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Colonialism Of Film And Literature Essay

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Chenelle Seck Sociology of Colonialism Professor Ravi Palat 17 November 2016 Colonialism in Film and Literature Colonialism is one country’s control over another. It involves leaders who are in power and the masses who are powerless and oppressed. Many countries around the world have been colonized, exploited, and oppressed by European countries for various reasons, including the European powers’ need to civilize and assimilate societies that were different from their own. The topic of colonization is presented in scholarly work, books, art, and movies. Two movies that demonstrate European colonization are Tjoet Nja’ Dhien, an Indonesian film and Camp de Thiaroye, a Senegalese war film. Both these films depict the struggle between the colonizers and the oppressed. Themes portrayed in the movies are women’s roles, the Islamic faith, and modernity in Tjoet Nja’ Dhien and racial identity, inequality, and cultural oppression in Camp de Thiaroye. Two works of literature that support the themes in these movies are Child of All Nations and God’s Bits of Wood. Tjoet Nja’ Dhien is a 1988 Indonesian film about a woman who led the Acehnese army against the Dutch after the death of her husband. The movie began with the attempt of the Dutch to colonize Indonesia and the start of the war between them. After the death of the war leader, Umer, leadership was taken over by his wife, Tjoet Nja’ Dhien. In the movie, she was wise and persistent in her fight against Dutch colonization

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