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Rejecting Angelina: Bosnian War Rape Survivors and the Ambiguities of Sex in War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Elissa Helms
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Abstract

Before Angelina Jolie's 2011 film In the Land of Blood and Honey, about the rape of women in the Bosnian war, was filmed, a group of Bosnian women war rape survivors persuaded local government officials to revoke Jolie's onlocation filming permit. The survivors’ objections were based on a rumor, subsequently refuted, that the plot was a love story between a Bosnian Muslim woman and her Serb rapist. This paper analyzes these objections, their subsequent permutations, and the film itself in light of the relationships between gender and sexuality, nationalist ideologies, and the logics of war. I contextualize the objections raised and argue that the film ultimately fails to challenge conventional patriarchal and nationalist assumptions about wartime rape, sex, and gender roles in war, despite its seemingly provocative focus on violence against women in war. Ultimately, as I show, the film reinforces clear-cut ethnonational narratives of victims and perpetrators while leaving the gendered logics of sex and power unexamined.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , Fall 2014 , pp. 612 - 634
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2014 

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References

1. “Bosnian Wartime Rape Victims Slam ‘Ignorant’ Angelina Jolie,” Vancouver Sun, 29 November 2010, at http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Bosnian-iwartime+rape+victims+slam+ignorant+Angelina+Jolie/3899771/story.html(no longer available).

2. Ibid.

3. A shorter discussion of these events appears in Elissa, Helms, Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women's Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina(Madison, 2013), 216-19, 223-24Google Scholar, in which the analysis draws on ethnographic research conducted among women's activists in Zenica, Sarajevo, and other areas of BiH between 1997 and 2008.1 was not in BiH during the controversy around the film but followed the story in the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian- and English-language press, online, and in conversation with Bosnian acquaintances. On brief visits to BiH in September 2012 and October 2013,1 was able to speak to activists and survivors about it in person.

4. There are several other films and documentaries about wartime rape and women's experiences of the Bosnian war that could be analyzed, but those discussed here, Jolie's film and Jasmila Zbanic's Grbavica(2006), have to date garnered the most public attention.

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17. Zarkov, The Body of War.

18. Helms, “'Bosnian Girl'“; Helms, Innocence and Victimhood.

19. Samantha, Power, “To Sufferby Comparison?,” Daedalus 128, no. 2(Spring 1999): 31–66.Google Scholar

20. For critical challenges to such ideas in the Bosnian case, see Helms, Innocence and Victimhood, 65-72; Gabriela, Mischkowskiand Gorana, Mlinarevic, “ … and That It Does Not Happen to Anyone Anywhere in the World“: The Trouble with Rape Trials—Views of Witnesses, Prosecutors and fudges on Prosecuting Sexualised Violence during the War in the Former Yugoslavia(Cologne, 2009)Google ScholarPubMed; and Zarkov, The Body of War.

21. This is not to say that stigma and ostracism were a given for these women, especially not among close family members. I return to this point below. On the complexity of Bosnian war rape survivors’ postwar experiences, see Karmen, Erjavecand Zala, VolCiC, “Living with the Sins of Their Fathers: An Analysis of Self-Representation of Adolescents Born of War Rape,” Journal of Adolescent Research 25, no. 3(May 2010): 359-86Google Scholar; Mischkowski and Mlinarevic, “ … and That It Does Not Happen to Anyone Anywhere in the World”and Inger, Skjelsbaek, “Victim and Survivor: Narrated Social Identities of Women Who Experienced Rape during the War in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Feminism &Psychology 16, no. 4(November 2006): 373–403.Google Scholar

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23. Elissa, Helms, “East and West Kiss: Gender, Orientalism, and Balkanism in Muslim-Majority Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Slavic Review 67, no. 1(Spring 2008): 88–119 Google Scholar. Nationalists among Serbs and Croats made similar denunciations, and spouses from mixed marriages, especially women, were often targeted during the war as traitors to their group. See Kaufman, Joyce P.and Williams, Kristen P., Women, the State, and War: A Comparative Perspective on Citizenship and Nationalism(Lanham, Md., 2007).Google Scholar

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25. Buss, “The Curious Visibility of Wartime Rape,” 13.

26. Cynthia, Cockburn, “The Continuum of Violence: A Gender Perspective on War and Peace,”in Wenona, Gilesand Jennifer, Hyndman, eds., Sites of Violence: Gender and Conflict Zones(Berkeley, 2004), 24–44.Google Scholar

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28. Veena, Das, “National Honor and Practical Kinship: Unwanted Women and Children,“in Ginsburg, Faye D.and Rayna, Rapp, eds., Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction(Berkeley, 1995), 212-33Google Scholar. See also Urvashi, Butalia, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India(Durham, 2000)Google Scholar.

29. On agency in cross-ethnic sex during times of ethnic or nationalist conflicts, see Robert M. Hayden, “Rape and Rape Avoidance in Ethno-National Conflicts: Sexual Violence in Liminalized States,” American Anthropologist102, no. 1 (March 2000): 27-41. On overinclusive and contentious definitions of sexual abuse and exploitation, see Olivera Simic, “Rethinking ‘Sexual Exploitation’ in UN Peacekeeping Operations,” Women's Studies International Forum32, no. 4 (July-August 2009): 288-95.

30. Burnet, Jennie E., “Situating Sexual Violence in Rwanda (1990-2001): Sexual Agency, Sexual Consent, and the Political Economy of War,” African Studies Review 55, no. 2 (September 2012): 99.Google Scholar

31. Gabriella Mischkowski, personal communication, September 2012, and draft workshop paper in the author's files. See Kunarac et al, case no. IT-96-23-T &IT-96-23/1-T, “Fo£a,”at www.icty.org/case/kunarac/4 (last accessed 12 April 2014). See also Doris E. Buss, “Prosecuting Mass Rape: Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic,” Feminist Legal Studies10, no. 1 (January 2002): 91-99.

32. Boris Dezulovic, “Angelina u zemlji stvarnosti,” Nezavisne novine, 20 October 2010, at www.nezavisne.com/komentari/kolumne/Angelina-u-zemlji-stvarnosti-70541. html (last accessed 12 April 2014). Cf. Sabina Arslanagic, “Serbian Media Accused of Distorting Jolie Film Script,” Balkan Insight, 14 October 2010, at www.balkaninsight.com/en/ article/serbian-media-mogul-accused-of-undermining-jolie-s-film (last accessed 12 April 2014). Mitrovic was the owner of TV Pink, an entertainment network with channels across the former Yugoslavia which was often criticized for offering sensationalist news and kitschy entertainment.

33. For examples of the various reactions in the region to Jolie's project, see Zala Volcic and Karmen Erjavec, “Transnational Celebrity Activism in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Local Responses to Angelina Jolie's Film ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey,'” European Journal of Cultural Studies(forthcoming). On celebrity humanitarianism, see also Brian, Phillips, “In the Land of Celebrity Humanitarianism: Reflections on Film and Transitional Justice in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Studies in Social Justice 7, no. 2(2013): 285–309.Google Scholar

34. Sabina Arslanagic, “Bosnia Suspends Permission for Jolie Film,” Balkan Insight, 14 October 2010, at www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnia-suspends-filming -permission-for-jolie-s-directorial-debut (last accessed 12 April 2014).

35. Vesna Peric Zimonic, “Rape Victims Tell Angelina Jolie to Leave Stories Untold,“ Independent, 1 November 2010, at www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/rape -victims-tell-angelina-jolie-to-leave-stories-untold-2121854.html (no longer available).

36. The question of rape's representability is a rich area of inquiry that is beyond the scope of this article. For elaboration, see, e.g., Hesford, Wendy S., “Reading Rape Stories: Material Rhetoric and the Trauma of Representation,” College English 62, no. 2 (November 1999): 192–221 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. “An Open Letter to Angelina Jolie,” Balkan Chronicle, 7 November, 2010, by the Association of Women War Victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, dated Sarajevo, 25 October 2010, at balkanchronicle.com/index.php/home/news/buletin-board/announsments/671 -an-open-letter-to-angelina-jolie (last accessed 15 April 2014). The letter is cosigned by Murat Tahirovic, president of what is identified as the “Association of Survivors of Death Camps,” one of many translations into English for “Savez logorasa.” This is the same organization discussed below as the “Association of Concentration Camp Torture Survivors,“ the translation currently favored by the association.

38. See Helms, ‘“Bosnian Girl.'” Identification of one's nation with Jews and the Holocaust has been a feature of all competing nationalisms in the region in different circumstances. See David Bruce, MacDonald, Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centred Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia(Manchester, Eng., 2002)Google Scholar; MacDonald, David B., “Globalizing the Holocaust: A Jewish ‘Useable Past’ in Serbian Nationalism,“ PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies 2, no. 2(July 2005): n.p.Google Scholar; and Marko, Zivkovic, Serbian Dreambook: National Imaginary in the Time of Milosevic(Bloomington, 2011)Google Scholar.

39. For critical accounts of these debates and the nationalist vilification of antinationalist feminists, see Jill, Benderly, “Rape, Feminism and Nationalism in the War in Yugoslav Successor States,”in West, Lois A., ed., Feminist Nationalism(New York, 1997), 59–72 Google Scholar; Vesna, Kesic, “Response to Catherine MacKinnon's Article ‘Turning Rape into Pornography: Postmodern Genocide,'” Hastings Women's Law Journal 5, no. 2(November 1994): 267-80Google Scholar; Maja, Korac, “Ethnic-Nationalism, Wars and the Patterns of Social, Political and Sexual Violence against Women: The Case of Post-Yugoslav Countries,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 5, no. 2(October 1998): 153-55Google Scholar; Zarkov, The Body of War;and Dubravka, Zarkov, “Feminism and the Disintegration of Yugoslavia: On the Politics of Gender and Ethnicity,” Social Development Issues 24, no. 3(2002): 59–68 Google Scholar. For an illuminating reassessment of feminist positions during the war, see Ana Miskovska Kajevska, “Taking a Stand in Times of Violent Societal Changes: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists’ Positionings on the (Post-)Yugoslav Wars and Each Other (1991-2000)” (PhD diss., University of Amsterdam, 2014).

40. “An Open Letter.“

41. Helms, “East and West Kiss.“

42. Such assumptions also permeated much of the literature analyzing wartime rape in BiH, including that by feminists. See Helms, Innocence and Victimhood, 65-72; Dubravka, Zarkov, “Gender, Orientalism and the History of Ethnic Hatred in the Former Yugoslavia,“in Helma, Lutz, Ann, Phoenix, and Nira, Yuval-Davil, eds., Crossfires: Nationalism, Racism, and Gender in Europe(London, 1995), 69–82 Google Scholar; and Zarkov, The Body of War.

43. Zarkov, The Body of War, 146.

44. In my research with rape survivor advocates, survivors themselves, and therapists who have worked extensively with survivors, I found no indication that Bosniak women experienced rape any differently than women of other ethnic or religious backgrounds. The few other researchers who have interviewed survivors in BiH have found the same: some Bosniak women have spoken out, others have remained silent; they have experienced a wide range of responses from family and community members, including forms of both rejection and support. Mischkowski and Mlinarevic, ”… and That It Does Not Happen to Anyone Anywhere in the World“Skjelsbaek, “Victim and Survivor.” See also Azra, Hromadzic, “Challenging the Discourse of Bosnian War Rapes,”in Janet Elise, Johnsonand Robinson, Jean C., eds., Living Gender after Communism(Bloomington, 2007), 169-84Google Scholar; and Zarkov, The Body of War, 148.

45. Slavenka Drakulic, “Imaju li zrtve pravo na cenzuru?,” tportal.hr, 14 October 2010, at www.tportal.hr/komentari/91254/Imaju-li-zrtve-pravo-na-cenzuru.html (last accessed 12 April 2014).

46. She similarly rejected the idea that men who had been sexually abused in the war might join her organization, out of fear that people would think there were improper relations with the men. Not long after, however, after sexual violence survivors in BiH gained the right to a small state pension as civilian victims of war, a few dozen men did join the organization—temporarily, Hasecic explained—so that they could establish eligibility for benefits. See Helms, Innocence and Victimhood, 218.

47. See, e.g., Eric, Gordy, Guilt, Responsibility, and Denial: The Past at Stake in Post- Milosevic Serbia(Philadelphia, 2013)Google Scholar; and Orli, Fridman, ‘“It Was like Fighting a War with Our Own People': Anti-War Activism in Serbia during the 1990s,” Nationalities Papers 39, no. 4(July 2011): 507-22.Google Scholar

48. See, e.g., her interview with Jugoslav Cosic on the Serbian independent news station B92, at www.youtu.be/2mDP_CowAKM (last accessed 12 April 2014).

49. Ibid. Note also that the film uses a particularly high estimate for the number of war rapes in the Bosnian war, the common lower figure being twenty thousand, suggested by European Commission investigators, even though this number is also an estimate. On the difficulties of generating reliable estimates and the problems with those most commonly cited, see Rose Lindsey, “From Atrocity to Data: Historiographies of Rape in Former Yugoslavia and the Gendering of Genocide,” Patterns of Prejudice36, no. 4 (October 2002): 59-78; and Inger, Skjelsbaek, “Sexual Violence and War: Mapping Out a Complex Relationship,“ European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 2(2001): 211 Google Scholar.

50. Not all members of this group experienced rape in the camps, but a few SULKS members who do publicly identify as rape survivors have been active war crimes witnesses and vocal advocates for improving the situation of war rape survivors. Some of the male survivors of wartime sexual violence belong to organizations like SULKS, but the taboo against men speaking publicly on this topic is much stronger than for women.

51. Valerie Hopkins, “'Angelina Jolie touched our souls'—Bosnia's rape victims have their say,” Guardian: Film blog, 15 December 2011, at www.guardian.co.uk/film/ filmblog/2011/dec/15/angelina-jolie-bosnia-rape-victims (last accessed 12 April 2014).

52. As mentioned above, the president of the state-level Savez logoraSa, Murat Tahirovic, initially allied with Hasecic and 22R in calling for preventing Jolie from filming in BiH. Once the film was released, however, he joined the women survivors of his association in praising the film.

53. Hopkins, “'Angelina Jolie touched our souls.'” Emphasis added.

54. Danijel apparently succeeds in protecting Ajla from rape as long as he is present. It is implied, however, that once he is transferred out of the camp, she will be assaulted like the other women prisoners. The only explicit rape of Ajla occurs later, as mentioned below, when Danijel's father discovers he is hiding her and sends an underling to assault her while Danijel is out.

55. Berlinale Special: In The Land Of Blood And Honey, director Angelina Jolie in an interview with the Bosnian director Jasmila 2banic at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, 11 February 2012, at www.berlinale.de/de/archiv/ jahresarchive/2012/02_programm_2012/02_Filmdatenblatt_2012_20120035.php (last accessed 12 April 2014).

56. Kunarac et al, case no. IT-96-23-T &IT-96-23/1-T.

57. Jolie, in conversation with Zbanic, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin.

58. On stereotypes of Serb masculinity, see, e.g., Bjelic, Dusan I.and Lucinda, Cole, “Sexualizing the Serb,”in Bjelic, Dusan I.and Obrad, Savic, eds., Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation(Cambridge, Mass., 2002), 279–310 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Marko, Zivkovic, “Ex-Yugoslav Masculinities under Female Gaze, or Why Men Skin Cats, Beat up Gays and Go to War,” Nationalities Papers 34, no. 3(July 2006): 257-63Google Scholar. The depiction of masculinity in this film is an area for further criticism but beyond the scope of this paper.

59. Almost the entire rest of the war, another two years or more from when she is recaptured, passes while she waits for her chance to communicate with her family and friends in the resistance. One cannot escape the feeling that Jolie's pedagogical and shaming intentions required this to go on for so long so that the audience would hear, via a radio in the background, reports of the Srebrenica killings, later ruled genocide by the ICTY. Brian Phillips notes a similar effect created by scenes that evoke camp violence in northwest Bosnia and other places far from Sarajevo. Phillips, “In the Land of Celebrity Humanitarianism,” 289-90. In fact, the very setting of Sarajevo is an odd choice to illustrate the use of mass rapes in the Bosnian war, as, with the exception of the Grbavica neighborhood in Sarajevo, the rape camp scenarios the film depicts were more typical of towns in eastern and northwest BiH. However, it enables the film to depict the urban, cosmopolitan spirit of Sarajevo and the siege of the city, completing the list of iconic war atrocities from this conflict.

60. See, e.g., Nora, Gilbert, ‘“She Makes Love for the Papers': Love, Sex, and Exploitation in Hitchcock's Mata Hari Films,” Film &History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 41, no. 2(Fall 2011): 6–18 Google Scholar; and Olmsted, Kathryn S., “Blond Queens, Red Spiders, and Neurotic Old Maids: Gender and Espionage in the Early Cold War,” Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 1(Spring 2004): 78–94 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61. Jolie, in conversation with Zbanic, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin.

62. Zarkov analyzes a similar pattern in representations of war rape in the Croatian media during the war. By portraying Muslim women (as well as men) as the victims of Serb brutality, the enemy could be demonized while Croat victims of rape could remain hidden, leaving the reputation of the Croatian nation pure. Zarkov, The Body of War, 129-42, 155-69.

63. Grbavicadoes not explicitly take on the gendered logics of Bosniak and Bosnian nationalisms, but it is nevertheless a more realistic and sophisticated portrayal of the harsh realities of postwar BiH from a woman's perspective. See Helms, Innocence and Victimhood, 245. Ironically, one author found the failure of Grbavicato show any rape scenes or spell out the history of the war to be a “manipulation” that hides the facts of Serb crimes against Bosniaks. Mustafa, Mencutekin, “And the Golden Bear Goes to Grbavica: An Opus of Manipulation,” Journal of Arab &Muslim Media Research 5, no. 1(November 2012): 71–89 Google Scholar. Since the initial writing of this text, Zbanic has released a new film directly addressing the topic of wartime rape in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad, For Those Who Can Tell No Tales(2013).

64. Jolie, in conversation with 2banic, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin.

65. Ibid.

66. See, e.g., Johanna Mannergren Selimovic, “Perpetrators and Victims: Local Responses to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,” Focaal, no. 57 (Summer 2010): 50-61; and Marlene Spoerri and Annette Freyberg-Inan, “From Prosecution to Persecution: Perceptions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in Serbian Domestic Politics,” Journal of International Relations and Development11, no. 4 (December 2008): 350-84.

67. Volcic and Erjavec, “Transnational Celebrity Activism in Bosnia and Herzegovina.“

68. Ratna, Kapur, “The Tragedy of Victimization Rhetoric: Resurrecting the ‘Native' Subject in International/Post-Colonial Feminist Legal Politics,” Harvard Human Rights Journal15 (2002): 6.Google Scholar

69. See, e.g., Joane, Nagel, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers(Oxford, 2003)Google Scholar.

70. Lest my analysis seem wholly negative, it must be acknowledged that Jolie did choose a difficult and important topic and (mostly) succeeded in accurately conveying witnesses’ and survivors’ descriptions of how Serb rape camps functioned in the Bosnian war. She should also be commended for choosing a local cast and filming both Bosnian and English versions rather than using Hollywood actors.

71. Jolie, in conversation with Zbanic, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin.

72. Dubravka 2arkov, “In the Land of Blood and Honey:Cinematic Representations of the Bosnian War” (paper, American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, 13- 18 November 2012). It is curious that another film on the subject, As If I Am Not There(dir. Juanita Wilson, 2010), like the novel on which it is based, Slavenka Drakulic's Kao da me nema(Split, 1999; published in English as S.: A Novel about the Balkans, trans. Marko Ivic [New York, 2000]), also reproduces this atypical story element with the protagonist becoming a camp officer's lover.

73. Buss, “The Curious Visibility of Wartime Rape.“

74. For a discussion of a broader range of films on the Bosnian war and their impact on processes of regional reconciliation, see Phillips, “In the Land of Celebrity Humanitarianism.“