reflecting on deborah shaw’s theories on transnational cinema

Applying the theoretical framework of Deborah Shaw in Deconstructing and Reconstructing Transnational Cinema (2013) of transnational narration in the series the Green Frontier (2019).

Deborah Shaw’s theoretical framework on transnational cinema provides a vital lens through which to understand Green Frontier. The Colombian series is not simply a drama series, but a culturally entangled text, that both embodies, and complicates, what it means to narrate across borders. Shaw emphasizes that transnational cinema is not just about multinational production or engaging with international audiences, but also a mode of storytelling that destabilized hegemonic forms, which are often hybrid in nature and ethical in talent. This reflection explores how three of the key pillars in Shaw’s theory, transnational narration, globalization and ethics, are deeply rooted in the audiovisual soil of Green Frontier.

Firstly, Shaw’s notion of “narrative hybridity” is fully enacted in the series’ formal design. Green Frontier weaves together detective procedural, supernatural thriller, and indigenous myth, creating what Shaw describes as a “rhizomatic” narrative structure; nonlinear, multi-voiced, and resistant to monocultural storytelling. Helena’s journey from Bogotá to the Amazon reflects a symbolic passage from modern rationality to ancient spiritual epistemologies. The use of flashbacks, visions, and silence as narrative devices creates a cinematic language that is legible across cultures yet anchored in the sacred specificities of the Amazon. As Shaw notes, such films “grow horizontally,” like roots rather than upward-reaching trees, resisting linear Western plot conventions (Shaw, 2013, p. 54).

Secondly, Shaw’s engagement with the cinema of globalization is especially visible in the material conditions of Green Frontier. Distributed by Netflix, the series functions within the logic of global capitalism while simultaneously offering a counter-hegemonic narrative that critiques extractivist neocolonialism. The jungle is not just setting; it is contested territory, where European outsiders seek to appropriate mystic power for profit. In this sense, the series mirrors what Tom Zaniello terms the “new economic order” in which media texts both expose and circulate within the very systems they challenge. Green Frontier becomes a kind of cinematic jaguar, fierce, elusive, but ultimately framed by global streaming architecture.

Finally, Shaw’s emphasis on the ethics of transnational cinema resonates powerfully through the representation of indigenous characters like Ushe and Yua. They are not rendered as exotic backdrops but as active agents whose knowledge, language, and spirituality shape the moral core of the narrative. The series exemplifies what Mette Hjort calls “milieu-building transnationalism”, where collaboration and representation are grounded in mutual respect rather than cultural appropriation. The conflict between Helena’s institutional rationality and the forest’s animist logic embodies what Shaw argues are the core ethical questions of transnational cinema; Who gets to speak? And how?

In sum, Green Frontier (2019) does not simply reflect Shaw’s theories; it animates them. Through hybrid structure, global critique, and ethical representation, the series exemplifies the possibilities and tensions of transnational cinema. It reminds us that storytelling, like the Amazon itself, is a living system; expansive, layered, and full of roots we have yet to understand.

Bibliography

Dennison, S. (ed.) (2013). Contemporary Hispanic cinema: interrogating the transnational in Spanish and Latin American film. Woodbridge: Tamesis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782041306 (Accessed: 7 May 2025).

Hjort, M. (2010). ‘On the plurality of cinematic transnationalism’, in Ďurovičová, N. and Newman, K.E. (eds.) World cinemas, transnational perspectives. New York: Routledge, pp. 12–33.

Netflix (2019). The Green Frontier [TV series]. Directed by C. Guerra and L. Guerra. Colombia: Netflix.

O’Regan, T. (1996). ‘Cultural exchange and the international film industry’, in Moran, A. (ed.) Film policy: international, national and regional perspectives. London: Routledge, pp. 260–273.

Shaw, D. (2013). ‘Deconstructing and reconstructing “transnational cinema”’, in Dennison, S. (ed.) Contemporary Hispanic cinema: interrogating the transnational in Spanish and Latin American film. Woodbridge: Tamesis, pp. 47–66. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782041306-006 (Accessed: 7 May 2025).

Shaw, D. (ed.) (2013). Contemporary Hispanic cinema: interrogating the transnational in Spanish and Latin American film. Woodbridge: Tamesis. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781782041306 (Accessed: 7 May 2025).

Zaniello, T.A. (2003). The cinema of globalization: a guide to films about the new economic order. Ithaca: ILR Press.