seto actress in the film that depicts Seto culture, could be interpreted as the enforcement of Estonian ethnicity’s superiority over Seto ethnicity. Although Taarka was originally not respected in the Seto community, the film constructs her as a Seto heroine. Mäeots explains that her portrayal “touched locals’ hearts” and, “for the first time, made them
“see Taarka as a real human with a rough destiny” (Laks; my translation). Because the film portrays Taarka as an idol, Setos prefer to see someone of their kind in that important role. As one local has commented: Setos are the ones who are able to embody their people the best, Estonian actors just cannot handle representing Setos (Kübar).
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Even though Mäeots acknowledges the fact that Taarka is just the Estonian filmmakers’ interpretation of Setos, audiences often see this depiction as reality and construct their understandings of Setos based on that movie. As described in the fist chapter, docudrama genre lets the “reality” and fiction work together and allows the filmmaker to take the camera to “places that actuality footage simply could not” (Mathew
21). The audience can engage with docudrama “in a manner that is simply more comprehensive than the documentary” (20), which gives docudrama the power to serve as an ideological tool (Matthew; Hoerl; Lipkin). Moreover, the production assistant,
Anneli Lepp, who invited Setos to participate in the mass scenes, advertised the movie as a “good opportunity for the locals to be captured in Seto history” (Kaasik; my translation). By doing this, she is enforcing the Estonian filmmakers’ idea of Seto history as the “real Seto history” which in reality may not describe the real experiences of Seto people. These dominant culture’s depictions of Seto traditions, people and community are not just meant for Setos or Estonians, but also for the international audience. When asked if he made the film for Estonians or Setos, Mäeots responded: “Not just for Estonians and
Setos” (Märka; my translation). As mentioned in the first chapter, Taarka participated in three international film festivals.
The next chapter will conduct a textual analysis that scrutinizes hegemonies of gender, class, ethnicity, and intersecting identities. To emphasize the hybridity within cultural groups, this chapter will first analyze Taarka as the Other in the Seto community and then examine Seto women as the Other in Estonian society.
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CHAPTER THREE: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
To examine which intersectionalities of Seto women’s identities are depicted in
Taarka and whether these representations reinforce or challenge ruling hegemonies of ethnicity, gender, and class, the textual analysis utilizes the principles of identity construction, post-colonial cultural studies, post-colonial feminism, standpoint theory, intersectionality, and the matrix of domination. According to Collins’ matrix of domination, dominant groups’ ideologies in the hegemonic domain are reinforced largely through mass media, and this includes films, such as Taarka.
The third wave feminism celebrates the diverse nature of each woman's lived experience (Kroløkke & Sørensen 17). From postcolonial feminism’s perspective, there is no universal experience or suppression that applies to women all over the world.
Nevertheless, there are issues that tie together certain groups of females, such as Seto women. Seto females’ “location in hierarchical power relations produces [some] common challenges” for various women who belong to this group (Collins 300). Therefore, Seto females’ collective standpoint does exist. However, when analyzing sexism intersected with other forms of domination, such as racism, colonialism, classism, etc., oppressed persons can become privileged ones in different contexts (McEwan 105). For instance, when Seto women as a group are compared to Estonian women, they are oppressed because of their ethnicity, language, location, etc. Nevertheless, when Seto females are competing against “dark-blooded” Taarka who has no dowry or husband, other Seto females are in privileged position because of their married status and lighter skin.
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Therefore, to stress the hybridity (Kraidy 148) within the Seto cultural group, the analysis of filmic text will include both the position of Seto women as a group within Estonian society, as well as Taarka’s situation within the Seto community.
The method used for this textual analysis is to apply the various critical theories in order to identify hegemonies of gender, class, ethnicity, and intersected identities. The examination of the film’s textual features is necessary to reveal the ruling cultural ideologies and culturally reproduced specific ideals and values (Stokes 144). The textual analysis also explores the way in which the story is represented - it looks at the construction of the film concentrating on the male gaze and close-ups displayed in the movie.
3.1. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community
The first part of the textual analysis discusses which intersecting characteristics of
Taarka’s identity place her in a subordinated position within the Seto community and how the film challenges and reinforces the ruling hegemonies of gender, class, and ethnicity within the Seto community. Taarka, the heroine of the film, is a controversial character whose rough destiny, nonconformist choices, and remarkable singing skills arouse sympathy, condemnation, and admiration all at the same time. Taarka’s subjugation in the Seto community is caused by several intersecting social categories, such as gender, economic and marital status, and ethnicity. These and various other intersecting characteristics are socially constructing our identities (Collins 21). As Hall describes, “[i]dentity emerges as a kind of unsettled space, or an unresolved question in that space, between a number of intersecting discourses” (“Ethnicity: Identity and
Difference”10).
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By exhibiting an opposition between the Seto patriarchal community and a controversial, dark-blooded heroine, Taarka who, nevertheless, also falls under the category of Setos, the film attempts to stress hybridity within a specific cultural group.
According to Kraidy, hybridity “entails that traces of other cultures exist in every culture”
(148). Valdivia describes hybridity as heterogeneity and “plurality of voices” within a specific culture, and emphasizes, “there are no rigid borders between vectors of differences” (54). She explains that media often attempt to flatten the expressions of hybridity by constructing commodified cultural identities (54). Homi Bhabha counters the concept hybridity with the term “authentic culture.” Bhabha explains that the idea of a specific authentic culture often originates from the members of the dominant culture who define minority culture too strictly from an outsider’s perspective and usually in an exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of the subordinated culture to define themselves. Stuart Hall discusses how ethnicities are “hegemonized” because people believe that cultures exist in some “pure, pristine state” (“Cultural Identity and Diaspora”
233). However, contemporary cultures are “always-already fused, syncretised, with other cultural elements” (233). According to Hall, cultures should not be defined “by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of ‘identity’ which lives with and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity” (235).
3.1.1. The Intersecting Oppressions of Gender and Class
3.1.1.1. “How’s a girl supposed to get married without adornments?”
Before and in the beginning of 20th century Setomaa, was a patriarchal society where a man was responsible for the economic situation and prestige of his family, while
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a woman was supposed to take care of the household and teach her daughters to handcraft and sing. According to Connell, patriarchy underpins “the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (77). The film first describes female subservience in
Taarka’s family where her mother is forced to give up her daughter’s silver adornments, in order to pay off her alcohol and gambling addicted husband’s debts. When Taarka’s mother tries to tell Mats that he is ruining his daughter’s life by taking her silver, because without the adornments and land no man will marry Taarka, Mats commands his wife to shut up and shouts, “A man must pay his debts! My word counts. Got it?” Taarka’s mother has no choice but to surrender her daughter’s silver because according to the principles of hegemonic masculinity (Trujillo 291), the power hierarchy in the Seto patriarchal family is defined based on physical strength. Thus, a man’s word in Seto society has more weight than his daughter’s destiny.
Males’ superiority over females can also be seen when it comes to Vasso’s decisions that concern Taarka’s future. Vasso is the only man Taarka loves. After sleeping with Taarka several times until she gets pregnant, Vasso still does not propose to her and makes Taarka a common laughing matter in the village. When Taarka realizes that Vasso’s interest towards her is sexual rather than marriage promising, she disappointedly curses a woman’s inability to impact her own future and a man’s privilege to choose in the Seto patriarchal community: “Why didn’t you suit me? Why didn’t you bring your proposing drinks to us? What were you afraid of? Wasn’t my flesh beautiful enough? You started to look at other girls and left the girl you had slept with.” Taarka’s lyrics refer to the fact that oppression can be caused by several intersecting characteristics of a person’s identity, such as gender, class, and ethnicity (Collins 299). Because of the
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ruling ideologies that are reinforced through the Seto “community culture” that functions within the hegemonic domain of power (Collins 284), Taarka, as a woman, is not allowed to propose to the man she loves, and the man she loves cannot propose to her because of
Taarka’s lower socioeconomic class and her Gypsy ethnicity. For Vasso, it is unacceptable to be married to a dark-blooded woman without a dowry in the Seto community where a man is supposed to propose to someone of “his own kind.” As
Rosenbury explains, “the power of social … conceptions of marriage” can cause “the inability to stand up to” one’s family and force a person to choose between the “high society acceptance and legal marriage” (769).
According to Shuter, in unindustrialized societies, socioeconomic class may be defined based on a “father’s occupation” (93). That is also the case in the historic
Setomaa. When Taarka’s father loses his “land-owner” title, he places his family in the lower socioeconomic class. In addition, Taarka’s mother has to give up her daughter’s silver adornments. This is an enormous sacrifice because, in the ancient Seto community, the possession of silver adornments, which Seto girls usually inherit from their mothers, demonstrates their economic status, affects their self-esteem, and determines their future class status by impacting if and whom they will get married to. Thus, after surrendering the last of Taarka’s jewelry, her mother laments, “How’s a girl supposed to get married without adornments?” This scene demonstrates how the hegemonies of class and gender are reinforced within the interpersonal domain of power that “functions through routinized, day-to-day practices” (Collins 287). Taarka’s mother naturally believes and teaches to her daughter that Seto female is nothing more than her silver adornments and marital status.
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Taarka’s mother’s traditional understandings about gender and class are also bolstered within the hegemonic domain of power that, according to Collins, functions through the “community culture and family histories” (284). When one of the girls in the village is getting married and bragging about how she accepted the fourteenth admirer’s proposal, Taarka still has no suitors. Although Taarka is a talented wordsmith and leelo singer, which is an important quality of Seto women, she is only singing on behalf of other brides and not as a bride herself because of her poor economic status. One of the girls mentions: “The words come, but what’s there to do if your father has gambled off all your silver. You can’t sing to your beloved.” Therefore, Taarka, who is now in a marriageable age, becomes oppressed also because of her unmarried status in the Seto community. As Rosenbury explains, societies often privilege “some forms of personal life over others” (769).
According to the film, no young Seto woman wants to stay unmarried because being someone’s wife determines a woman’s class status after she moves out of her father’s home. One of the girls explains: “Shouldn’t take the first, but you have to marry someone. Otherwise, you’ll be your brother’s slave and a common laughing matter. I’ll rather drown myself than remain unmarried.” By unquestionably believing in the privilege of legal marriage, Seto women are naturalizing the advantages of married people over single ones within the interpersonal and hegemonic domains (Collins 284;
287). However, by valuing marriage, Seto females are also reinforcing the male supremacy in family settings. As Rosenbury explains, the reason marriage is privileged in various societies is that it was “originally recognized … in order to provide incentives for white men to privatize the dependency of white women and their children” (769).
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Therefore, although being married increases women’s class status in Seto society, it often subordinates women based on their gender. For instance, feminists claim that a heterosexual marriage objectifies women and treats them as property. Mary
Wollstonecraft first described heterosexual marriage as a female oppression in her revolutionary 18th century essays (Lumsden 42). Kalkun has also illustrated how getting married in the ancient Seto community was often accompanied by crying rituals and marriage was believed to be changing Seto women’s lives traumatically (“Pihtivad naised. Seto naiste eluloolaulud”). According to Kalkun, some Seto females even wanted to commit a suicide (often connected with their fear of getting married) and were blaming their mothers for not killing their daughters before getting married.
3.1.1.2. “I was mocked because of her!”
Taarka’s single-mother status and poor economic standing have also an impact on her children’s lives. Because Taarka has no husband or land, her children are forced to grow up in a cold chimneyless hut. Moreover, when one of her twins dies, Taarka is not allowed to bury her child in the village cemetery because her “ungodly” behavior confronts the rules of the Orthodox Church. Because she cannot afford a funeral and the village would not help to bury a child of an unmarried mother, Taarka has to dig a whole behind the graveyard’s fence and bury her dead daughter in there by herself. This is an example of the “intellectual and moral leadership” of a dominant group whose interests are established through the process of institutionalization where institutions, such as churches, have a part in forming hegemonies (Lull 5). Within the matrix of domination, this “moral leadership” functions in the structural domain of power which comprises social structures such as law, religion, education, economy, etc. (Collins 277). Thus,
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Taarka’s situation describes how the Seto Orthodox Church works to disadvantage the single Seto women in the Seto community.
Taarka’s younger daughter, Tato, keeps being treated as a lower class woman even after she becomes an adolescent and goes to sewing school in Võru. When she comes to back to Setomaa to visit her mother, the stationmaster brutally rapes her. The rape is shown to ruin Tato’s life; she loses her child and her mind. The stationmaster does not receive any denunciation or punishment for his terrible deed in the film. Furthermore, it is Tato who is being laughed at because she got raped. Seto people’s passivity towards the stationmaster’s cruel act refers to the “naturalization” of male’s supremacy and his
“physical force and control” (Trujillo 291) over a lower class woman. Therefore, in
Setos’ eyes, the crime is not important enough to be further investigated.
Collins explains that within the hegemonic domain of power, “dominant groups create and maintain a popular system of ‘commonsense’ ideas that support their right to rule” (284). This is the reason the abovementioned rape, but also Vasso’s and Rüa Piitre’s impudence to sleep with Taarka without taking any responsibility for their deeds, are viewed in Setomaa as natural occurrences. Moreover, village women condemn Taarka for her indecent behavior with men. According to Collins, “hegemonic ideologies … are often so pervasive that it is difficult to conceptualize alternatives to them, let alone ways of resisting the social practices that they justify” (284).
Even Tato’s “beliefs reinforce the dominant group's [male] interests,” (McKinnon
239) and bolster traditional gender roles that require a woman to take care of her children instead of singing at the parties. Tato is unconsciously reinforcing gender hegemonies in the interpersonal domain. She condemns Taarka for never having a real home or a caring
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mother by using the lyrics of various famous Estonian songs that reinforce traditional gender roles in the hegemonic domain of power: “Where’s that home of ours? Where’s our dearest fence? Where’s the birch of our yard? I don’t know the mother’s heart!” Tato does not forgive her mother even after Taarka dies, “I’ve been alone all of my life.
Mother went to sing to a wedding and always left me home alone. I was mocked because of her!” However, Tato never denounces her father who abandoned her or the stationmaster who raped her because she believes that it is the mother who should be responsible for the well being of her children.
3.1.2. The Intersecting Oppressions of Ethnicity and Gender
3.1.2.1. “But she’s strange blood from her father’s side.”
Stressing the principles of intersectionality (Collins 299), it is apparent that the film portrays Taarka as an outcast in the Seto community not just because of her gender, poor economic standing, and single status, but also due to the “dark Gypsy blood” she inherited from her father. Taarka’s father, Mats, is depicted as a ferocious, dark-blooded
Gypsy who gambled off his wife’s fortune and his daughter’s future. His comment,
“What do you know about horses?” after he gambles off his horse, refers to his Gypsy origin because, in Estonia, gypsies are depicted as horse whisperers. Taarka, like her father, is dark-blooded and differs from other Seto women. One of the scenes emphasizing Taarka’s peculiar origin pictures Taarka and her father singing a sad
Russian song before Mats goes to pay off his debts. The fact that they are singing in
Russian instead of Seto emphasizes their foreign ethnicity.
Contemporary critical race theory refers “to the notion of differential racialization, which argues that society racializes different groups in different ways at
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different times” (Stefancic & Delgado 455). For instance, there has been a lot of “racist prejudice and hostility against Romanies” in Eastern European countries (Gheorghe 832).
The film shows how Seto’s hegemonic understanding of Seto ethnicity’s superiority over
Gypsy ethnicity is reinforced in the interpersonal domain of power that “functions through routinized, day-to-day practices of how people treat one another” (Collins 287).
One of the scenes depicts Vasso’s mother warning her son not to propose to Taarka: “But she’s strange blood from her father’s side. God knows where he has come from. […]
Taarka is like him. She’ll ruin us all.” Vasso’s mother is highlighting the privilege of marriage, “whiteness,” and monoracial relationships that are also reinforced in the hegemonic domain of power through “family histories” that include centuries of marriages between light-skinned people from Seto ethnicity (Collins 284).
Moreover, Vasso’s mother believes that Taarka is lazy because she is of Gypsy origin. She explains that Taarka would rather escape across the river than ever work hard.
As Gheorghe explains, Gypsies are often socially marginalized through painful stereotypes that describe them as thieves, rebels, hooligans, “stateless persons”, refugees, etc. (832). Vasso’s mother’s ethnocentric attitude towards Gypsy people is highlighting the principles of primordialism (Fearon & Laitin 848) that subordinates Gypsies because of their fundamental features, such as lazy and nonconformist “Gypsy nature.”
The intersection of gender and ethnicity in the film is presented in Taarka’s relationship with Seto men. She is portrayed as someone who men desire and women despise. Men are shown inviting Taarka to the parties, joking with her, lurking for her, and being attracted to her. Nevertheless, none of them wants to propose to Taarka.
Moreover, they are ashamed to mention her name in front of more traditional Seto
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women. For example, when a Finnish folk researcher, Iwwo, asks local men where to find the best word slinger, the men remain silent till the woman leaves the room and then excitedly explain: “Taarka! Hilana Taarka! She’s that sort of woman.”
Seto men’s attitude towards Taarka could be explained using Hurtado’s terms of seduction and rejection. Hurtado explains how white women and women of color
(including women of different ethnicities) do not experience gender the same way when it comes to their relationship with white men. Hurtado describes, white women are subordinated through seduction (“wooed into joining white men with the expectation of sharing privilege with them”), while women of color are suppressed through rejection
(“denied the patriarchal invitation to privilege, and seen primarily as workers and objects of sexual aggression”) (Fenstermaker & West 168). Following this explanation, Seto men subordinate Seto females through seduction, while women like Taarka, who have different ethnicity/origin, are suppressed through rejection. Thus, Seto men in the film see Taarka mostly as a sexual object and not as a “wife material,” which is why they do not feel that they need to take any responsibility (such as proposing to her) after sleeping with her. In the film, Taarka is depicted to have intercourses with Vasso and Rüa Piitre, while neither of these men is planning to propose to her.
Similarly, rejection is described in the scene where Taarka asks Vasso, “Tell me what do you want, Vasso! Do you want me without adornments?” the man responds,
“Without a shirt!” Indicating that even though he cannot accept Taarka as a wife because of her ethnicity (and socioeconomic class), he can still “just fuck her” as his mother suggested. Taarka herself also describes this rejection towards her when telling her life- story to the man who is painting her portrait, “An old maid in a hand mill. A boy would
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not [leave] her alone… Hair going woosh-woosh. Cocks are asking, what does it cost [?]
Vasso wanted to betray her, wanted just to take her. Brothers started to lust for her, family started to mock….” Therefore, Taarka remains unmarried till the rest of her life and becomes oppressed not just because of her gender and dark blood but also because of her unmarried status.
3.1.3. The Intersecting Oppressions of Class & Ethnicity
3.1.3.1. “Well, your mother is Vassilissa. She won’t keep home.”
Rosenbury has described how “the unearned privileges of marriage intersect with other unearned privileges, including white … privilege” (769). In the film, the privilege of marriage and “whiteness” is highlighted in both the hegemonic and interpersonal domains of power (Collins 284; 287). The Seto community bolsters the hegemonic understanding that Taarka is a bad mother because of her single status and Gypsy origin.
By judging her—“One shouldn’t have children without a husband! … God knows what she did to her children”—the village is reinforcing the unearned privilege of marriage and the hegemony of heteronormativity that advantages “monogamous coupledom” (Jackson
110) and nuclear family (Jackson & Scott 3). Moreover, the Seto community is also bolstering the ethnic stereotypes and primordialism, according to what the fundamental features of Gypsy females make them worse mothers than Seto women (Fearon & Laitin
848).
Moreover, the class and ethnic hegemonies are also reinforced in the interpersonal domain of power (Collins 287). For example, when Tato asks if her father would take them to his life so they could live as a nuclear family, Vasso refers to Taarka’s “uncaring
Gypsy nature” and responds, “Well, your mother is Vassilissa. She won’t keep home.”
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By using the word ‘Vassilissa,’ Vasso describes Taarka as the ethnic Other, referring to her nonconformity to the rules of the patriarchal Seto society and to her “restless Gypsy nature” that is stereotypically considered not as caring and nurturing as traditional Seto mother’s character.
Furthermore, Taarka’s mother is also strengthening the hegemonies of class, gender, and ethnicity through the interpersonal domain. She admonishes Taarka after she has given birth to the twins on a cold sauna floor in wintertime: “On what will you raise these children, without a drop of milk?” referring to Taarka’s poor economic standing and her single female’s status. Taarka’s mother also emphasizes her daughter’s Gypsy ethnicity by comparing her to Taarka’s father, “When your father Mats died, I hoped that we are not laughed at anymore. Turned out even worse. … Mats gambled off the adornments and land, you turned into a whore.” By blaming Taarka’s and Mats’ shoddy parenthood on their Gypsy origin, Taarka’s mother is reinforcing the values of primordialism that subordinates people from different ethnicities based on their fundamental features, such as “Gypsy genes” (Fearon & Laitin 848).
3.1.4. Challenging the Hegemonies of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity
3.1.4.1. “I’ll drown myself to the river rather than marry some jerk.”
Even though the ruling hegemonies of gender, class, and ethnicity have placed
Taarka in an outcast’s position in the Seto community, the film depicts her boldly confronting these hegemonies. Taarka is not conforming to traditional gender norms, gives birth to three children as an unmarried woman, and exhibits her singing-talent at parties and to strangers. Through the actions of its main character, the film stresses “how domination and resistance shape and are shaped by individual agency” (Collins 275).
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First of all, Taarka does not believe that the only way to live for a woman is to follow traditional gender roles. According to Butler, gender is a representation of an internalized notion of culturally constructed gender roles, and it is created by the performance of this notion of gender (8). The film depicts how Taarka, as the rest of the women in the Seto patriarchal community, is expected to act according to the socially accepted gender roles in Setomaa, which require her to teach and take care of her children, be responsible for the well-being of her household, and do handicrafts.
However, instead of taking care of her home and children, Taarka prefers to sing leelo at parties and weddings. McNay explains that it is extremely difficult or even impossible to act as a man or a woman ignoring socially accepted gender roles (318). Hence, Taarka’s decision to rebel against traditional gender roles causes condemnation from other Seto women whose “beliefs [in traditional gender roles] reinforce the dominant group's [male] interests,” (McKinnon 239) which, within the hegemonic domain of power, are maintained through a “system of ‘commonsense’ ideas that support their [men’s] right to rule” (Collins 284).
Moreover, Vasso, the only man who Taarka loves and who originally rejects her because of her poor economic standing and Gypsy origin, later discards Taarka because of her nonconformist nature that won’t let her be a dedicated housewife and mother.
When Taarka proudly returns from Finland, wearing silver adornments, silky scarf, and apron, she hopes that Vasso will finally accept her because of her economic situation has improved:
You took me without a shirt. Look, I have my adornments now, bought clothes
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and a silky sash. See, take a look. I have everything! And more. Mother had a
patch of pines by Piusa river. We could build a house with a chimney for
ourselves. For how long shall I stay in that smoke sauna? When there will be a
house, Tato will come back from town, too. […] I don’t want anyone but you.
Nevertheless, Vasso cannot accept a woman who does not obey to the patriarchal rules established for Seto females: “I wanted you, too. But can’t get.” Vasso’s response can be analyzed in terms of Collins’ description of how “dominant groups aim to replace subjugated knowledge with their own specialized thought because they realize that gaining control over this dimension of subordinate groups’ lives simplifies control”
(286). Nevertheless, despite the denunciation from the village and rejection from Vasso,
Taarka keeps on singing until her confrontations “get rewarded” and she becomes an internationally recognized leelo singer. Collins explains that one way to gain empowerment within the hegemonic domain of power is to come “to recognize that one need not believe everything one is told and taught” (286).
Taarka’s beliefs also confront class hegemony that privileges legal marriage over other forms of romantic relationships (Rosenbury 769). The film portrays Taarka staying single rather than marrying some man she does not love: “I’ll drown myself to the river rather than marry some jerk.” Moreover, she is willing to be with a man she loves without being married to him. In one of the beginning scenes, young Taarka asks Vasso to kiss a frog and tells him that this is the only way she can become Vassilissa. Vasso is not man enough to do it, and the frog escapes from Taarka’s hands. Taarka, then, offers another option for Vasso: “What are you waiting for? Come, be a frog if you don’t want me to become Vassilissa.” This means that if Vasso won’t wed her, they could still be together
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without being married. According to Rosenbury, Taarka’s proposal opposes the hegemony that privileges legally married people by “loosening … the ideal of family” because Taarka recognizes a “broader range of relationships” than just marriage (769).
Vasso, however, reinforces the hegemony that supports the unearned privilege of marriage and does not accept Taarka’s offer to be together without being married to her.
Even though Taarka’s mother and the Seto community support the hegemonic understanding according to what, “One shouldn’t have children without a husband,”
Taarka does not reject her children, unlike their father, Vasso. Although the community condemns Taarka, and she is regarded as a classless female in the Seto society, Taarka does not buy into the village women’s hegemonic beliefs and decides to raise her children as a single mother. Collins clarifies that such sexist and classist “ideologies, if they are disbelieved, lose their impact” (284). Taarka also attempts to share her counterhegemonic understandings with her daughter, Tato, through the interpersonal domain of power where “the resistance … can take as many forms as there are individuals” (288). When
Tato asks about her father, Taarka responds: “What about Vasso? We’ll manage without him,” hoping that her daughter can also see past the hegemonies of class and gender.
Collins explains, “motherhood can serve as a site where … women express and learn the power of self-definition, the importance of valuing and respecting ourselves, the necessity of self-reliance and independence, and a belief in … women's empowerment”
(176). Tato, nevertheless, cannot see through the hegemony of heteronormativity and continues longing for a nuclear family (Jackson & Scott 3) that consists “of a married, co- resident couple and their biological children” (Ericsson 89).
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3.1.4.2. “Singing mother”
Although the Seto community has been a patriarchal society, Seto women have found ways to express their thoughts and stories, mostly through their traditional songs
(Kuutma 5). Their songs can be considered as “safe spaces” and compared to black females’ blues tradition in which these women can “speak freely” apart from dominant hegemonies (Collins 105; 274). Seto leelo songs are feminine, therapeutic, and regularly sung by women (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 27). Lyrics play very important part in Seto females’ songs and help women to lament about their unfair destiny in the patriarchal Seto society where having daughters is a curse and producing sons is a blessing (Kalkun, “Pihtivad naised. Seto naiste eluloolaulud”). As a lower class, dark-blooded, single female in the Seto community, Taarka is frequently shown to put her painful experiences in the songs—“safe spaces” that offer her the opportunity to resist domination and “objectification as the Other” (Collins 101).
Besides just singing about her subordinated position, Taarka also encounters the sexist, classist, and racist hegemonies outside of her songs through her actions. By going to parties and weddings to sing instead of taking care of her household and children,
Taarka gains liberation in the hegemonic domain by not doing what the patriarchal Seto community expects her to do. According to Collins, “thinking and doing not what is expected of us” establishes a significant “dimension of … [one’s] empowerment” (285).
The film portrays how Taarka gains empowerment by disregarding the hegemonic beliefs that are supposed to subordinate her based on her gender, class, and ethnicity, and by defining herself in her own terms (Collins 100). Thus, the intersecting characteristics of Taarka’s identity, which, according to hegemonic understandings should place her in
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an unprivileged position within the Seto society, start working to her advantage. Even though Taarka is diminished because of her Gypsy origin that she inherited from her father, she is not afraid to openly exhibit the singing skills that come with her Gypsy ethnicity. Taarka’s father, Mats, is depicted singing with his daughter in the beginning of the movie. This may refer to the fact that Taarka is an excellent singer not just because her mother taught her well, but also because she might have inherited some of her wordsmith skills and singing talent from her temperamental Gypsy father. Moreover, in the 20th century Setomaa, it was not a good custom for husbands to let their wives perform for strangers, such as the Finnish folk collector, Iwwo (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti
Folkloristika Ajaloos 158). Taarka, however, was able to use her single-status to her advantage and demonstrate her singing talent to Iwwo who arranged Taarka’s public performances and introduced her to the Finnish president.
When Taarka beats Toomka at the singing contest and has to go to Finland to perform for the Finnish president, she does not want to go because she has no silver adornments or nice clothes to wear when meeting the president. Then, something unexpected happens. Toomka steps out and gives Taarka her big silver brooch, “Taarka!
Go, show them there, how we sing around here.” Other Seto women follow Toomka’s lead and donate to Taarka their silver necklaces: “Taarka, this is from the bottom of my heart.” It is portrayed to be the breaking point in Seto people’s attitudes towards Taarka.
For the first time, they recognize Taarka’s gift publicly despite her background and lifestyle. What happens in this scene is that Taarka, who had changed “her ideas and actions,” is able to also change other Seto people’s attitudes and, thus, “the overall shape of power” (Collins 275). Taarka herself also considers this occasion to be her triumph.
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After Taarka sings for the Finnish president, Iwwo introduces the “Singing Mother” to the victorious Finnish general, Mannerheim, who defeated “a coup of the Bolsheviks.”
This character embodies an actual person from history, Carl Gustaf von Mannerheim
(1867–1951), a “Finnish field marshal and statesman” who “led Finnish “Whites” during
Finland’s war of independence against Russia in 1918” (Nolan 702-03). Taarka admiringly utters to Mannerheim: “You are like me, confronted the majority and won.”
Moreover, after singing for the Finns, Taarka is also recognized by Estonian ministers and given a real house. When Taarka dies, she is buried with help from the parish. The local priest who is registering her death characterizes Taarka as a strong female who managed to become someone by confronting the rules established for Seto women:
Darja Pisumaa [Taarka], born 1856. Father: Matvei Gavrilov [Mats], mother:
Agafia Gerassimova. We’ll leave the husband section empty. Bogdanov [Vasso]
is listed as the father of her children. … What shall we mark as Taarka’s
profession? She had no land. She was no housewife. Didn’t do handicraft. She
sang. Travelled around and sang. A tough woman was she, your mother! Let’s
write: a folk singer.
3.1.5. Reinforcing the Hegemonies of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity
3.1.5.1. Punishment and Regrets
On one hand, the film attempts to challenge the ruling hegemonies of gender, class, and ethnicity, by showing how Taarka’s untraditional lifestyle eventually helps her to become an internationally recognized leelo singer despite her subordinated position in the Seto community. On the other hand, there are also scenes that reinforce these
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hegemonic understandings. Collins explains that, recently, in the hegemonic domain, dominant groups’ ideologies are largely reinforced through mass media (284), and this includes films, such as Taarka. For instance, the film shows how Taarka’s liberal behavior and rebellious decisions are eventually being punished on her daughter, Tato, who ends up “paying” for her noncompliant mother’s “sins” by getting raped, losing her mind and her child. Tato’s rape in the film can be interpreted as a penalty for Taarka’s liberal sexuality that was not in accordance with the rules of the patriarchal Seto society.
Taarka was despised in the village because of her indecent sexual behavior. The movie depicts her having sexual intercourse with two different men – Vasso and Rüa Piitre – without being married to either of them. Other Seto women condemn Taarka for this behavior: “Oh, that devil! We don’t mention that filthy name in this household! Every village fool has banged her in every orifice. Some woman to talk about! The filthiest mouth in the village! Ah, Taarka of Hilanamäe. She goes from party to party. […] Taarka the whore!” Even her own mother accuses Taarka of being sexually too liberal, “When your father Mats died, I hoped that we are not laughed at anymore. Turned out even worse . . . Mats gambled off the adornments and land, you turned into a whore.” By criticizing Taarka because of her liberal sexual behavior, Seto women are “naturalizing” the male supremacy within the hegemonic domain of power through the Seto
“community culture” that dictates which activities are and are not allowed for single Seto females (Collins 284). By displaying how Taarka’s daughter “receives” a punishment for her mother’s indecent behavior, the film, using another hegemonic domain (media), also exhibits that male supremacy is still present.
Even more, there are scenes in the film that reinforce the hegemonies of ethnicity
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and class by encouraging the viewer to interpret Taarka as a bad mother because of her single status and her “restless Gypsy genes.” According to Collins, the hegemonic domain shapes our consciousness by “manipulation of ideas, images, symbols, and ideologies” (285). For instance, Taarka’s nonconformist decision to have intercourse with
Rüa Piitre, who is neither her husband nor her children’s father, is depicted as Taarka
“touching the bottom” in the film. Drunken Taarka has left young Tato outside of the gates of a household where she is singing. Vasso sees his daughter sitting by herself on the dirt road and takes her hand to go and find her mother. They walk in the barn where
Taarka is having intercourse with Rüa Piitre and see her climaxing. This is portrayed as the lowest point of Taarka’s life – the sky turns grey, thunder hits and rain starts pouring.
The next scene shows little Tato crying in the rain, Vasso cutting his hand with an ax when carving wood, blood gushing from the wound, and Taarka running to the woods, pulling her hair, and finally jumping in the lake. Everyone is pictured miserable because
Taarka cannot conform to the norms. When Taarka is swimming towards the shore, she sees a frog that she calls Vassilissa and utters, “What are you looking at, Vassilissa? I touched the bottom and will now go on,” agreeing that her liberal act was unacceptable.
Therefore, through the hegemonic domain, the movie reinforces the understanding that
Taarka’s single status and Gypsy nature ruin her children’s lives; just like her ferocious gambling and alcohol addicted father spoiled hers (Collins 284).
Furthermore, by showing Taarka eventually regretting her nonconformist way of life, the movie returns to justify the power of traditional gender roles that require a woman to be a housewife and mother before being a famous performer. Although middle-aged rebellious Taarka believed that singing was “better than men and houses,”
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she later seems to feel guilty for not being a traditional mother and housewife. In the scene where the artist has finished painting the picture of Taarka, and she has told him the story of her life, Taarka sinks deep in her thoughts. When Iwwo asks her to take a look at the portrait before it is taken to the new Finnish president, Taarka, who is now regretting the decisions she has made in the past, does not want to see it. Thus, the fact that Taarka was not a good mother and did not conform to the traditional gender roles seems to downplay the importance of her personal accomplishments as a leelo-singer.
In short, when it comes to media texts, such as Taarka, it is important to remember that they can have a substantial ideological impact on our understandings and we should not consider these texts just as innocent reproductions of reality, but rather as powerful tools that can help to reinforce or undermine the dominant ideologies (e.g. produce racism, sexism, and other biases against subordinate social groups) (Durham &
Kellner 4).
3.1.6. The Construction of the Film
According to Michele White, the gaze “can be defined as a form of power-laden staring [that] produces and enforces gendered positions … [and] reinforce[s] gender norms and provide[s] erotic views” (9). The male gaze, which visually objectifies women, indicates that the subject of the gaze (the one who is looking) is male and the object of the gaze is female and it (Mulvey). The gaze can “be discussed in the various forms of spectatorship: when directly viewing a text; in intradiegetic situations where characters looked at one another, as well as extra-diegetic situations where characters addressed the audience; and, lastly, as a camera gaze that [is] often attributed to
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auteurship —to the director's style” (Jagodzinski 305). In short, the gaze should be examined from the perspectives of camera, text, and audience.
When analyzing the gaze directly from the text’s perspective, Taarka is pictured mainly as a strong feminist character whose decisions and acts rebel against the norms of the Seto patriarchal society. However, there are some scenes that sexualize Taarka from the text’s viewpoint. For instance, in the scene that portrays Taarka having an intercourse with Rüa Piitre, the story takes the view of Vasso and shows Taarka’s face in close-up while she is enjoying herself.
When examining the camera’s gaze, it is clear that the film is constructed through the male director’s eyes. It eroticizes and objectifies Taarka through a male gaze, especially in the nude scenes. The male gaze can include displaying naked female bodies, while “the female nude in artistic representation is an affirmation of patriarchal control of the female body” (Nead 334). The film includes an erotic scene of Taarka and Vasso having intercourse, which shows both of them naked. However, it does not reveal any
Vasso’s intimate body parts, while Taarka’s naked breasts are displayed several times.
The scene climaxes with the shot of full Taarka’s upper body, including naked breasts, while her face is not showing. This frame separates Taarka’s body from her personality and objectifies her.
An alternative close-up of Tato’s face is offered in the scene where the stationmaster rapes her. Instead of objectifying Tato’s body, it shows a close-up of her face in pain. Thus, the camera’s gaze interpellates the audience to take up Tato’s gaze and to feel her humiliation, and condemn the stationmaster for his cruel deed.
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Figure 1: A close-up of Tato’s face when she is being raped (screen grab from Taarka).
These and other close-ups of women in the film are often contrasted with long shots picturing the patriarchal context as safe and rational. As Roof mentions, these close-ups separate female characters from the patriarchy (field of social action). For instance, when something horrible happens in Taarka’s life, she is shown walking, and the background displays a wide meadow and big tree. Taarka is contrasted with long patriarchal shots of a landscape when her father gambles off her future, when she realizes that she will never be a bride, when she asks for Vasso after giving birth to their children and when one of the twins dies, when her daughter, Tato, gets raped, etc. Also, the scene that depicts tiny Taarka in the large field walking up the hill to the big tree and carrying the alive child and the dead child’s coffin vividly describes Seto woman’s rough destiny in the Seto patriarchal community.
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3.2. Setos as the Other in Estonian Society
The second part of the textual analysis uses the principles of post-colonial cultural studies, intersectionality, and the matrix of domination to examine how the film challenges and reinforces ethnic hegemonies that oppress Seto women as a group within
Estonian society. This “ethnic racialization” can be explained with the term “differential racialization” that is used in the contemporary critical race theory and according to what
“society racializes different groups in different ways at different times” (Stefancic &
Delgado 455).
Before moving on to examine the hegemonies that oppress Seto females as a group, it is necessary to explain the differences between Seto and Estonian ethnicities. As consistent with Fearon and Laitin’s description (848), Setos and Estonians share the same
Estonian nationality. Setos live in Estonian territory, share Estonians’ historical memories, legal rights and duties, follow Estonian media and depend on the Estonian economy. However, some Estonian institutions and media do not consider Setos as equal to Estonians. For instance, in the Estonian media, Setos are usually defined as “Them”, while Estonians are described as “Us” (Toe 53). This is due to the Seto people’s different ethnicity. Ethnic identity is usually defined “mainly by descent rules of group membership and content typically composed of cultural attributes, such as religion, language, customs, and shared historical myths” (Fearon & Laitin 848). Unlike Lutheran
Estonians, Setos practice mostly Orthodox Christianity along with their vernacular folk religion, which separates many of their traditions, such as funeral and wedding customs, from those of Estonians. Another sign referring to Estonians and Setos ethnic dissimilarities are their different languages—Estonian and Seto. Moreover, Seto ethnic
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heroes and folk tales differ from those of Estonians. For example, the hero of the Seto epic is Peko, the god of crops, while, in the Estonian national epic, the hero of Estonians is Kalevipoeg, the stone-carrying giant who fights with other giants and enemies of the nation. Setos’ underprivileged rural location can also be viewed as an important characteristic that separates them from, for instance, northern Estonians.
These ethnic, including cultural, religious, lingual, and regional characteristics have placed the Seto people in a subordinated position compared to Estonians throughout the history. Because Setos have not largely used their own “voices,” in other words, conducted Seto-related research that would help to construct Seto cultural identity from the insider’s point of view, they have not been able to resist domination and
“objectification as the Other” (Collins 101). These “missing voices” of the Seto people lead to a one-sided representation of Seto “authentic culture” which post-colonial critic,
Aijaz Ahmad, describes as a “history made by others” (6-7). Homi Bhabha counters the concept of “authentic culture” with the term hybridity that is often used within post- colonial cultural criticism. Bhabha explains that the idea of a specific authentic culture often originates from the members of the dominant culture who define minority culture too strictly from an outsider’s perspective and usually in an exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of the subordinated culture to define themselves.
3.2.1. The Film’s Critique of the Outsider’s Representation of Setos
The film director, Ain Mäeots, attempts to draw attention to the much-criticized fact that Setos have been portrayed, and Seto identity has been constructed, mostly from the non-Seto researchers’ perspective, while the voices of the Seto people (including Seto women) have stayed in the background (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos,
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15). The film demonstrates how Taarka’s story is captured in the portrait of her that the
Estonian artist is painting at the command of a Finnish researcher for the Finnish president. While Taarka is shown aging throughout the movie, the painter remains the same. Therefore, the movie presents the researcher/ethnographer continuously describing
Setos as the decades pass. This solution vividly illustrates and critiques the understanding of Setos as the exotic or ethnic “others” (Kalkun; Annist; Toe) or “primitive Estonians”
(Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 15) who are described by the representatives of bigger cultures, and who may help to shed light to greater histories, such as Estonian or Finnish (15).
Moreover, Taarka displays two characters, Anna and Iwwo, who are embodying an Estonian dance collector, Anna Raudkats, and a Finnish folklore researcher, Armas
Otto Väisänen. Anna and Iwwo come to Setomaa to record and write down Seto females’ dances and songs to present them to the wider, Estonian and Finnish audiences. When arriving at Setomaa, they already have a vision of this place as something exotic – as
Anna sighs, “Setoland! How beautiful!” Both Anna and Iwwo are interpreting Setos’ ordinary, everyday doings and songs as something outlandish that need to be recorded and commodified. For instance, Anna is inviting all the girls to perform for her, “More girls who know songs and dances would be better. All the dances and songs should be written down, so that they could be performed on big stages and stadiums with a lot of performers.” Iwwo, who also sees Setos as some exotic creatures, is trying to capture the conventional sayings of the Seto people, and even wants to record Taarka’s cursing:
“Singing Mother! Say it again, so I can record it!” By photographing Seto females who wear their ancient, ethnic clothing and silver adornments, while Finns and Estonians are
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wearing modern outfits, Iwwo is highlighting the outsiders’ stereotypical vision of the indigenous and heritage-related Seto women. This demonstrates how the dominant groups are constructing the “knowledge that perpetuate[s] objectification, commodification, and exploitation” of the Seto people (Collins 289).
Moreover, Anna is pictured to reinforce the idea of Estonians as researchers and
Setos as folklore material: “I have thought that now that we have our own independent
Estonian state, our own scientists should collect folklore.” She believes that it is natural that Estonians are the sophisticated ones who should research Seto culture, while Setos are too primitive to collect their own folklore. As Collins explains, “to maintain their power, dominant groups create and maintain a popular system of ‘commonsense’ ideas that support their right to rule” (284).
3.2.2. Seto Ethnicity’s Subordination
The film includes several scenes that describe the ethnic hegemony that praises
Finns and Estonians over the Seto people. Furthermore, Seto ethnicity is considered rural and unsophisticated not only by non-Setos, but also by Setos themselves, which demonstrates how subordinated groups themselves are unconsciously reinforcing the ruling groups’ ideologies (McKinnon 239; Collins 284).
3.2.2.1. “God forbid” for Being a Seto
The film attempts to stress how Estonians and Finns are reinforcing their ethnicities’ superiority over Seto ethnicity through various domains of power. First of all, the fact that Estonians and Finns are using their languages, and not Seto language, when communicating with Setos in Setomaa, demonstrates their hegemonic understanding of
Seto as an inferior language. As of today, the Seto language still does not have legal
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language status in Estonia and is considered a dialect of Estonian. As it appears, Seto subordination is established already in the structural domain of power that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions (Collins 301).
In addition, there are several scenes that demonstrate how Estonians and Finns use the hegemonic and interpersonal domains of power to separate themselves from
Setos. For instance, when the dance collector, Anna, asks the stationmaster in the Seto trail station, if he is a Seto, the man looks insulted and responds, “God forbid, no,” reinforcing the idea of Setos as lower people in the interpersonal domain. The same stationmaster is depicted “leering” at Anna and also at Taarka’s daughter, Tato. While he only goes as far as slightly touching Anna’s behind when helping her on the train, his yearning for Tato ends with a brutal rape. This indicates that the stationmaster is being more respectful towards the Estonian woman than the Seto female, and thus, it reinforces the intersecting hegemonies of ethnicity and gender that highlight an Estonian female’s supremacy over a Seto woman.
Moreover, the Estonian ministers who give Taarka a house for her achievements, emphasize the difference between Seto females and Estonian males by saying, “Long live the eternal friendship of Estonian and Seto people!” reinforcing the “commonsense” hegemonic understanding of Estonian males as the “masters” who have the means to reward the “small” Seto women for their noble acts that bring fame to the “big Estonia.”
Furthermore, even though Iwwo, the Finn, introduces himself to Taarka as a “brother,”
“We are kin. I’m from Finland. We are all one big nation,” he later stresses the difference between Setos and Finns by indicating that Finns are passed the period of drinking as opposed to primitive Setos, “You see, we, the Finns, we don’t like vodka anymore.”
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3.2.2.2. “Even Estonian women don’t have them that big.”
The film pictures Setos themselves also reinforcing Estonian and Finnish women’s superiority over Seto females. For instance, Taarka is trying to motivate Tato to go to the party with her and sing, by promising that one day she will look as stylish as
Estonian women: “You’ll get a hat like a huge pancake, with a white edge, and a feather like a Rüa Piitre’s rooster. Even Estonian women don’t have them that big.” Years later,
Taarka finally brings Tato that hat and proudly states; “With this you look like the
Finnish president’s missus.” Taarka is unconsciously highlighting the idea of Estonian and Finnish women being role models for Seto females, which is planted through the hegemonic domain of power that justifies this understanding as a “commonsense”
(Collins 284). By describing these women to Tato, Taarka is reinforcing the
“commonsense” hegemonic understanding of Estonian and Finnish women’s superiority over Seto females in the interpersonal domain that “functions through routinized day-to- day practices,” such as mother-daughter talk (287).
Moreover, Taarka also unconsciously bolsters the “naturalized” locational hegemony, which privileges citizens living in towns, such as Võru (today, the most locationally privileged are the people who live in Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn), over the rural people, “I’ll send you to a sewing school in Võru. Think about it, to Võru! See,
Serko, your brother, went to town to become a watchmaker. Wears fine clothes and all.”
Wegren explains that locational inequality comprises “both material and nonmaterial spheres of life, the latter including rights and entitlements and the expression thereof, political power, status, prestige, and influence” (53). The idea of rural areas having less
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privilege seems so natural to Taarka that she is reinforcing it without even questioning why the resources are divided as they are.
Other scenes depict Setos’ understanding that “if it is from abroad, it must be good.” For example, Seto females are shown to be fascinated with the things that the
Estonian salesman has brought from foreign countries, “Everything is from abroad. Buy, take a look. Good stuff.” The women are gathered around the salesman, trying on jewelry and powdering their faces. Moreover, when Finnish folk researcher, Iwwo, steps out of the train, Seto women are sighing, “What a man!” Old Taarka even illustrates Seto females’ lust for Iwwo in her song, “Iwwo was a sweet man, women wanted him for a man, girls for a husband …” The film pictures Seto’s recognition and hospitality towards these “fancy” foreigners. When Anna and Iwwo arrive, Seto children run to the meadow where their mothers are raking hay and excitedly scream, “The Finns arrived!” The females stop raking and one of them even makes a cross on her chest. Later, Seto women offer the guests food and when Iwwo is recording Seto men’s talk, one of the females places a white tablecloth on the table, and carefully puts Iwwo’s hat on the cloth.
Furthermore, Setos also recognize the others’ opinions over theirs. For instance, Taarka’s talent is only acknowledged in the Seto community after the Finn, Iwwo, glorifies it and gives Taarka the title of the “Singing Mother.” By recognizing the representatives of other ethnicities, their things and opinions more than their own, Setos are “naturally” giving power to the knowledge and “Seto identity” that is constructed from the outside
(Kalkun; Annist; Toe).
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3.2.3. Reinforcing Seto Stereotypes
At first glance, the film draws the viewer’s attention to how Estonian and Finnish researchers are constructing the heritage-related Seto and demonstrating it to the wider audience. However, the movie itself also depicts Setos from the outsider’s perspective by reinforcing the Estonian filmmakers’ ethnocentric views and dominant Seto stereotypes through the hegemonic domain of power. It is not just Iwwo who is trying to capture Seto women in the photograph when wearing their ethnic clothing and adornments; these females are shown like this throughout the movie. Vasso’s mother, for example, is wearing her ethnic adornments even while cleaning the rest of her silver. Moreover, Seto women are often pictured singing and dancing their traditional songs and dances, so it creates an impression of a “constant performance.”
The film spreads the image of Setos that is constructed through the Estonian filmmakers’ eyes, showing Setos as something primitive, exotic, and often stereotypical.
The description of Setos as strange, unsophisticated, poor, romantic “noble savages” that
Schlegel reinforced already in 1831 (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 56), seems to be still around today. The film reinforces some of these ethnic stereotypes by re- creating the impression of Setos (including Seto females) as the exotic, peripheral people who highly value their ethnic traditions, but also embrace rural customs, such as drinking, partying, fighting, and cursing.
3.2.3.1. “Noble savages”
The film describes Seto women as primitive and not as developed as Estonian or
Finnish ladies. The intersection of gender and ethnicity can, for example, be seen when it comes to women’s clothing. When Finns are portrayed as developed, stylish, and urban in
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their fashionable outfits, then Seto women are shown still wearing their ancient ethnic attire and are willing to “perform” for the researchers for a silky scarf or a bottle of moonshine. Another area that describes how the gender and ethnicity intersect is cuisine.
Finnish females are depicted to welcome visitors with elegant cakes, while Setos offer their guests homemade pancakes. Seto women are portrayed as rural females who still make a great deal of simple things, such as food, which they overwhelmingly offer to their “more developed guests” who seem to take food for granted. For example, to show respect and care towards “the great” Finn, Iwwo, one Seto woman is constantly asking him to eat the meal she has prepared for him; “Take the knife and eat. Take it, take the pancakes.” These stereotypes seem to be corresponding with Schlegel’s description of
Setos as strange, unsophisticated, poor, romantic “noble savages” (Kalkun, Seto Laul
Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 56).
Furthermore, Anna and Iwwo are imaged as foreign and urbanized in the rural, indigenous Seto community where people live side by side with animals. There is a scene where Anna steps out of the train and admires the beautiful Setomaa, and then sees a goat coming out of the same train. Another scene pictures Anna and Iwwo sitting on the steps outside of the house, gooses and kittens swirling around them. One of the cats even eats leftovers on the kitchen table. On contrary, when Seto women visit Finland, they are depicted as rural and backward villagers who admire each latest development in the modern urban environment. When walking on the streets of Helsinki, Iwwo is pictured to guide the women, as they were children. They are staring at Finns’ outfits, judging people kissing in the streets and sunbathing at the beach, tasting the cakes, admiring the radio, and gazing at the chandelier. The opposition between Seto women’s indigenous rural
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world and Finns’ developed urban world is reflected in Taarka’s song about Helsinki,
“This is some fine city, and weird people in it, without any shame. Here is plenty to look at and wonder about. Even voice’s coming from a machine.”
By opposing rural and backward Seto women to urban and developed Finnish ladies, the film is reinforcing the hegemony located in the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and location. Wegren explains that the locational inequality comprises “both material and nonmaterial spheres of life, the latter including rights and entitlements and the expression thereof, political power, status, prestige, and influence” (53). Setomaa lies in the peripheral countryside near Russian border. Because the majority of the political, economic, educational, international, and cultural elite is located in the cities, the cultural and economic resources are divided in the towns’ favor. Thus, the people living in rural areas, such as Setomaa, are often left with greater poverty, lower education, and worse living conditions than the residents of the cities, especially the capital city.
3.2.3.2. “I’ll pour you a drop, too.”
The movie often associates Setos with alcohol. Even the opening sentence of the film says: “Listen, I’ll pour you a drop, too.” Throughout the movie, there are several scenes depicting Setos either consuming alcohol, holding moonshine (handsa) and beer bottles, or very drunk. Liquor is always present at the local parties and weddings; it is also consumed during the pig slaughter; Iwwo gives each man a full bottle after they say a sentence or two into the recording machine. Moreover, the film portraits drunken Seto men as they are sleeping on the ground, stumbling out of the pig fold, covered with hay, and not aware of what is going on around them. Alcohol is sometimes also pictured as the
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cause of Seto males being fierce, getting loud with their wives and being violent towards the men from the neighbor villages.
It is not just Seto men that are exposed while drinking; the women are showed consuming alcohol, as well. Taarka is depicted drinking the most. She sips “singing oil” at the parties where she performs and takes shots with the men. Other Seto women are also pictured drinking liquor from the bottle on a sailing boat on their way to Finland.
Taarka goes as far as taking out her bottle at the Finnish president’s reception, although
Iwwo warned her that in Finland, “drinking is not allowed anymore.” Furthermore, the film represents Setos also encouraging people from “noble” ethnicities, such as Estonians and Finns, to drink with them. For instance, Estonian dance researcher, Anna Raudkats takes a shot with Taarka in the train, and despite the Finns “dry law,” Finnish general,
Mannerheim, is having a sip from Taarka’s bottle.
Besides Setos’ drinking habits, the movie also pictures them cursing a lot.
Expressions and words, such as “fuck it,” “whore,” “hound’s cunt,” “cocks,” “Where’s your rifle? […] Between your legs!” etc., are used not only by Seto men, but often also by females. These images bring us back to Schlegel’s and other outsiders’ descriptions of
Setos as primitive, strange, unsophisticated, poor, romantic “noble savages” (Kalkun,
Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 56).
3.2.3.3. Feckless Seto Men and Vigorous Seto Women
When examining Seto women as a group compared to Seto men, there are several scenes that emphasize the impression of the “otiose Seto men” and “energetic Seto women.” For example, at parties and other events, men are often depicted sitting, drinking and/or gambling, while women are frequently shown busy with various
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activities, such as setting up the table, serving food, watching after children, dancing, singing, etc. Also, women are mostly present in the scenes that have to do with physical work. For instance, females are raking, cutting wood, twist-drying laundry, and responsible for maintaining the family’s property. Men, on the other hand, are not depicted working that often. They sometimes talk about it, but are not displayed doing it a lot. Even the scene that could demonstrate men slaughtering the pig, or conducting other activities connected with the slaughtering, just shows the moment when the job is already done and men are sitting down, gambling, and drinking. Only Vasso who does not have a wife is once depicted carving logs and fixing something in his yard. These stereotypical Seto females’ and males’ activities in the film highlight the reinforcement of
“the “double” or even “triple” burden of women” that requires them “to be a devoted wife and mother, a dedicated worker, and an active member of the community”
(Ghodsee, "Red Nostalgia?…” 27).
Besides portraying Seto men as idle, the film also shows them as being afraid of condemnation from their women. For instance, in the scene where folk researcher Iwwo asks for the greatest singer in the village, the men do not want to tell him about Taarka until there are no women present, because mentioning “that whore’s” name would make their wives furious. However, alcohol seems to make Seto men bolder. At the party where men are drinking they order their wives to shut up when females do not approve of inviting Taarka inside. It is similar with Taarka’s father, Mats. When drunken, he shouts at his wife who, like the other Seto females, is portrayed as a vital woman. Nevertheless, when sober, Seto men are portrayed as modest with words and sometimes even as gawky.
For example, when Iwwo hopes to record the fruitful Seto sayings, every man is able to
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say only one poor sentence – “We go to sauna today;” “The hay’s made;” “We went to sauna yesterday;” “Our brother has fine rye;” etc. After getting over with their shabby sentences, men smile awkwardly and grab the moonshine bottle that Iwwo is handing out to all wordsmiths. Women, on the other hand, are pictured rather abundant with words.
For example, when Iwwo asks one Seto woman about Taarka, the female is not afraid to give him a long, expressive, angry speech why he should never mention Taarka’s name again. Moreover, Seto women’s rich vocabulary can also be seen in their songs. Even though depicting Seto women as vigorous and more efficient than Seto men is not necessarily negative, it can still create a stereotypical impression of Seto females when repeated multiple times. Homi Bhabba explains that this kind of description leaves no agency for the members of subordinated culture to define themselves and, thus, also limits the hybridity within this culture (“Cultural Diversity and Cultural Differences”).
Overall, on one hand, the film attempts to challenge the ethnic hegemony that highlights Estonians’ one-sided vision of Setos’ as the exotic Other by drawing attention to the fact that the voices of the Seto people are often missing when their identities are being constructed by the outsiders. On the other hand, the film also (unconsciously) reinforces the same hegemonic beliefs by displaying stereotypical descriptions of Setos, including Seto women.
3.2.4. The Intersection of Gender and Ethnicity
3.2.4.1. The Forced Indigenous Seto Cultural Identity
When examining the issue of representing Seto culture to the rest of the world, the film interestingly exposes how certain intersecting characteristics of Seto females’ identity can place them in the empowered and subordinated position at the same time. In
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other words, the movie simultaneously challenges local gender hegemony and reinforces ethnic hegemony in the national level.
When examining this issue from just gender perspective, the film seems to empower Seto women over Seto men. The movie portrays Seto females especially drawing the researchers’ attention with singing leelo, dancing their ethnic dances, wearing silver adornments, handcrafting their ethnic clothing, and finally going to
Finland to present these ethnic traditions and artifacts internationally. Men, conversely, are depicted very reticent and not knowing how to “advertise” their cultural values. Thus, the film seems to empower Seto women over Seto men, when it comes to representing their culture. This depiction challenges traditional gender norms by offering the women an opportunity to perform in public instead of only concentrating on their households and children. Nevertheless, by only exhibiting Seto females who sing and dance their ethnic songs and dances, and wear their ethnic clothing, the film is limiting hybridity among
Seto females. As Valdivia mentions, media often attempts to flatten the expressions of hybridity by constructing commodified cultural identities (54).
When analyzing this matter from the intersection of gender and ethnicity, the same empowered group of Seto women becomes subordinated without them even knowing it. As McKinnon describes, hegemony does not usually operate using direct force, but is rather softly suggesting following the dominant ideology and people are often “unaware that their actions and beliefs reinforce the dominant group's interests”
(239). The subordination of these Seto females happens in the national level – Setos versus Estonians. By providing an exclusive support and recognition only for the culture- related activities, Estonian organizations are forcing these Seto females to construct their
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ethnic identity according to Estonians’ understandings. Estonian institutions and media view Seto ethnicity as strictly heritage-related, exotic, and tied to historical traditions.
This hegemony causes the situation described by Aet Annist (16), where only the people who actively promote Seto old traditions, such as leelo singers, receive public recognition and resources. Therefore, the idea of Seto culture as something exclusively indigenous and customs-related subordinates Seto women who are unconsciously trapped in their historic heritage-related world and cannot become modernized, so that Estonians could proudly present Seto ancient culture as part of Estonian historical legacy.
This situation, where Estonians are reinforcing the ethnic hegemony that constructs an image of the exotic and commodified Seto culture and Seto females, can be concluded with the concept offered by Gayatari Spivak who claims that “[w]e live in a post-colonial neo-colonized world” (166) where the dominant groups still hold power over minority cultures “via political, cultural and above all economic channels” (Childs and Williams 5).
The next chapter will focus on reception analysis that incorporates both critics’ reviews of and audience comments for Taarka. It analyzes whether the film viewers and reviewers recognize the intersecting identities of Seto women that are portrayed in the movie and whether their comments and reviews are reinforcing or challenging the hegemonies connected with these identities.
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CHAPTER FOUR: RECEPTION ANALYSIS
According to the multi-perspectival approach proposed by Douglas Kellner, the examination of dominant hegemonies in cultural texts should not be limited to the production and discourse analysis. It is also necessary to study how these texts are received. Henry Jenkins believes that consumers heavily affect media circulation and, thus, encourages viewing contemporary media through the lens of media convergence that “occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others” (3). Consequently, the last part of this thesis analyses critics’ reviews of and audience responses to Taarka. It draws on the principles of media convergence, participatory culture, encoding and decoding, and projection and introjection.
4.1. Critics’ Reviews Analysis
To analyze which intersecting identities of Seto women are recognized and discussed by the film critics and whether their understandings of the filmic text are reinforcing or challenging the ruling hegemonies, critics’ reviews for the film are being examined. All of the critics’ reviews of Taarka, which are published in the largest
Estonian newspapers, culture pages, Seto local newspapers, and on Taarka’s official website (taarka.exitfilm.ee) are taken into account. Therefore, the analysis includes the following reviews: “Lauluema Taarka setu kultuuris hulpimas” by Eeva Kübar, published in Postimees; “Libahundi uus tulemine” by Olev Remsu, published in Sirp; “‘Taarka’– taheti parebahe, a tulõ-õs vällä” by Pino Jüri published in Setomaa; “‘Taarka’seisab
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kõrgemal keelenüanssidest” by Kristiina Davidjants, published in Ärileht; “Taarka, loota lugu” by Olavi Ruitlane, published in TeaterMuusikaKino; and “Taarka ja Ruja – ehmatav setu safari üdikonservi taustal” by Kati Murutar, published in Horsemarket. The author stresses that all of the film reviewers’ and audience members’ comments are translated from Estonian and Seto to English by her.
4.1.1. Ethnic Hegemonies
4.1.1.1. “Mocked ethnography” – The Commodified and Exotized Setos
An issue that has received the most attention from the reviewers is the creation of commodified and exotized Seto ethnicity, including the intersections of culture, language, and location. According Fearon and Laitin, ethnic identity is defined based on “cultural attributes, such as religion, language, customs, and shared historical myths” (848).
Several critics utilize an oppositional reading (Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” 281) by resisting the Estonian filmmakers’ hegemonic depiction of Setos as the peripheral, exoticized, and commodified Other. Seto journalist, Jüri Pino, for instance, characterizes
Taarka in the Seto media as the film that exaggerates the Estonians’ one-sided vision of
“authentic Setoness.” Homi Bhabha has criticized the term “authentic culture” which is often too strictly defined by the members of the dominant culture who see the minority groups in exoticized way. Bhabha explains how this precisely defined “authenticity” rules out the hybridity and leaves no agency for the members of the subordinated culture to define themselves.
Olev Remsu, a documentary director, author, and film professor in Estonia, also utilizes the oppositional reading by acknowledging that the film reinforces Estonians’ hegemonic understanding of Setos (including Seto women) and Setomaa as a
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commodified “living museum.” He criticizes the way non-Seto filmmakers are trying to represent Seto ethnicity as something strictly folklore-based. Remsu explains that when
“the friends of the Seto people” (Estonians) start demonstrating how Setos sing and dance, what kind of clothes they wear and food they eat, it actually forecloses the real
Seto ethnicity. He believes that a precise characterization in the film would have stressed
Setoness more than showing Seto females dancing and singing in their ethnic clothing, which he calls a “mocked ethnography.” Furthermore, Remsu draws attention to the movie’s vivid cinematography and picturesque panoramas that also stress the fact that the story is retold from the outsider’s viewpoint and not from Taarka’s or other Setos’ perspective.
Many reviewers take up the intersection of Seto culture and language, and criticize the director’s choice of Estonian actresses whose Seto language sounds like
“German . . . French” (Kübar) Put differently, they believe that the film should not separate Seto language and culture. Olavi Ruitlane, a poet and member of the Estonian
Writer’s Union, who is of Võro origin (another linguistic and ethnic minority in South-
Estonia), describes the protagonist’s Seto language using the word “terrible” (111).
Ruitlane explains that the character played by Siiri Sisask does not exist in reality. He points out that, besides the heavy accent, Sisask’s pearl-white teeth do not seem natural when thinking of a Seto woman living in poverty. He jokes that he would have gladly lent his own bad teeth for the movie so that the Taarka character could be more believable (111). Eeva Kübar also explains that even though the film is not an anthropological documentary that depicts the realistic Seto culture, it is still essential to include proper Seto language because the language is one of the most important things
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that distinct Seto culture from that of Estonian. In other words, Seto language and culture are inseparable. Thus, the usage of Estonian actors, who do not speak proper Seto, undervalues the importance of well-articulated Seto language as part of Seto cultural ethnicity. Estonians’ understanding of Seto as a trivial language is not only reinforced in the hegemonic domain of power that functions through media. As of today, Seto language still does not have a legal language status in Estonia, and it is considered a dialect of Estonian. Hence, Seto ethnic subordination in the lingual level is already established in the structural domain that “operates through the laws and policies” (Collins
284; 301).
However, there are also critics who do not agree with other reviewers’ condemnation of the unnatural Seto language, deviation from Seto cultural norms, and lack of realistic Setoness in the movie. Even though these critics realize that Setos are being depicted one-sidedly and stereotypically, they agree with the overall ideology on which the text is based and believe that Estonian filmmakers have the right to depict the
Seto people because Setos are still too primitive to do it themselves. Thus, by utilizing a negotiated reading (Hall, “Encoding/Decoding” 281), they are adapting and opposing the hegemonic understandings at the same time. For example, Olavi Ruitlane, who criticizes the terrible Seto language and negative stereotypes displayed in the film, refutes his statements at the end of his article by referring to the film’s “illusory nature.” He explains that as long as Setos do not have the means to shoot a movie about their culture realistically, they should not complain: “Taarka is an Estonian film of Setos, and that is how people should perceive it. There is no way that National Geographic’s portrayal of a lemur could be completely authentic from the lemur’s perspective” (Ruitlane 112).
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Estonian film critic and director, Kristiina Davidjants, also acknowledges that the film is reinforcing Estonians’ stereotypical view of Setos. Nevertheless, it supports the filmmakers’ right to depict Setos from the outsiders’ perspective. She believes that it is not important whether the actors speak with an accent or if the songs are accurate enough, because films are supposed to be illusory and not the reality. By justifying the Estonians’ stereotypical descriptions of Setos in Estonia’s largest newspapers and culture pages, the reviewers are reinforcing the hegemonic understanding of Estonian ethnicity’s superiority over Seto ethnicity through the hegemonic domain of power (Collins 284).
Davidjants’ and Ruitlane’s views coincide with the film director’s opinion that was discussed in the production analysis chapter under the section titled “Interviews with the filmmakers.” The abovementioned reviewers, just like the director, Ain Mäeots, are ignoring the fact that media texts, especially ethnographic films in the form of docudrama
(Wesley 18; Lipkin 100) have the power to affect our understandings of different ethnicities, as well as of “us” and “them” (Kellner 7). They dismiss the fact that not every regular film viewer is capable of utilizing the oppositional reading, which may be easier for film critics who are more familiar with seeing through the hegemonies hidden in the filmic texts. Thus, the depiction of negative Seto stereotypes and usage of Estonian actors as Seto characters, can reinforce audiences’ understandings of Setos (including Seto women) as primitive and exoticized “museum artifacts” who ought to be exhibited through the eyes of their “big Estonian brother” (Remsu).
4.1.1.2. “So, this is the way you, Estonians, see us.” – Seto Stereotypes
Several reviewers oppose the ethnic hegemonies present in the filmic text by drawing attention to the negative Seto stereotypes that concern their drinking habits, rural
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location, and savage nature. For example, a Võro poet, Ruitlane, draws on his personal experiences with Setos and states that they curse and drink much less than the movie pictures (110). Seto journalist, Pino, refers to the painful Seto stereotypes that the movie is reinforcing by describing a historical picture that illustrates a typical Seto through
Estonians’ eyes. The picture features a “hairy old man wearing a peaked cap, holding a bloody gun in one hand and vodka bottle in the other, onions on the background” (Pino).
Pino points out the intersecting regional and ethnic hegemonies that the movie is reinforcing. He explains that the filmmakers bolster the stereotypical understanding of rural Seto folks, which is that people who do not live in cities have no entertainment, other than discussing someone’s sexual relationships, drinking, fighting, and cursing.
Pino describes how these descriptions offend Setos, and sighs, “So, this is the way you,
Estonians, see us….” He clarifies that the Estonians’ hurtful stereotypes in the film are nothing new and Setos are already used to these images. This “passive” attitude from
Setos demonstrates how the ideologies within the hegemonic domain of power are hard to fight back because “it is difficult to conceptualize alternatives to them, let alone ways of resisting the social practices that they justify” (Collins 303).
When Seto and Võro film critics are able to recognize and oppose the painful ethnic and regional stereotypes that the film is highlighting, several Estonian reviewers use the dominant or negotiated readings and unconsciously reinforce these stereotypes.
Eeva Kübar, an Estonian film critic and director, for instance, utilizes a negotiated reading when interpreting the filmic text. On one hand, she seems to recognize the stereptypical vision of leelo-singing Seto women who wear silver adornments, drink
“singing oil” (Seto moonshine), and are portrayed as the exoticized Other in Estonia. One
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the other hand, by expecting the film to show more “Seto-power, Setos’ primeval vitality and archaic nature,” Kübar also bolsters the stereotype that portrays Setos as “noble savages” (Schlegel 1831 qtd. in Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 56) or
“primitive Estonians” (Kalkun 15).
Furthermore, an Estonian journalist and writer, Kati Murutar, interprets the film in accordance with the ruling ethnic hegemonies. She believes that the director has painted a truthful picture of Setos: “Ain’s description of his own people is painful, beautiful, and honest at the same time.” As it appears, Murutar supposes that Mäeots is Seto, even though he is Võro. Võro and Seto ethnicities are not the same just because they both mark a linguistic and ethnic minority in South Estonia. These cultures incorporate different traditions, languages, religions, clothing, etc. The fact that Murutar does not differentiate Võro culture from that of Seto highlights the Estonians’ ethnocentric view on minority cultures that considers Estonian ethnicity as the central and superior to all the other minor cultures, such as Seto and Võro. According to Hooghe, ethnocentrism refers to the “basic attitude expressing the belief that one’s own ethnic group or one’s own culture is superior to other ethnic groups or cultures, and that one’s cultural standards can be applied in a universal manner” (11). When Murutar is underpinning the image of minority cultures as the Other in the hegemonic domain of power, this ethnocentric vision is already established in the structural domain that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions” (Collins 301). As mentioned in the introduction chapter,
UNESCO classifies Võro-Seto language “definitively endangered” in the five level classification of language endangerment (Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger).
Thus, when a world- known global organization, such as UNESCO, officially considers
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Seto and Võro languages as one, it is no surprise that Estonians are bolstering this understanding in the hegemonic and interpersonal domains of power.
4.1.2. Gender Hegemonies
4.1.2.1. “Who do you think will have a better change to survive?”
Unlike the much-criticized oppressions that concern cultural, lingual, and locational intersections, the gender hegemonies are briefly discussed only a few times.
This does not indicate that gender equality in Setomaa and Estonia exists. For instance, just like the historical Seto people, modern Estonians (including Setos) tend to support the idea of women being responsible for upbringing children and managing housework, while men are seen largely as breadwinners (“Soolise Võrdõiguslikkuse Monitooring
2009” 186). Moreover, Estonian (including Seto) women are underrepresented in leading positions and Estonian gender pay gap is one of the biggest in Europe (Estonian Human
Development Report 2012/2013 119).
The Estonians’ and Setos’ lack of awareness of gender equality is also reflected in the results of Estonian population survey (Järviste). As discussed in the introduction,
Western feminists’ ideas have not had a big breakthrough in post-communist societies, such as Estonia, for several reasons: (1) females in this region do not see women’s emancipation obtained through communism as a truly positive phenomenon (Goldfarb
1997); (2) it is difficult for societies that have been enforced to live under major ideologies like communism, to psychologically accept other “big liberatory ideas”
(Busheikin 14); (3) in post-socialist societies, economic status and political affiliation tend to play more important role in constructing women’s identities than gender
(Ghodsee 32); (4) females in former Soviet regions are often protecting their private
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sphere (family) against “public invasion” more than they are defending their individual rights within their families (Goldfarb 1997).
Therefore, the gender issue was slightly brought up by only one female and one male reviewer. The female critic, Eeva Kübar, notices the intersection of gender and ethnicity in Taarka’s character. She draws attention to the fact that Taarka, the dark- blooded Gypsy woman whose “stare can kill another female and make men lose their mind,” is portrayed as the Other in the Seto community. Taarka’s Gypsy ethnicity triggers different gender oppression than the one that other Seto females experience. Seto men subordinate Taarka through rejection. According to Hurtado, the term rejection indicates that the women of color (or different ethnicity) are “denied the patriarchal invitation to privilege, and seen primarily as workers and objects of sexual aggression”
(qtd. in Fenstermaker & West 168).
Moreover, Kübar is using an oppositional reading of the filmic text by challenging the hegemonic understanding that considers Seto women as just performers and representatives of the indigenous Seto culture. Kübar explains that the exhibition of
Seto folklore in the film, such as leelo singing and dancing to the Finns, shadows the issue of Taarka as a woman. By using introjection that allows viewers to “unconsciously adopt the attitudes, values, and/or behaviors they associate with screen culture subjects”
(Scodari & Mulvaney), Kübar identifies with Taarka and feels that her story “lacks tragedy.” Kübar states that she expected the film to stress more of Taarka’s sufferings that were caused by various oppressions; however, she got the impression that everything was fine with Taarka at the end of the film. This, Kübar believes, may be the reason the regular audience is not able to feel the pain that Taarka experiences as a woman.
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The second critic who mentions Taarka’s gender is a male reviewer, Jüri Pino.
Contrary to the female reviewer, Pino utilizes a dominant reading of the filmic text and seems to be reinforcing traditional gender roles when discussing Taarka’s accomplishments. Pino appears to belittle Taarka’s doings by explaining that, from what he has heard, Taarka was not overly talented person and that every Seto woman knew how to sing an impromptu. However, most of the females had no time for singing and showing off to the folklore researchers. He clarifies that, different from Taarka, they “had to work, argue with their husbands, and raise children.” Pino also takes up the controversy between the village and Taarka, and explains that Setos believed in god, went to church, appreciated their parents, raised their children, and respected their marriage vows. “No wonder that they did not accept a person who did not respect these tenets,” says Pino who seems to be justifying Setos’ disapproval of Taarka’s behavior. He finally asks the question, “Who do you think will have a better chance to survive?” Pino’s values prove that traditional gender roles still exist today, especially in Estonian rural areas, such as Setomaa (Annuk).
Moreover, the subordination of females in the Seto community may also have to do with the morals of the contemporary Seto Orthodox Church. As Collins explains, moral leadership functions in the structural domain that comprises social structures such as religion, and it takes a considerable amount of time to change the structural domain because it requires modifying the functioning of the “interconnected social institutions”
(277). By justifying traditional gender roles in media (the hegemonic domain of power), people defend the practices established in the structural and disciplinary domains of power (284).
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Jüri Pino’s opinions are a good example of how the intersections in people’s identities can produce different oppressions for different people. Because Pino is Seto, he recognizes that the film reinforces the hegemonic stereotypes of Seto ethnicity and describes it from the outsiders’ perspective. However, as a male, he does not notice how his own articulations of Taarka are reinforcing gender hegemonies and subordinating
Seto women by predicting that they won’t survive if they do not follow the traditional gender roles. As Collins explains, “although most individuals have little difficulty identifying their own victimization within some major system of oppression—whether it be by race, social class, religion, physical ability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age or gender—they typically fail to see how their thoughts and actions uphold someone else’s subordination” (287).
4.2. Audience Analysis
To analyze which intersecting identities of Seto women are recognized and discussed by the audience members and whether their responses to the filmic text are reinforcing or challenging the ruling hegemonies, this section examines the audience members’ comments about Taarka. It analyzes the comments on its official website
(taarka.exitfilm.ee) and in response to the following newspaper articles: “Taarka vaim valvas filmi” by Tiiu Laks, published in Eesti Päevaleht; “Taarka traagika Setumaa vihmas” by Eeva Kübar, published in Postimees; and “‘Taarka’ avas filmifestivali” by
Maarja Aeltermann, published in Tartu Postimees. Moreover, the analysis also includes the examination of audience comments in response to the following articles about
Taarka: “Setod keerasid ‘Taarka’ filmitegijatega tülli” published in SLÕhtuleht; “Taarka vaim valvas filmi” by Tiiu Laks, published in Eesti Päevaleht; “‘Taarka’ seisab kõrgemal
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keelenüanssidest” by Kristiina Davidjants, published in Ärileht; “Mäeots: filmi-Taarka roll olnuks Mercale karuteene” published in Publik.delfi.ee; and “Taarka vaim hoiab filmivõtetel silma peal” by Andris Feldmanis, published in Eesti Päevaleht.
4.2.1. Gender Hegemonies
4.2.1.1. “How can Seto women have normal children when they are soaked with ether
and alcohol?”
In response to the article, “Setod keerasid ‘Taarka’ filmitegijatega tülli,” that describes the conflict between Estonian filmmakers and Setos over the film’s exhibition of hurtful Seto stereotypes, several commenters point out the issue of Seto women and alcohol. One person utilizes a dominant reading of the filmic text by applying the hegemonic stereotype that portrays Setos as “rural alcoholics.” The film viewer asks,
“How can Seto women have normal children when they are soaked with ether and alcohol?” Moreover, this person announces that there is a special Seto holiday where every village woman leaves her home to drink for a week, while Seto men have to stay at home (it is not to say that this holiday exists in reality). As it appears, this commenter is applying the hurtful stereotype of Setos as “alcoholics” specifically to Seto women.
Furthermore, by criticizing the fact that Seto females can leave the house while men have to stay at home, the commenter is bolstering traditional gender roles. According to the socially accepted gender roles, a woman should sit at home and give birth to children, instead of going out for celebrations, which should be for men only. As mentioned earlier, contemporary Estonians support the idea of women being responsible for upbringing children and managing housework (“Soolise Võrdõiguslikkuse Monitooring
2009” 186). The abovementioned comment opens a discussion where a female film
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viewer, who claims that she is Seto, titles this comment “ridiculous.” She suggests people to visit Setomaa before start calling Setos “retarded” and alcoholics. This dialogue demonstrates how ethnic stereotypes and traditional gender roles can be reinforced and challenged through the interpersonal domain of power which functions in the level of people’s relationships and everyday lived experiences (Collins 287; 299).
Another challenging film viewer’s comment originates from a local Seto woman,
Inara Luigas. Luigas believes that there is no other woman like Taarka in Setomaa and describes her as “a poor female with a palatial vocabulary who suffers a lot, but at the same time creates big values” (Laks). Opposing the hegemonic understanding of traditional gender roles that force women into taking care of their children and homes,
Luigas explains that she expected the film to exhibit even more of Taarka’s wordsmith and singing skills that made her famous and were an important part of her identity. A
Seto man, Valdur Helm, similarly mentions that the film should have stressed more that
Taarka was a Seto “Singing mother” who was also much appreciated in Finland (Kübar).
A Seto male, Ahto Raudoja, points out the incorrect portrayal of Seto females’
“crying bride” ritual (mõrsjaitk) in the film. He comments that the profound ritual that is supposed to express how the girl has to leave home and continue her life as a married woman, had turned into some “folklore group” performance in the movie (Kübar). This issue was also discussed in the textual analysis chapter where examination of gender and class intersections in the filmic text revealed that Seto girls were depicted desperately wanting to get married because of the class privilege that accompanies marriage
(Roseenbury 769). However, although researchers have described how getting married in real life was often accompanied by crying rituals and marriage was believed to change a
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Seto woman’s life traumatically (Kalkun, “Pihtivad naised. Seto naiste eluloolaulud”), the film did not reflect the ways in which marriage “subordinates women” (Lumsden 42).
Except in the scene where Taarka's mother has to give up the family's fortune to pay her husband's debts.
4.2.2. Ethnic Hegemonies
4.2.2.1. “Setos are well-known drunkards” – Seto Stereotypes
The audience comments that reinforce Seto stereotypes mostly concern the intersections of nationality, ethnicity, and location. The majority of the commenters, who use the dominant reading when interpreting the hegemonic Seto stereotypes, seem to be non-Setos who describe the Seto people and culture as “they.” As Toe has mentioned,
Estonians define Setos usually as “Them,” while they describe themselves as “Us” (53).
In response to the article about hurtful Seto stereotypes, “Setod keerasid ‘Taarka’ filmitegijatega tülli,” numerous commenters claim Setos to be “well-known drunkards” and the fact that Setos oppose this image, shows that they “have lost their mind while drinking moonshine.” People are describing that Seto culture is “soaked with” ether and moonshine and that people in Setomaa often die because of excessive alcohol consumption. One even mentions, “It is easier to count people who do not drink than the ones who do in there [Setomaa].” Furthermore, some commenters claim that typical Setos do not work, but party and fight instead. One person comes up with an old Seto saying, according to what “the party is not a party if there is no fighting,” and “knows” that some rare parties in Setomaa even culminated with murders (not to claim that these things really happen).
The above-mentioned article about the film’s stereotypical depiction of Setos as
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the people who like to drink triggers a conversation about another Seto stereotype in the comments column. It leads people to reinforce the idea of Setos’ coalition with Russians in the interpersonal domain (Collins 287). As one of the commenters states, “Setos like alcohol because they identify themselves with Russian culture.” Several other people mention Setos’ alliance or “mix” with Russians and call them the “communists’ sidekicks.” One even warns that Estonians should be aware and cautious about Setos because “these people are very difficult to deal with.” These comments are reinforcing primordialism that justifies conflicts between different ethnic groups based on static fundamental features of these groups, such as biological factors and territorial location
(Fearon & Laitin 848). In short, the film viewers believe that because of Setos’ peripheral location near the Russian border, they are in union with Russians and a threat to the
Estonian nation. One of the audience members, however, utilizes an oppositional reading and realizes how these comments are reinforcing primordialism. Trying to confront the hegemonic primordialism, the commenter asks, “Why are you trying to cause hostility between people from the same nation?”
A couple of commenters also compare Setos to Jews, reinforcing the racialization of both of these ethnic groups (Stefancic & Delgado 455). In response to the article,
“Setod keerasid "Taarka" filmitegijatega tülli,” one of them bolsters the hurtful ethnic and racial stereotypes of Setos and Jews by stating, “The Jew cried when the Seto was born,” and then explains that Setos are even more skilled than Jews when it comes to cheating other people.
Setos, Russians, and Jews are not the only ethnicities and nationalities that are racialized in the Estonian audiences’ comments about the movie. Some film viewers also
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mention that Estonian films should not display Gypsies. For instance, the article,
“Mäeots: filmi-Taarka roll olnuks Mercale karuteene,” that discusses which actress is the best fit to embody dark-blooded Taarka, receives a comment which states that Estonians and Setos would do just fine without “these Gypsies” and that there are enough “witches” without Romanies in Estonia. Nicolae Gheorghe has described Gypsy ethnicity’s growing subordination in Eastern European countries and explains that there has been a lot of
“racist prejudice and hostility against Romanies” in these regions (832). Gypsies
(Romanies) are often socially marginalized through painful stereotypes that describe them as thieves, rebels, hooligans, “stateless persons,” refugees, etc.
Nevertheless, some people also utilize the oppositional reading and criticize the way Estonian filmmakers have depicted the Seto people and culture. Various Seto commenters tell Estonians to leave Setos alone and let them portray their own culture.
For example, in response to the article, “Setod keerasid ‘Taarka’ filmitegijatega tülli,” a self-pronounced Seto person states, “Our men drink hansa (moonshine) and women sip
õuka (ether). Everyone feels good. Mäeots doesn’t know about our lives; none of the
Estonians does. Only we are the Setos.” This comment may be interpreted as an indication to Seto’s difficult peripheral life that only seems good when they are drunk.
Estonians, however, who do not experience the oppressions that Setos have to deal with, are not trying to help these rural people or take them as equals, but rather point and laugh at this “ethnic Other” (Kalkun; Annist; Toe; etc.).
4.2.2.2. “An expedition to Setomaa” – The Commodified and Exotized Setos
The majority of Seto commenters seem to be using a negotiated reading when discussing Estonian filmmakers’ depiction of commodified Setos and their culture.
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Almost every Seto film viewer emphasizes the incorrect Seto language and inaccurate depiction of Seto cultural customs in the movie but, at the same time, their overall impression of the film is still positive. For instance, one of the commenters explains that, for Estonians, the erroneous Seto language in the film may be just a nuance, while for
Setos it just offensive to listen someone speaking their mother tongue totally wrong
(Davidjants). Furthermore, a Seto female, Inara Luigas, also points out the unclear Seto language and deviation from Seto rituals. However, she finds that the overall picture of
Setos and Setomaa is powerful and that the scenes which demonstrate Seto ethnic clothing, adornments, houses, landscapes, and people, are precise. Luigas believes that even Estonians can get the message without understanding the language (Laks).
Additionally, the head of one of the local governments, Peeter Sibul, also reinforces the commodification of Seto culture by confirming in the same article that it is important to be able to watch the movie from Estonians’ perspective and, for them, this film is like “an expedition to Setomaa.” Similar emotions from the film viewers can be seen in Kübar’s article. Even though Setos resent the imprecise Seto language and local rituals, and believe that the best actors to play Seto characters are Setos themselves, they still appreciate that the first film of Setos was made, so wider audiences can learn about them.
These Seto people’s interpretations of the filmic text demonstrate how the
Estonian filmmakers’ ethnocentric and commodified portrayal of Setos is so convincing in the hegemonic domain of power, which upholds various “commonsense” ideas
(Collins 284), that even Setos do not question these ideas. By praising the filmmakers’ vision of the commodified, exotic, and indigenous Setos, Seto film viewers are unconsciously reinforcing the Estonians’ one-sided hegemonic understanding of Seto
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ethnicity.
Some Estonian film viewers also use a negotiated reading. One audience member from Northern Estonia comments Tiiu Laks’ article and says that the film helped her/him
“to realize what it feels like to be a member of the dominant culture that mercifully pats on its minor brother’s shoulder, without really understanding the troubles that the minority culture has to go through.” This person seems to be referring to Anna and Iwwo who were collecting Seto folklore and presenting it to the rest of the world through their eyes. Nevertheless, the commenter does not acknowledge that the film itself does the same thing – portrays Setos and their culture through the eyes of their “older brother.”
Another film viewer who comments on the article “Setod keerasid ‘Taarka’ filmitegijatega tülli” seems to be utilizing an oppositional reading and draws attention to the hegemonies behind the funding of the movie. The commenter explains that the people who made Taarka do not care about Setos, “all that matters is money.” This comment can be interpreted as criticism of the way the film was sponsored. Taarka’s largest supporters were EFS, KULKA, and the Estonian Ministry of Culture. The movie also received funding from the European Union MEDIA Programme (taarka.exitfilm.ee). As described in the production analysis chapter, in order to receive monetary means from the domestic and European organizations, Seto culture must be portrayed in accordance with the
Estonian and European organizations’ hegemonic and commodified understandings of this ethnic group. Thus, Seto ethnic subordination is established already in the structural domain of power that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions”
(Collins 284, 301).
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As it appears on Taarka’s official website (taarka.exitfilm.ee) and in the article,
“‘Taarka’ avas filmifestivali,” numerous Estonian audience members stress that the film portrayed an “extremely truthful,” “realistic,” and “authentic” picture of Seto culture.
They believe that Estonians truly value Setos and that Taarka helps to carry on Seto heritage. These film viewers’ comments demonstrate that audiences interpret the scenes and artifacts that reflect Seto culture as an expression of reality, which is why they consider these scenes ethnographic rather than illusory. As MacDougall (1976:136) has explained, “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another” can be considered as an ethnographic film (qtd. in Mathew 18). Only one audience member acknowledged
“the films’ illusory nature” that several reviewers and Ain Mäeots have emphasized. As a response to Tiiu Laks’ article, the commenter states that ethnographers should not condemn the filmmakers for not being totally authentic because regular audiences would not be interested in the movies that are overly realistic. He explains that it is the film’s dramatic characteristic that makes “Hollywood filmmakers create better movies of
Vikings than Scandinavians.” However, this is just one comment, while the large majority of film viewers interpret the film as a realistic depiction of Setos. According to
Bisson, it is important to study the impact of films that advertise “historical knowledge” because these films “have become a pervasive and influential medium” for people to gain historical understanding “and multicultural awareness” (1).
The next chapter will conclude the thesis by describing the findings of production, textual, and reception analyses. It will provide the answers for the research questions proposed in the first chapter, point out the limitations of this study, and finally make suggestions about the future research.
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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION
To describe the implications for gender, ethnic, and class hegemonies, chapter five will conclude the findings of the production, textual, and reception analysis. It will answer the research questions posed in chapter one: (1) Which intersecting identities of
Seto women are depicted in the film Taarka? (2) Which intersecting identities of Seto women are recognized and discussed in film critics’ and audience members’ comments?
(3) What kinds of hegemonies are revealed in the filmic text, meta- and paratexts in connection with intersections in Seto women’s identities? (4) Are the Estonian cultural economic environment, filmic text, and comments from the filmmakers, critics, and audience members reinforcing or challenging these hegemonies? (5) Can the film Taarka be considered an ethnographic film?
The chapter ends by indicating the limitations of this thesis and making suggestions for possible directions for future research of minority cultures and their media representation.
5.1. Production Analysis: Findings & Implications
5.1.1. Implications for Ethnic and Gender Hegemonies
The production analysis revealed that the Estonian cultural economic environment favors the activities that are connected with preserving and introducing “authentic” cultures, such as creating the film that represents Setomaa as a “living museum.” The financing from certain domestic and European supporters often establishes the condition
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that the media products that receive funding have to contribute to the preservation and presentation of local indigenous cultures, such as Seto.
At first sight, these funding systems seem to work in Setos’ favor by helping to introduce, maintain, and spread their culture to a wider audience. When analyzing these support schemes from the intersection of gender and ethnicity, they seem to especially empower Seto women, because many cultural customs and artifacts, such as Seto leelo, silver adornments, ethnic food, etc., which are advertised in the media and to tourists, are exclusively linked to Seto females. However, by supporting mostly Seto heritage-related activities and not paying as much attention to the other areas that also need to develop in
Setomaa, Estonian and European institutions are shaping the nature of Setomaa, Setos,
Seto women, and Seto culture in a specific direction – that is,“Seto” should be something authentic and tied to old traditions, and something that is representing the Estonian ancestry to the world. These support schemes are commodifying Seto culture and its people, including Seto females who have an important part in exhibiting Seto ethnic customs and artifacts. By supporting only the strictly heritage-related image of Setos, the
Estonian cultural economic environment restricts hybridity among Seto people (including
Seto women). As Bhabha has explained, the members of a dominant culture often define minority culture too strictly from an outsider’s perspective and usually in an exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of subordinated culture to define themselves.
This kind of environment promotes unequal power relations within the Seto community where the people involved in cultural promotion activities, such as leelo-singers, receive more resources and media coverage than other Setos whose jobs are not heritage-related.
Nevertheless, the Setos who seem to be in power in the Seto community are actually
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affected by major Estonian and European organizations that decide what areas in
Setomaa need funding and attention. As it appears, the ethnic hegemony that highlights the idea of indigenous, customs-related, and commodified Seto ethnicity is established already in the structural domain of power through Estonian and European organizations, which “operat[e] through the laws and policies of social institutions” (Collins 301).
The results of the distribution analysis are also worth mentioning. Despite support from the Estonian and European major funding organizations, the domestic culture awards, and the opportunity to screen in Estonia’s largest multiplex cinema, the general audience did not find Taarka as appealing as two other full-length, domestic feature films that came out the same year, which had ten times more viewers than Taarka. This indicates that Estonian moviegoers are enforcing ethnic and gender hegemonies by preferring to watch masculine Estonian films staging male heroes, to those films about minority issues that are featuring female protagonists.
To answer the question of whether the film can be considered ethnographic, the interviews with the filmmakers were analyzed. The results were that the director does not consider Taarka as a pure, unchanged ethnographic reflection of the Seto community and explains that its aim is to rather dramatize the life of Taarka. Nevertheless, the film still contains various ethnographic elements that attempt to articulate Seto culture, society, and historical events, and portray the life of a real person, which is why the film can be considered as a docudrama, which combines facts with fiction (Lipkin 100). Drawing on
MacDougall’s argument, “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another”
(1976:136) can be considered as an ethnographic film (qtd. in Mathew 18), Wesley
Mathew claims that a docudrama can be viewed as an “alternative form of re-presentation
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in ethnographic film” (18). Therefore, the answer to our first research question is that although Taarka is not an ethnographic film in the form of documentary, according to some film theorists, it can still fall under the ‘ethnographic film’ category in the form of docudrama that weds documentary with drama while recognizing its own framing. The results of the reception analysis, which will be discussed later, also contribute in answering this question.
Overall, the idea to represent Setos, including Seto women, and their culture as indigenous, “exotic,” and “authentic,” is reinforced by the institutional domain of power through the organizations that, through funding, support this understanding of Setos.
Representing historical Setos in a movie made by Estonian filmmakers, that uses
Estonian actors and actresses to play Setos, which exhibits Seto ancient ethnic clothing, customs, and traditional gender roles, and that presents these “small people” nationally and internationally, is reinforcing the understanding of Setomaa as a “living museum”
(Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 138) in the hegemonic domain of power.
Setos are compared and contrasted to the rest of Estonia (Annist 4; Toe 19) and as
“primitive Estonians,” they are hoped to shed light on Estonian history (Kalkun, Seto
Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos 15). When asked what role Taarka plays in Estonian history, Mäeots mentions that it stresses the importance of finding one’s roots (“Ain
Mäeots: häbeneda pole midagi!”).
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5.2. Textual Analysis: Findings & Implications
5.2.1. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community: The Film’s Depiction of Intersecting
Oppressions
Fist of all, by exhibiting an opposition between the Seto patriarchal community and a controversial, dark-blooded heroine, Taarka, who, nevertheless, also falls under the category of “Setos,” the film attempts to challenge the ethnocentric and limited depiction of Seto females by stressing hybridity (Kraidy; Valdivia; Bhabha; Hall) within a specific cultural group. The textual analysis reveals that Taarka’s subjugation in the Seto community is caused by several intersecting social categories, such as gender, economic and marital status, and ethnicity, which are socially constructing her identity. As a woman living in a patriarchal Seto society, Taarka has no right to confront her father who gambles off her dowry or Vasso who does not propose to Taarka after impregnating her.
As Connell comments, patriarchy underpins “the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (77). Moreover, the ethnic and racial hegemonies in Seto community also oppress Taarka because of her dark Gypsy blood. The film depicts Setos highlighting the principles of primordialism (Fearon & Laitin 848) by subordinating
Gypsies because of their fundamental features, such as lazy and nonconformist “Gypsy nature.” As Gheorghe explains, there has been a lot of “racist prejudice and hostility against Romanies” in Eastern European countries (832). Furthermore, the movie shows how Seto men subordinate Taarka because of her gender and ethnicity through rejection.
Hurtado explains how white women and women of color (or of other ethnicities) do not experience gender the same way when it comes to their relationship with white men.
According to Hurtado, white women are subordinated through seduction (“wooed into
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joining white men with the expectation of sharing privilege with them”), while women of color are oppressed through rejection (“denied the patriarchal invitation to privilege, and seen primarily as workers and objects of sexual aggression”) (qtd. in Fenstermaker &
West 168).
These socially constructed gender, class, and ethnic identities intersect and cause a situation where no man wants to propose to Taarka. This, in turn, places Taarka in an even more oppressed situation because the Seto community empowers married women over unmarried females. As Rosenbury explains, societies often privilege “some forms of personal life over others” and “the unearned privileges of marriage intersect with other unearned privileges, including white … privilege” (769). Thus, the film, describes how the Seto community bolsters the hegemonic understanding that Taarka is a bad mother because of her single status and Gypsy origin.
5.2.2. Taarka as the Other in the Seto Community: Implications for Gender, Class, and
Ethnic Hegemonies
Even though the ruling hegemonies of gender, class, and ethnicity have placed
Taarka in the outcast’s position in the Seto community, the film depicts her boldly confronting these hegemonies. Taarka does not conform to traditional gender roles, gives birth to three children as an unmarried woman, and exhibits her singing-talent at parties and to strangers. Through the actions of its main character, the film stresses “how domination and resistance shape and are shaped by individual agency” (Collins 275).
Taarka does not believe that the only way to live for a woman is to follow traditional gender norms. As Butler argues, gender is a representation of an internalized notion of culturally constructed gender roles, and it is created by the performance of this
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notion of gender (8). Thus, by going to parties to sing instead of taking care of her household and children, Taarka gains liberation by not doing what the patriarchal Seto community expects her to do. According to Collins, “thinking and doing not what is expected of us” establishes a significant “dimension of … [one’s] empowerment” (285).
Furthermore, when Taarka receives recognition from the village because of her singing skills and not because of being a mother, she also changes “the overall shape of power”
(Collins 275) by changing other Setos’ attitudes towards her actions. Moreover, Taarka’s beliefs confront class hegemony that privileges legal marriage over other forms of romantic relationships (Rosenbury 769). The film portrays Taarka staying single rather than marrying some man she does not love.
However, although Taarka is portrayed confronting the hegemonies of gender, class, and ethnicity, the film also pictures how her liberal behavior and rebellious decisions eventually lead to a punishment. Taarka’s daughter, Tato, ends up “paying” for her noncompliant mother’s “sins” by getting raped, losing her mind and her child. Tato’s rape can be interpreted as a penalty for Taarka’s liberal sexuality that was not in accordance with the rules of the patriarchal Seto society. Even more, there are scenes in the film that reinforce the hegemonies of ethnicity and class by encouraging the viewer to interpret Taarka as a bad mother because of her single status and her “restless Gypsy genes.” Moreover, by showing Taarka eventually regretting her nonconformist way of life, the movie returns to justify the power of traditional gender roles that require a woman to be a housewife and mother before being a famous performer.
The examination of the film’s construction demonstrates that the camera’s gaze eroticizes and objectifies Taarka through a male gaze, especially in the nude scenes.
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Furthermore, the film displays close-ups of women that are often contrasted with long shots picturing the patriarchal context as safe and rational. As Roof mentions, these close-ups separate female characters from the patriarchy (field of social action).
However, there is one exception, the rape-scene, where the camera interpellates the audience to take up Tato’s gaze to feel her pain and humiliation, and condemn the stationmaster for his cruel deed.
5.2.3. Setos as the Other in Estonian Society: The Film’s Depiction of Intersecting
Oppressions
When depicting Seto women as a group in Estonian society, the film stresses mainly the intersecting characteristics within Seto ethnicity, including cultural, religious, linguistic, and regional features, which posit Seto women in a subordinated position compared to Estonian and Finnish females. The movie includes several scenes that describe the ethnic hegemony that privileges Finns and Estonians over Setos. It portrays how Estonians and Finns are trying to separate their ethnicity and language from those of
Setos. By using their languages when communicating with Setos in Setomaa, demonstrates Estonians’ and Finns’ hegemonic understanding of Seto as an inferior language. As of today, Seto language still does not have a legal language status in Estonia and it is considered a dialect of Estonian. As it appears, Seto subordination is established already in the structural domain of power that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions” (Collins 301).
Furthermore, Seto ethnicity in the film is considered rural and unsophisticated not only by non-Setos, but also by Setos themselves, which demonstrates how subordinated groups are unconsciously reinforcing the ruling groups’ ideologies (McKinnon 239;
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Collins 284). Setos believe that Estonian and Finnish women stand higher than Seto females, that their rural life is lesser than city-life, and that things and people from abroad are better than the local ones.
5.2.4. Setos as the Other in the Estonian Society: Implications for Ethnic and Gender
Hegemonies
The film director, Ain Mäeots, draws attention to the much-criticized fact that
Setos have been portrayed, and Seto identity has been constructed mostly from the non-
Seto researchers’ perspective, while the voices of the Seto people (including Seto women) have stayed in the background (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika Ajaloos
15). Because of their “missing voices,” Setos have not been able to resist domination and
“objectification as the Other” (Collins 101). This, in turn, has led to a one-sided representation of Seto “authentic culture” which the post-colonial critic, Aijaz Ahmad, describes as a “history made by others” (6; 7). Homi Bhabha explains that the idea of a specific “authentic culture” often originates from the members of the dominant culture who define minority culture too strictly from an outsider’s perspective and usually in an exoticized way, leaving no agency for the members of the subordinated culture to define themselves.
Thus, the movie displays two characters, Anna and Iwwo, an Estonian dance collector, and a Finnish folklore researcher, who to Setomaa to record and write down
Seto females’ dances and songs to present them to the wider, Estonian and Finnish audiences. Moreover, the film demonstrates how Taarka’s story is captured in the portrait of Taarka that the Estonian artist is painting at the command of a Finnish researcher for the Finnish president.
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Nevertheless, even though the film director criticizes the outsiders’ construction of the heritage-related Seto culture and Seto people, the movie itself also depicts Setos from the outsider’s perspective. It reinforces dominant Seto stereotypes and re-creates the impression of Setos as the exotic, peripheral people who highly value their ethnic traditions, but also embrace rural customs, such as drinking, partying, fighting, and cursing. The description of Setos as strange, unsophisticated, poor, romantic “noble savages,” that Schlegel reinforced already in 1831 (Kalkun, Seto Laul Eesti Folkloristika
Ajaloos 56), seems to be still around today. By opposing rural and backward Seto women to urban and developed Finnish ladies, the film is bolstering the hegemony located in the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and location.
When examining Seto women as a group compared to Seto men, there are several scenes that emphasize the impression of the otiose Seto men and energetic Seto women.
By exhibiting how the researchers are interested in the “energetic” Seto females, who sing leelo, dance ethnic dances, wear silver adornments, handcraft ethnic clothing, etc., more than in the “reticent” Seto men, the film seems to empower Seto women. It challenges traditional gender norms by offering the women an opportunity to perform in public instead of only concentrating on their households and children. However, the film simultaneously bolsters an ethnocentric vision of Seto females who are unconsciously constructing their ethnic identity according to Estonian institutions’ understandings, which view Setos as strictly heritage-related, exotic, and commodified. As McKinnon describes, hegemony does not usually operate using direct force, but is rather softly suggesting following the dominant ideology and people are often “unaware that their actions and beliefs reinforce the dominant group's interests” (239). This, in turn, causes
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the situation described by Aet Annist (16), where only the people who actively promote
Seto old traditions, such as leelo-singers, receive public recognition and resources, while other Setos often suffer in poverty. Moreover, by only exhibiting Seto females who sing and dance their ethnic songs and dances, and wear their ethnic clothing, the film is limiting hybridity (Kraidy; Hall; Valdivia; Bhabha) among Seto females.
The situation where the Estonian institutions, media, and filmmakers are reinforcing an ethnocentric image of the exotic, indigenous, and commodified Seto culture, can be concluded with Gayatari Spivak's words, “We live in a post-colonial neo- colonized world” (166) where the majority groups still maintain control over minorities
“via political, cultural and above all economic channels” (Childs & Williams 5).
5.3. Reception Analysis: Findings and Implications
5.3.1. Film Critics’ Reviews: Implications for Ethnic Hegemonies
The film critics’ reviews focus mostly on the intersections within Seto ethnicity, including language, culture, nationality, and location. They also briefly consider the intersection of Seto ethnicity and gender, but class issues are completely missing from their discussions. As results, the majority of critics use either an oppositional or negotiated reading; however, a few reviewers also utilize a dominant reading.
When examining the intersections within Seto ethnicity, such as language, cultural traditions, and location, some reviewers use an oppositional reading (Hall,
“Encoding/Decoding” 281) and recognize that the film reinforces the ethnic hegemony that exoticizes and commodifies Seto culture and people. They point out the intersection of Seto culture and language, stressing that these two are inseparable; thus, the filmmakers’ usage of Estonian actors who do not speak proper Seto undervalues the
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importance of Seto language as part of Seto cultural ethnicity. As mentioned earlier,
Estonian filmmakers’ understanding of Seto as a trivial language is not only reinforced in the hegemonic domain of power that, for instance, operates through the movie. As of today, Seto language still does not have a legal language status in Estonia and it is considered a dialect of Estonian. Hence, Seto ethnic subordination in the lingual level is already established in the structural domain that “operates through the laws and policies”
(Collins 284; 301).
There are also reviewers who utilize a negotiated reading (Hall 281). Even though they realize that Setos are being depicted one-sidedly and stereotypically, they agree with the overall ideology on which the text is based. They believe that Estonian filmmakers have the right to depict the Seto people however they wish because Setos are still too primitive to do it themselves.
Although Seto and Võro film critics are able to recognize and oppose the painful ethnic and regional stereotypes that concern Setos’ drinking habits, rural location, and the savage character, several Estonian reviewers use a negotiated or dominant reading and unconsciously reinforce these painful Seto stereotypes. Some of the reviewers even consider Seto and Võro ethnicity as one. This understanding is established in the structural domain that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions
(Collins 301). As mentioned in the introduction chapter, UNESCO classifies Võro-Seto language “definitively endangered” in the five level classification of language endangerment (Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger). Thus, when a widely known, global organization, such as UNESCO, officially considers Seto and Võro languages as
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one, it is no surprise that Estonians are underlining this understanding in the hegemonic domain of power.
By justifying these stereotypical Estonians’ descriptions of Setos in the Estonian largest newspapers and culture pages, the reviewers are reinforcing the hegemonic understanding of Estonian ethnicity’s superiority over Seto ethnicity in the hegemonic domain of power that largely operates through media (Collins 284).
5.3.2. Audience Comments: Implications for Ethnic Hegemonies
The audience members utilize a more dominant reading than the film critics. The majority of the commenters, who use a dominant reading when interpreting the hegemonic Seto stereotypes, seem to be non-Setos who describe the Seto people and culture as “they.” As Toe has mentioned, Estonians define Setos usually as “Them,” while they describe themselves as “Us” (53). Several Estonian film viewers, who reinforce painful Seto stereotypes, describe Setos as alcoholics, drunkards, rebels, etc.
Furthermore, some commenters also bolster primordialism, that justifies conflicts between different ethnic groups based on static fundamental features of these groups, such as biological factors and territorial location (Fearon & Laitin 848), by picturing
Setos as “cheaters like Jews” and “Russian communists’ sidekicks.” Some of them also highlight a “racist prejudice and hostility against Romanies” (Gheorghe 832) by criticizing the fact that Estonian films display Gypsies too often.
Several Seto commenters, however, are trying to oppose these hurtful Seto stereotypes by suggesting Estonians to go and live in Setomaa before they dare to describe Setos. The majority of Seto film viewers seem to be using a negotiated reading when discussing Estonian filmmakers’ depiction of Setos’ and their culture. Almost every
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Seto commenter emphasizes the incorrect Seto language and inaccurate depiction of Seto cultural customs in the movie. However, they are still happy that the first film of the Seto people was made, so that wider audiences can learn about Setos. As it appears, Estonian filmmakers’ ethnocentric, exoticized, and commodified portrayal of Setos is so convincing in the hegemonic domain of power, which upholds various “commonsense” ideas (Collins 284), that even Setos do not question these viewpoints and praise the filmmakers’ vision of the commodified, exotic, and indigenous Setos.
5.3.3. Critics’ Reviews and Audience Comments: Implications for Gender Hegemonies
Compared to the oppressions that concern cultural, linguistic, and locational intersections, the gender topic was briefly discussed by only two reviewers. This proves
Estonians’ and Setos’ lack of interest in gender issues, which is also reflected in the results of Estonian population survey (Järviste) that reveals Estonians’ low awareness of gender equality. As it appeared, a female reviewer, who utilizes an oppositional reading, recognizes the intersection of gender and ethnicity by describing how Taarka as a Gypsy woman “made men lose their mind.” By using introjection (Scodari & Mulvaney), the reviewer identifies with Taarka and criticizes the way the film “lacks tragedy” when describing Taarka’s sufferings. She is not happy how the movie concentrates more on the exhibition of Seto folklore than the issue of Taarka as a woman. Male reviewer, however, utilizes a dominant reading by diminishing Taarka’s accomplishments and criticizing her behavior as a woman because it was not in accordance with traditional gender roles. His understandings defend the morals that are established in the structural and disciplinary domains of power, such as the Seto Orthodox Church. As Collins explains, moral leadership functions in the structural domain that comprises social structures such as
129!
religion, and it takes a lot of time to change the structural domain because it requires modifying the functioning of the “interconnected social institutions” (277).
A few audience members also point out the issue of gender and ethnicity, by applying hurtful Seto stereotypes that portray Setos as rural alcoholics specifically on
Seto females. Moreover, they are reinforcing traditional gender roles by condemning Seto women for going out during the holidays while men have to stay at home. However, there are also a couple of local film viewers who challenge traditional gender roles by mentioning that they would have wanted the film to exhibit even more of Taarka’s extraordinary singing skills and her international success.
5.3.4. Implications: Taarka as an Ethnographic Film
The reception analysis results show that some of the film reviewers, just like the director, Ain Mäeots, stress the films’ illusory nature and believe that Taarka is not an ethnographic film, but the Estonian filmmakers’ interpretation of Setos. However, they are ignoring the fact that not every regular film viewer is capable of utilizing an oppositional reading to interpret the texts as just an outsider’s representation of Seto culture. This may be easier for the film critics who are more used to seeing through the hegemonies hidden in the filmic texts. As it appears from the reception analysis, the large majority of audience members interpret the scenes and artifacts that reflect Seto culture in the film as an expression of reality, which is why they consider these scenes ethnographic rather than illusory. As MacDougall (1976:136) has claimed, “any film which seeks to reveal one society to another” can be considered as an ethnographic film (qtd. in Mathew
18). Therefore, based on the opinions of some film theorists and audience comments,
Taarka may be considered and received as an ethnographic film.
130!
According to Bisson, it is important to study the impact of films that advertise such “historical knowledge” because these films “have become a pervasive and influential medium” for people to gain historical understanding “and multicultural awareness” (1). Media texts, especially ethnographic films in the form of docudrama
(Wesley 18; Lipkin 100) have the power to affect our understandings of different ethnicities, as well as of “us” and “them” (Kellner 7).
In conclusion, even though the filmmakers point out and criticize the gender, ethnic, and class hegemonies, the film still also reinforces these hegemonies. It depicts
Taarka’s regrets over her rebellious decisions that helped her to confront the ruling hegemonies and the punishments her daughter receives because of Taarka’s nonconforming behavior. Moreover, the film is also highlighting Estonians’ one-sided portrayal of primitive, heritage-related, exotic, and commodified Seto people, including
Seto women. Bolstering this specific vision of Setos is not only reinforced in the hegemonic domain of power (Collins 284) through media and filmmakers. As it appears, the ethnic hegemony that highlights the idea of Setos and their culture as a “living museum” is established already in the structural domain, through the funding schemes of
Estonian and European organizations, that “operates through the laws and policies of social institutions” (301). Furthermore, these understandings of exotic and customs- related Seto ethnicity are also reinforced by the film viewers through the interpersonal domain of power that functions in the level of people’s relationships and everyday lived experiences (287).
131!
5.4. Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research
Even though Seto culture and its media representation in Estonia have been researched earlier, this study is not limiting itself with just the analysis of a media text. It also takes into account the cultural economic environment where the media text is constructed and the audience reception of this text. However, because the sample of this study concerns just one specific film, its production and reception, the results of this thesis are limited and cannot be applied to other media texts about Setos or the larger audiences. To conduct more inclusive research about Seto media representation, additional media texts and audience comments should be analyzed. Furthermore, because this is a qualitative research that focuses on a specific case, the results of analyzing Seto culture’s media representation may not be applicable to the examination of some other minority culture’s media coverage. Therefore, similar research could be conducted to study, for instance, Võro ethnicity’s media representation because Võro is another minority culture in South Estonia.
Also, because Estonian audiences are not very eager to comment films on discussion boards, the sample of the audience reception analysis is quite limited, which may have an impact of discovering trends and meaningful connections when comparing their comments. The results of audience analysis could be improved by conducting actual interviews with various groups of film viewers. That would also help to classify results of the study based on audience members’ gender, ethnicity, location, and age groups.
Personal interviews could also be conducted with the filmmakers to better understand their intentions while creating the movie and beliefs about gender, class, and ethnic hegemonies.
132!
It should also be mentioned that the author brings situational knowledge to this study because she is a member of Võro culture that is related to Seto culture. However, there is always a possibility for some biases in the research that are caused by the researcher’s close relationship with the Seto people and their culture. Moreover, even though the author is not a stranger to Seto culture and people, she is also not an actual member of this culture, which means that the study is not thoroughly conducted from the insider’s perspective, but rather by someone who has a relationship to that culture.
To conclude, the author would like to notice that this research has helped her to become more aware of hegemonies surrounding the media representation of minority cultures, such as Seto. Prior to writing this thesis, the author, just like many other audience members and film reviewers, utilized a negotiated reading when interpreting
Taarka or other media texts about minority cultures in Estonia. Although she was able to identify some stereotypical descriptions of Setos and their culture, she still bolstered the
Estonian institutions and the media’s vision that depicts Setos strictly as exotic, indigenous and heritage-related, and that the modernization of or diversity within such cultures would be a non-welcome phenomenon. After conducting this research, the author recognizes that these understandings are reinforced by dominant groups who
“create and maintain a popular system of ‘commonsense’ ideas that support their right to rule” (Collins 284). The author hopes that this study will help other members of minority cultures in Estonia, such as Seto and Võro, to realize that when one does “not believe everything one is told and taught” (Collins 286) the journey towards their empowerment can begin.
133!
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