Gendered spatial structuring in Moroccan feminist movies

ABSTRACT

As a popular audio-visual outlet, cinema remains an influential cultural artefact with an ubiquitous potentiality for human spatial mapping, meaning-making and attitudes constructing. Research on the perceptional effects of international cinemas before and during the advance of the internet technologically mediated world is noticeably abundant. The sexist filmic representations of women seem to dot many academic works belonging to media and feminist studies. However, space and gender tend to succumb unilaterally to the patriarchal masculinized power in the top-grossed mainstream movies. In particular, this article argues that the local feminist movies allow for gendered spatial reorganization in a way that reconstructs and empowers their voice and agency. Drawing on the theory of feminist intersectionality and politics of home, which accentuates women’s diversities and spatially active consciousness, the present textually analyzed Moroccan feminist movies which are claimed to evolve from a passive genderly spaced depiction of women to a dynamic genderly spacing of their subjectivities.

KEYWORDS:

• Moroccan feminist cinema
• spatial mapping
• intersectionality
• politics of home
• genderly spacing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abdellah El Boubekri

Abdellah El Boubekri is an Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at Mohamed Premier University, Faculty of Humanities, department of English Studies, Oujda, Morocco, where he is the leader of a research group (Cross Cultural Communication Studies). He is an active member of an MA program in Communication and Translation. He is a teacher of English at American Language Center, Oujda. He is a Board member of research unit Cultural Studies (CERHSO). He is a former teachers’ trainer at Education Center (CRMEF) Oujda. He is a former Fulbright scholar (Missouri State 2007/2008). He has published several books and articles in many national and international journals.