Orientalism and Ethnic Drag in DEFA Fairy-Tale Film Wofgang Staudte's The Story of Little Mook

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies

Volume

29

Issue

2

Publication Date

1-1-2015

Abstract

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the paradigm of socialist realism in East German cinema has been subject to scholarly debate, scrutiny, and academic rethinking on a global level. Few scholars, however, have examined socialist ideology in the framework of Orientalism in fairy-tale film. In his groundbreaking book Orientalism (1980) Edward Said argues that the Orient was a European invention to portray Asia as a place of romance, exotic beings, and landscapes. I analyze Said's argument about Orientalism in Wolfgang Staudte's popular fairy-tale film Die Geschichte vom Keinen Muck (The Story of Little Mook, 1953), which is based on a literary fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff, and contextualize it wit hthe notion of "ethnic drag," a term coined by scholar Katrin Sleg.

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