Images of Hybridization. Cross-Cultural Couples in the European Cinema

The visual representation of the mixing processes involving migrant and native people is a very strategic issue in modern societies, because it makes explicit hybridization, the most annoying perspective for ethnocentric and racist mentalities. This paper illustrates the outcomes of a comparative sociological research on the representation of cross-cultural couples in the European cinema. Interethnic and interfaith marriages are a classic index of the mixing of cultures, having a strong euristic power both on survey and qualitative studies. Indeed, statistics concerning mixed marriages are typical data of the socio-demographic analysis of globalization and social change, while the perception of mixed couples is a traditional topic of inquiry on stereotypes and ethnic relations (Spickard 1991; Barbara 1994; Peruzzi 2008). It is not a case that cross-cultural couples is a leit-motif in the cinema, the medium born to publicly represent and collectively interpret the processes of modernization, always attentive to migrant lives (Naficy 2001; Berghahn, Sternberg 2010). So, are cross-cultural couples a current topic in the European cinema? What are the main subjects in these plots? Can we find recurrent elements in the visual narrations of intimate relationships between migrants and natives? Are there significant similarities or differencies in the representations of mixing of cultures made by the European creative industries? And, overall, what scenario for the future do emerge from these storytelling? According to the authors, will Europe be a better world or a cauldron of conflicts? The research will be grounded on the analysis of a collection of selected movies whose plots are founded in stories of mixed couples. The study of movie scripts will be aimed at analyzing the recurrent elements in the representation of couples and of the social reactions provoked by their births. The outcomes will attempt to confront different nationalistic ideologies.