Liberating Bicycles in Niki Caro’s Whale Rider and in Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda

Authors

  • Doris Hambuch Literature and Film Studies, United Arab Emirates University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.OI.10.2.9

Keywords:

cinefeminism, Niki Caro, Haifaa Al Mansour, transcultural feminism, world cinema, Wadjda, Whale Rider

Abstract

Susan B. Anthony declared in 1896 that the bicycle “has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” The comparative study of Whale Rider (2002) and Wadjda (2012) demonstrates that this liberating effect of the basic tool of transportation is being reinforced in the new millennium. The analysis further situates two contemporary women filmmakers, Niki Caro from New Zealand and Haifaa Al Mansour from Saudi Arabia, within the growing global network Patricia White identifies, in Women’s Cinema, World Cinema (2015), as crucial for the improvement of female directors’ conditions in a global film industry.

Author Biography

Doris Hambuch, Literature and Film Studies, United Arab Emirates University

Doris Hambuch is Associate Professor of Literature and Film Studies at United Arab Emirates University. Her publications include essays on Caribbean literature, ecocriticism, film analysis, and trans-cultural feminism. She edited a special issue of Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies (6.2) on Caribbean cinema. She serves as Vice-President and Program Chair of the Canadian Comparative Literature Association. Her current research focuses on transnational cinema and ecopoetry. Her collection All That Depends (2019) combines poetry and photography.

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Published

2020-03-30

How to Cite

Hambuch, D. (2020). Liberating Bicycles in Niki Caro’s Whale Rider and in Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, 10(2), 195–219. https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.OI.10.2.9

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2019): Open Issue

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License
This work by https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/imaginations is licensed under a  Creative Commons 4.0 International License although certain works referenced herein may be separately licensed, or the author has exercised their right to fair dealing under the Canadian Copyright Act.