Beyto: cultural fundamentalism in Swiss cinema

Zürcher, Vera; Kohler, Pascal (July 2021). Beyto: cultural fundamentalism in Swiss cinema. In: Knowledge Production in Migration Studies. Reflexive, Feminist and Postcolonial Approaches. Universität Bern. 3.12.-4.12.20.

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This paper analyses the 2020 movie Beyto by Gitta Gsell from a critical feminist and postcolonial perspective. Our analysis shows that the movie’s narrative and representational techniques are deeply saturated with a homonationalist, femonationalist and orientalist imaginary. Within this imaginary, Muslim culture in general and Turkish culture in particular emerge as Europe’s homophobic and sexist primitive, ancient and backward other, whereas Switzerland emerges as the privileged site of modernity, liberalism and sexual radicalism. We argue that the discourses of homonationalism, femonationalism and orientalism join forces in the movie to produce cultural fundamentalism that constructs Turkish and Swiss society as radically different and irreconcilable. Ultimately, this leads to a tale of Western modernity and superiority and the imagination, reproduction and demarcation of an “us” and “them”.

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