“I Think I Taw a Puddy Tat”: Reverse Faces of the Balkans and Popular Culture

U radu se promišljaju reprezentacije Balkana kroz analizu lika žene-mačke u specifičnim izričajima popularne kulture: filmskim ostvarenjima Vala Lewtona i Jacquesa Tourneura te raznolikim umjetničkim izričajima domaćih autora. Film Ljudi mačke iz 1942. godine, koji reprezentira opskurnu slika Balkana stigmatiziranu motivom kulturne rudimentarnosti, ujedno je i inspiracija indigenim umjetničkim ostvarenjima koja ironično eksperimentiraju stereotipnim animalnim predodžbama Balkana. Ontološka ambivalentnost koju evocira lik žene-mačke u navedenim ostvarenjima omogućuje promišljanje odnosa prostorne i temporalne podvojenosti Balkana analizom rodnih, političkih i klasnih aspekata.This paper is an attempt to re-think various representations of the Balkans through the analysis of the cat-woman figure in various aspects of popular culture: from Val Lewton\u27s and Jacques Tourneur\u27s film Cat People, to diverse artistic expressions by artists from the Balkans. The film Cat People from 1942 presents an often stigmatized, obscure image of the Balkans, unlike artistic expressions several decades later that experiment with ethnocentric notions of the Balkans. Ontological ambivalence evoked by the character of Irena Dubrovna, the cat-woman offers a place for the renegotiation of spatial and temporal alterity of the Balkans by analyzing its gender, political and class aspects