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Spatial Representation of Illegal Immigrants in Dirty Pretty Things

  • Journal of Modern English Drama
  • Abbr : JMBARD
  • 2023, 36(3), pp.29-55
  • Publisher : 한국현대영미드라마학회
  • Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Literature > Contemporary English Drama
  • Received : November 1, 2023
  • Accepted : December 7, 2023
  • Published : December 31, 2023

KIM, YOO 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Unlike the legal and ‘normal’ immigrants who made a significant contribution to the post-war British economy, the so-called illegal (undocumented) immigrants in British political and social discourse have been portrayed as the criminals who sponge off welfare benefits and abuse Britain’s hospitality. They lacked “a narrative of entitlement” which the Commonwealth immigrants such as the Windrush generation devised and used for their fight against racism. Their prescribed criminality prevented them from being engaged in the demand for justice and recognition, and their invisibility was a symptom of their wider social and political exclusion. Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things, a 2002 British film set in contemporary London, aims to ‘visualize’ the invisible illegal immigrants through spatial representations and cinematic space. Defining London as a paradox and illegal immigrants as the unrecognized, unappreciated labor, Frears focuses on the hidden relations of capitalist exploitation within the global city. The oppressive relations of power, capital and space are represented through hierarchical division of space, the way the characters occupy space and move through it, and the motifs of the exchange and movement of dismembered body parts for organ trade and transplantation. This paper examines how Dirty Pretty Things represents illegal immigrants through spatial politics. Chapter II deals with spatial representation of illegal immigrants mainly through the camerawork capturing the dark side of London. This is subdivided into three parts; disrupting ‘tourist gaze’, representing migrant body through detour and invisibility, and linking the different spaces. Chapter III identifies racism, law and state power, and global capitalism as three main forces creating oppressive space for illegal immigrants, and finally, Chapter IV investigates the possibilities and limitations of resistance for the main characters in the film.

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