***Some of the formatting has been messed up due to its html transition. As a result the footnotes, citing sources and quotations have ALL been lost and it would take extensive reworking to redo them. No plagiarism is intended. I think the cases in which other peoples work are cited are pretty evident and a bibliography does follow, but if you would like an original copy, one can be requested from the writer at di901@hotmail.com***
At present, Ireland is in the throes of a significant social transformation. Following the depreciation of the Celtic tiger, and the present quest for economic stability, the search for a national identity is pervasive.
In today’s fast paced, technologically driven world, global society looks to representation for its understanding of the unfamiliar. Interpretation, portrayal and depiction through the mediums of theatre, literature, television, journalism and film allow their audience an insight into another world. Mis-recognition contributes immensely to these socially accepted perceptions of the world, as these art forms have a propensity to simplify and mythologize complex social issues ranging from gender to national identity. The predicament lies in the misguided notion that these art forms have an inescapable union with realism. The idea that the constructed image presented to the viewer on the screen is a direct reflection of reality is an erroneous one.
Beth Newall highlighted the potential dangers in her essay concerning racial stereotype. She warned that the Imperialist ideology, in which films rely on the absolute obedience of their audience in accepting without question, that which is presented to them on the screen as a symbolic representation of a whole culture and people, is hazardous, due to the fact that film as a construct by the auteur, has power and control over viewer perception, which can be used to impose upon the audience the principles of the individual. In Unthinking Eurocentrism, Stam and Shohat argue that often, a key factor in reinforcing the ideology of the film is the employment of binary oppositions, for example, order versus chaos, good versus evil or right versus wrong. Therefore, through the exploitation of stereotype, the filmmaker can manipulate their work for whatever political, religious or moral means they see fit. Newall goes further in saying that another harmful effect which may result from the passive acceptance of negative depiction, is that the progression made by a society in its quest for modernisation may potentially be repressed, resulting in its inability to move on from its beginnings. Nowhere are these issues of mis-representation more present then in Irish cinema, where stereotypical characters and romanticised landscapes prevail.
In addition, Ireland has the added obstacle of being in a post-colonial state, which as Albert Memmi affirms leads to the severity of its mis-recognition further down the road of complication, and causes a struggle for the balance of power between Particularism and Universalism. As a result of its colonial history, to this day the Nation of Ireland and its people are the victims of stereotyping, due in large part to the fact that history is usually written by the coloniser. At the root of the apparent logic behind which colonizers strive to tame the natives, lies the notion that regardless of the measures taken, the colonised country and its people will never rival that of its regulator. This is due to the coloniser’s own need to rationalize its’ conquest, and dehumanise its’ victim, thus alleviating its feelings of guilt. As a result, the colonized people come to be identified by only their inferior attributes. In the case of the British perception of the Irish people, they were the drunken, violent masses who possessed a slurred speech and grubby appearance due to their chronic alcohol abuse. The Irish representation was that of a people who sat around drinking all day with no real objectives or goals other then to go home and return the following day to begin the process all over again. Such perceptions allowed any attempt at intellectual thought to be readily dismissed as nonsensical prattling which would disappear from thought as swiftly as it had appeared. Correspondingly, in contrast the coloniser could then be supposed to possess the positive characteristics lacking in their inferiors, as we have seen as a result of the technique of binary opposition. The danger of such an unfounded stereotype lies, not only in it becoming an internationally accepted perception as a result of its ensconcement in theatre tradition, (which was inevitably carried into more progressive art forms such as film and television), but also in our own inclination to accept it as truth.
The problems of representation within Irish cinema come equally from its own indigenous filmmakers as from its foreign ones. In response to this, Irish Nationalists were creating stereotypes of their own. Images of the Irish as a loyal, intelligent, politically empowered people fighting against British oppression, whilst retaining a strong sense of community and family became more and more common. They strove for an insular Ireland, one where the country could be self sufficient, independent and would staunchly resist external influences that would be detrimental to the Country. Such beliefs, which followed the thought processes of leaders such as Eamonn De Valera, were bordering on xenophobia. Both images are equally misrepresentative, neither truly answering the question of Irish National identity. So why the need for these caricature images of Irishness in the first place?
Ruth Barton’s analysis of My Left Foot seems to offer an insight in which she says that a film must immediately
“establish the identifying traits of its central characters and, in order to achieve this ..(sic) must draw on a range of existing archetypes with whom audiences should already feel a sense of familiarity”
thus the recognizability factor plays a major role in the viewers enjoyment. By presenting a character who may be perceived as too complex or who goes against viewer expectation, the film is already at a disadvantage, and so drawing upon preconceived images is generally a natural measure taken during the pre-production stages.
Hollywood was quick to claim the Irish stereotype for its own purposes. A country with so many Irish immigrants of its own, it took a more romantic view of the Irish. While we were still generally perceived as drunken layabouts, it was more in the manner of the lovable rogue. The negative characteristics inherent in such caricatures were presented to the audience with a satirical eye. With a strong Irish brogue and peasant-like dress sense, there was an air of nostalgic mystique to the Hollywood Irish, a race of enchanting alcoholics and wife-beaters who lived in the beautiful untouched countryside.
Hollywood’s romantic vision of the Irish is perhaps most evident in the work of John Ford, an American film director with Irish ancestry. Ford’s various depictions of Irishness has been both embraced and integrated into popular culture by its audiences, and criticised by the academics, who predominantly viewed his representations as highly patronizing. Public figures, such as theatre Director Hilton Edwards, (the man who discovered Orson Welles) said of the film:
“I cannot for the life of me see that it has any relation to the Ireland I, or anyone else, can have seen or known.”
The New Yorker’s critiques were especially disparaging saying,
“ Everyone’s just cute as a button. The people are not only cute but quaint…(sic) the informer seem to have fallen into a vat of treacle”
and later
“There can be no doubt that Mr Ford dearly loves the Irish, but I’m not at all sure that in his excess of affection he hasn’t been guilty of representing them as superficially as if they were straight out of vaudeville.”
Ford’s fascination with the Irish dates back to 1940, when his film The Long Voyage Home saw him employing a group of Irish actors to play the characters, and his 1941 film How Green Was My Valley which was based on Irish playwright Eugene O’Neills work was essentially Irish in every way. It was during this period, of high profile Irishness in Hollywood, that a group, collectively known as the Irish mafia, became key players in Hollywood. The group of actors who worked under Ford with Warner brothers, consisted of stars such as Pat O’Brien, Spencer Tracy, Frank Morgan and James Cagney who came to be known as the professional Irishmen. Naturally, Ford’s films came up against fierce opposition from Irish nationalist groups due to their frustration with such tenuous stereotypes, and as a result, many wrote off his work as nonsensical, on the basis that they viewed it as primarily an inaccurate American perspective of Ireland. Indeed, many of his films were banned in the Irish Free State upon their release in order to avoid such controversy. One such incident saw Ford’s The Rising Of The Moon, attacked by D.P Quish of Limerick County Council for being damaging to the Irish people, as he saw it. The Justice Minister of Ireland demanded that allied countries withdraw the film from their circulation, but this was met with no response.
Ford reached his pinnacle of Irish representation with The Quiet Man in 1952. The film was a massive hit at the box office, and had an instantaneous impact on the image of the Irish in popular culture. Ford was clearly aware of the appeal of an exceedingly Irish film in Hollywood, and exploited its expectations of Irishness through its aesthetics. The film which won a “Best Cinematography” Oscar for its beautiful landscapes, features the colour green in every shot, and from the outset, with its picturesque opening credits, the viewer is saturated with images of green fields and rural buildings, untouched by modern technology. This was to be the Ireland of Ford’s dreams, and during the commissioning of the film he stipulated that technological development be put on hold in the areas which were to be shot on location in Galway and Mayo. The majority of the film however, was shot in studio’s using Technicolor, as the real Ireland was not romantic enough for his depiction. “The Quiet Man” sought to literally introduce the American man to the Irish way of life, in the form of Sean Thornton, the American who makes a nostalgic return to his hometown of Inisfree by horse and cart, to rediscover his lost heritage.
The Quiet Man reflects all off the stereotypes which Ford believes to be intrinsically Irish, from the drinkers and wife beaters, to the Irish Republican Army. The film’s characters can usually be found in their local pub, or at a cheile and are portrayed as very primitive, the concept of a sleeping bag proving too confounding. Characters such as Michaleen Flynn and his naughty leprechaun like ways are purely two-dimensional and lack any depth which would make them plausible as real people, but Ford makes no apologies for such depictions, as he seems to employ them as symbols for aspects of the Irish character in its most concentrated form. Anthony Slide touches briefly upon the subject of the Irish female as represented in film in The Cinema and Ireland, whereby American actresses such as Marjorie Main and Patsy Kelly played hard boiled, wise cracking Irish women, whose strong-willed fiery characters were in stark contrast to representations of the more passive, prim and proper American female characters of the time. Mary Kate Danaher, played by the Irish actress, Maureen O’Hara, with her flowing red hair, rosy cheeks and wild nature, but ultimate desire to please her man, was the epitome of the passionate Irish cailin with a heart of gold. It is clear to the audience why Sean falls for her the moment he sees her, as the viewer is also drawn to her. Ford beautifully illustrates the fundamental nature of their relationship in the dramatic scene in which O’Hara is almost blown away by the wind. As her skirt and hair blow violently around her, both the wild nature of the character, and her fragility as a woman are clearly evident, and when Sean pulls her close and kisses her, it is almost as though he is taming her. This power struggle is equally evident in the scene in which Mary Kate slaps Sean, and the ease with which Sean throws her around throughout the film. By the close of the film, Sean has achieved the romantic reintegration he came to find. He has become an “Irishman” through his actions at least. The final fight scene, which involves Sean giving his Irish lassie a good thrashing, is given a comic treatment, and lasts a lengthy nine minutes. This demonstration of violence is not portrayed in a shocking or even cruel way, but rather in the way in which it is shot which seem to legitamise the event as almost ritualistic in its Irish context. In spite of its brash stereotyping, the film was warmly received by audiences around the world, even amongst cultures such as Australia who are equally, habitually, subject to misrepresentation. Predictably, the Irish Nationalists felt the representations presented in the film, were unfounded and inaccurate, and they rallied together to protest at its depictions, despite the fact that the film had proved beneficial in raising tourism and trade, both in the local vicinity of Inisfree, and nationally, to the country as a whole. Upon closer inspection, it is evident that Ford’s intent was to depict the Ireland of his imagination, a nostalgic Ireland, whereby its representations were romantic exaggerations of the Ireland of his dreams. In fact Ford even goes so far as to shatter the illusion of reality by having some of his characters look directly at the camera. Ford is not mocking the nation and its people, but rather embracing its unique culture and eccentricities. Indeed, Ford pokes fun at Hollywood’s naive acceptance of the representation as accurate, for example, in the scene in which Mrs Playfair jokes that only an American would think to paint the cottage green. Slide reaffirms this idea when he says that Ford is representing Ireland
“not as it is or was, but a land of his dreams”
In spite of Ireland’s clear denunciation of the Hollywood representation of the nation, it took Hollywood almost two decades before it offered any form of differentiation to the popularised stereotypical depiction. This alternative was offered in the form of British director, David Lean’s, Ryan's Daughter (1970). The film tells the tale of Rosy Ryan, a young Irish girl and it is set during the Irish Revolution. Ryan's Daughter’s contribution to American iconography, in terms of Irishness, was colossal. It’s vast success led Hollywood to challenge its long established preconceptions of faithful Irish portrayal. Ryan's Daughter with its notions of the land as a destructive force in our society, goes some way toward rectifying the disproportionate concept of Ireland as an overtly agricultural economy. The film approaches the idea of Irish representation in a more holistic way then previous films, and attempts to find an accurate balance between the country’s negative and positive attributes. Lean said of his portrayal:
“Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real”.
In an attempt to refute the conventional stereotypes of the Irish people, Lean worked hard to ensure his characters were multifaceted. They are never entirely straightforward, and are indisputably more complex then those created up to this point by the likes of Ford. For example, the film’s protagonist, Rosy is never entirely moralistic, nor a wholly guilty party. She commits the terrible sin of cheating on her husband, thus violating the sacred family structure and then returns to him inconsequentially for his part at least. She longs for love to sweep her off her feet, but is adamant that there ought to be more to her existence then marriage. Nothing is clear cut, black and white, good or bad, just as nothing is in real life. Lean fails, however in his attempt at a fully accurate portrayal, when it comes to the Irish landscape, finding the green fields too tempting to resist. Filming was completed in South Africa, after the unpredictable Irish climate proved too great an obstacle to contend with. In response to the critics, he said
“We tend to beautify everything we touch, even the ugly”.
More recently, Ireland has seen a return to popularity in Hollywood, with the rise of indigenous Irish film in the nineties. John Sayles 1994 film, The Secret of Roan Inish is significant, due to its sentimental return to the romantic representations most evident in Ford’s work. Padraic Whyte conducts a detailed analysis of the film in his essay American Dreams and Irish Myths in which he says that the film was originally situated in Scotland. Sayles relocated the film to Donegal, as he felt the setting was a more appropriate “cultural signifier of themes of loss and return”. The move to Ireland was equally a profitable one because in doing so, the film would appeal to the Irish Diaspora around the world, and in particular, in the United States. As a result, the film would rely on the most recognisable characteristics of Irishness, in order that the foreign market could make the direct connection to the Ireland of their mind’s eye, and would therefore immediately connect with the film. Subsequently, the film was not aimed at an Irish audience who knew better, but rather towards an International one who nostalgically longed for a return to the Ireland seen in The Quiet Man. Indeed as Whyte points out, both Sean and Fiona are Irish immigrants (like many of the viewers) who are searching for their own sense of self through their return to Ireland; a safe, uncorrupted land of green fields and magic. Upon her return, Fiona’s apparently poorly appearance is commented on by the locals who suggest that the city life is bad for her health; Huh says “it’s nothing but noise and dirt” The film came up against fierce criticism from Irish film critics and theorists. Martin McLoone said that the film “succumbs to stereotypical images of romantic Ireland and it partakes to an essentially regressive ideology”. Barton had an equally grim view of the film, drawing parallels with Into The West ‘s “clichéd representations” which as she concluded, were mere whimsy. Whyte points out that in terms of appealing to an Irish audience, the timing of the films release could not have been worse. At a time, when the Celtic Tiger was booming, and Section 418 was introduced to entice foreign film makers to Ireland, it was widely believed that the oppressive nature of these outdated films could only have a negative effect on modern Irish society.
In the wake of the events of 9/11, global society as a whole has longed for a return to innocence, and in a romantic representation of the Irish, that can be found. From the Irish perspective, this continuity of stereotype is viewed in a negative way, as with the emergence of a more global and cosmopolitan society, the modern Irish people wish to change the International perception of themselves and be viewed as intelligent, forward thinking technologically advanced people with a capacity for change and a willingness to contribute to a new culture both nationally and internationally. With the recent boom in the indigenous Irish film industry, it is clear that these early representations have had a lasting impact, as a result of the more self sufficient economies (such as America) monopolizing the Universal directional exchange of information. Films, such as Jim Sheridan’s In America, which sees a contemporary Irish family emigrate to America for a better life, sees the characters once againrevert to all the old clichés. The father has an aggressive streak and turns to alcohol both in times of crisis and celebration. The family are overwhelmed upon arriving in the U.S. by the hustle and bustle of city life, and their expectations for a better life are portrayed as naive, when they arrive in their new home, surrounded by dealers and prostitutes. What is most significant about this film though is the representation of the character Mateo. Beth Newall discusses the representation of the black man in her essay Ebony Saint’ or ‘Demon Black’?. She says that Mateo is represented through a “racist discourse”. Mateo is presented as a mystical and exotic character, a medium through whom magical things can occur. He senses the presence of a third child, and speaks in a foreign accent. Newall quotes Brett Buckalew’s review of the film which says that
“ the black man (sic) suffers so that the white man can succeed”.
Through this depiction, Sheridan is transferring the Irish stereotype onto the Black man. This may be seen as a process of empowerment on the part of the Irish film maker but, in fact, his justification of misrepresenting this other race, only serves to excuse the falsification of his own.
More recently, the Irish stereotype has been embraced by the indigenous industry, perhaps in an attempt to satirise it and expose it as a blatant misrecognition, or possibly, to show that Ireland has a capacity to laugh at itself. John Tomlinson pointed out that such critical self reflexivity in film can only be achieved when a country has distanced itself sufficiently from the actual event. As to whether Ireland is prepared for this yet is still questionable. It is certainly getting there with television programmes such as (the British funded) “Father Ted” and “Podge and Rodge”, but an air of unease still surrounds these representations. Ultimately, try as they may, foreign filmmakers find it irresistible to resist the urge to revert to stereotypes in the portrayal of Ireland. The iconography is simply too deeply embedded in the perceptions of Irish culture and film tradition. The challenge for foreign filmmakers is to make a film about Ireland, rather then one which is merely set there, and the challenge for the indigenous Irish industry, is to find their own voice, and to determine an accurate identity for themselves within the world of contemporary film.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(The) Cinema and Ireland Slide Anthony (1988) London: Mc Farland and company inc
Cultural Imperialism Tomlinson John (1991) London: Pinter Press
Film History and National Cinema Hill John and Rockett Kevin (2005) Dublin: Four Courts Press
Jim Sheridan: framing the nation Barton Ruth (2002), Dublin: Dufour editions
National Cinemas and world Cinema: American dreams and Irish Myths Rockett Kevin and Hill John Dublin: Four courts Press (2006)
Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media Shohat Ella and Stam Robert (1994) London: Routledge
Working for the Films Blakeston Orwell (1947) London: Focal Press
