Re-Imagined Community in Courtney Huntʼs Frozen River

Abstract

This essay uses Kimberlé Crenshawʼs theory of intersectionality to analyze and discuss Rayʼs and Lilaʼs journeys in Courtney Huntʼs 2008 film, Frozen River, to argue that director Courtney Hunt explores the notion of borders in her film in order to suggest intersectionality as an approach to restoring motherhood for working class women who have been pushed out of domesticity. The film suggests that intersectional understanding can only be achieved through multiple border crossings, and shows how Ray and Lila are able to move beyond seeing each other primarily as racially different Others and begin to identify with each other as mothers through the intersectional understanding they gain as a result of their border crossings. Further, the film reveals that it is through the perspective of motherhood that they are able to humanize and empathize with not just each other but also with other marginalized women across ethnic, racial, religious, and national boundaries, and that it is this solidarity of motherhood that allows them to value all motherhood, rather than only their own. While it is intersectional understanding and the shared positionality of being a mother without the conventional patriarchal protection of husbands or fathers that allows Ray to make a choice that preserves both her own and Lilaʼs motherhood, it must be noted that the film denies intersectional identity and space to Lila at the end. The film does reimagine communities around motherhood rather than blood or legal familial units, racial identifications, or marital relations, but the reimagined community of motherhood presented at the end of the film fractures Lilaʼs identity while it preserves Rayʼs. Thus, the re-imagined community of motherhood constructed at the end of the film is one predicated upon denial of non-white intersectional identity and space, and therefore, very limited in its ability to conceive of new forms of community.