Personal narrative, dialogism, and the performance of “truth” incomplaints of a dutiful daughter

Abstract

This paper examines the documentary film Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter in order to trace out the representations and performances that connote “truth” and “knowledge.” Drawing on Michel Foucault's observations concerning the social construction of knowledge, documentary film theory, and performance theory, I show how the use of personal narrative and naturalism in this documentary film can be interpreted as working at cross‐purposes with its politically progressive intent. I argue that these performance elements work rhetorically to naturalize existing power relationships, in spite of the film's goal of destabilizing identity and madness.

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