Folklore/3rd World Cinema

In light of what we talked about in class, my earlier dissatisfaction with Picture Bride not addressing historical context is no longer applicable as Picture Bride is to be viewed as 3rd World Cinema. While I still have some minor issues with the narrative, I did enjoy the movie overall.

As for 3rd Cinema, I wondered if there was such a thing as global popular memory, since popular memory was intrinsically linked to culture and location, and for an idea to be accepted on a global scale would mean that it was official history. It was interesting, then, to learn that folklore is a process, rather than a product as I had previously thought. Marginalized people seek to improve their conditions through folklore, through word of mouth and music, even to the clothes they wear, in order to turn their popular memories into official history. There is a saying that history is written by the winners but with folklore and mythology, history can be re-written by those once marginalized.