Title:	The Bohemian Body
Other Titles:	Gender and Sexuality in Modern Czech Culture
Authors:	Thomas, Alfred
Keywords:	Czech literature—19th century—History and criticism
Issue Date:	2007
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin
Description:	Jan §vankmajer’s combined live-action and animated feature film Little Otík (Otesánek) is typical of modern Czech culture in deploying traditional narratives to tell a new and unfamiliar story. The tale of a childless couple that adopts a tree trunk as their baby is based on a folktale by the nineteenth-century writer K. J. Erben. In this modern retelling of an old story, the tree trunk that turns into an all-devouring monster not only recalls the Prague legend of the golem but also serves as an allegory of the materialist greed inherent in post-Soviet capitalism. Bearing out this political reading of the film are the frequent excerpts from TV commercials in which consumerism appears to run rampant. The corruption of capitalism is embodied by the little girl whose ambition to nurture and feed the insatiable tree trunk becomes as monstrous as the inanimate object itself. In sacrificing the impoverished inhabitants of the building to the greedy maws of the gargantuan Otík, the little girl comes to embody the economic evils of unrestrained capitalism. Moreover, her prostitute-like ruses to ensnare one of the neighbors (a dirty old man) as bait for the tree trunk reinforce the equivalency between out-of-control female sexuality and an unbridled free-market economy.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/52404
ISBN:	0-299-22280-2
Appears in Collections:	Gender

Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.