Private Women, Public Men: Reflective Judgment and Autonomy in The Lemon Tree

Abstract

Conceptual categories such as the private and public help us make sense of the world around us. However, like any categories, be it sociological or critical, social taxonomies carry with them a certain risk. They have the potential to mar our understanding of social and political reality. In this paper, I would like to rethink some features conventionally associated with the public/private distinction. Faithful to the paradigm of reflective judgment, which looks at the particular and tries to evaluate how it informs universal concepts, my point of departure is the film The Lemon Tree; a film that raises questions about the limitations of socially constructed and self-imposed categories, and invites the audience to rethink conventional views. I interpret the film relying on several conceptual categories that Hannah Arendt developed in the course of her writing: the actor/spectator distinction, the labor/work/action categories, and her discussion of loneliness.

Keywords

• gender
• reflective judgment
• autonomy
• private/public
• Arendt