CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2024
| Author | Az-Zahra, Nur Aisyiah |
|---|---|
| Title | "I so much wanted to be ugly": The Representation of Juugun Ianfu's Double Colonisation in Because We Were Beautiful (2010) through the Lens of Postcolonial Feminism |
| Summary | This thesis examines a Dutch-made documentary entitled Because We Were Beautiful (2010) from the perspective of postcolonial feminism. The documentary portrays the “post-war” lived realities of former Indonesian ianfu or comfort women during the Japanese occupation (1942–1945) in the Netherlands East Indies (present day Indonesia). Juugun Ianfu (従࣬ d;慰[ 89;婦) or military comfort women refers to girls and women who were forced into so-called systematic prostitution to provide sexual services for the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II (1939–1945). A concept from postcolonial feminist theory that is applied as the main lens of the analysis is double colonisation, which was first coined by Peterson and Rutherford (1986) to refer to how women in colonial contexts are simultaneously oppressed by both patriarchy and colonial power. Thus, the central question guiding this research is: How is the double colonisation of juugun ianfu by patriarchy and colonial power represented in Because We Were Beautiful (2010)? The thesis applies a mixed-method research in its analysis of the film, combining a documentary film analysis and semi-structured interviews with people who worked in the documentary. I argue that the documentary is a redemptive effort by the Western coloniser (the Netherlands) to its colonised subjects (Indonesia) by villainising its Eastern coloniser counterpart (Japan). Because We Were Beautiful possessed the potential to be a decolonial project despite the fact that it was not intended to be one. The documentary serves as a platform for critical engagement, this was the Dutch way of reckoning with a dark colonial past in contrast to how Japan concealed the matter from its own citizens. Keywords: ianfu, comfort women, double colonisation, representation, documentary, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands. |
| Supervisor | Loney, Hannah; Qubaiova, Adriana; Różalska, Aleksandra |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2024/az-zahra_nur-aisyiah.pdf |
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