Resisting Genealogy: Diasporic Grief and Heterosexual Melancholia in the Israeli Films Three Mothers and Late Marriage

Diaspora, in its traditional sense, thus refers us to a system of kinship reckoned through men and suggests the questions of legitimacy in paternity that patriarchy generates.9 The term "diaspora" implies a heterosexual, masculine, and patriarchal definition of the relationship between a diasporic community and its roots. [...]it is no different from the sexual politics of the hegemonic discourse. "46 It rewrites the Oedipal drama by refusing to replace desire with identification, instead insisting upon their coexistence. [...]by rewriting the father-son Oedipal scenario, the film also resists the problematic paradigm of "between two cultures" that is accepted in sociological discourses and popular media depictions of immigrant communities in Israel: the film avoids repeating the binary of tradition versus modernity, which transforms the diasporic father into a representative of the traditional past and "homeland" and the rebellious son into an emblem of progress and Western, modern lifestyle.47 Instead, the film proposes another relationship between them-one of queer identification and desire.