#7 Cultural Theory and Trinh T. Minh-ha

Clifford Geertz’s cultural theory offers a useful framework for understanding the complexity of Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Surname Viet, Given Name Nam. Geertz argues that culture is not a fixed set of facts but a “web of meanings” that people create and interpret. Trinh’s film adopts a similar approach by presenting Vietnamese women’s experiences not as stable truths but as layered, shifting narratives that must be read and interpreted. In many ways, the film performs the very kind of cultural analysis that Geertz describes.

One of Geertz’s central ideas is that cultural understanding requires “thick description,” a method that looks beyond surface-level actions to the deeper meanings behind them. Surname Viet, Given Name Nam embodies this idea through its attention to translation, performance, and repetition. Instead of offering straightforward interviews, Trinh stages and restages testimony, using different performers to speak the same words. She highlights the slippages between written and spoken language, between official history and personal memory, and between immigrant experience and American expectations. These layers encourage viewers to look beyond the literal statements the women make and toward the cultural and political forces that shape those statements. The film demands that the audience interpret meaning rather than simply receive information.

Geertz also argues that culture should be understood as a kind of “text,” something that can be read for its symbols, patterns, and tensions. Trinh’s film takes this idea further by exposing how cultural “texts” are produced, translated, and sometimes distorted. Interviews become performances; documents become scripts; and identities become roles shaped by political history, diaspora, and gender norms. Rather than pretending these representations are transparent, Trinh shows how they are constructed. In doing so, she reminds viewers that cultural meaning is always mediated, always shaped by who is speaking, who is listening, and who is doing the interpreting.

Another connection between Geertz and Trinh lies in their shared attention to interpretation itself. Geertz argues that anthropologists do not uncover objective truths so much as create interpretations that help explain how people make sense of their world. Trinh brings this idea into the realm of documentary film by questioning who has the authority to interpret Vietnamese women’s lives. The film is openly reflexive: Trinh inserts commentary, calls attention to the role of translation, and even complicates her own position as a filmmaker working between cultures. By revealing these processes, she critiques the very idea of “authenticity” that Western audiences often expect from ethnographic or cross-cultural documentaries.

Finally, Geertz’s belief that small details can reveal larger social structures resonates strongly with Trinh’s method. The film uses personal stories, accounts of work, marriage, survival, and memory, to illuminate broader themes such as nationalism, diaspora identity, and the gendered expectations placed on Vietnamese women. These individual narratives function like Geertzian “thick descriptions,” showing how everyday experiences reflect deeper cultural and political dynamics.

Through these connections, Surname Viet, Given Name Nam can be seen as a cinematic counterpart to Geertz’s interpretive anthropology. Both emphasize that culture is something constructed through meaning, representation, and interpretation. Trinh’s film does not simply document Vietnamese women’s lives; it examines how those lives are framed, translated, and understood. In doing so, it demonstrates the very processes of meaning-making that Geertz identifies, while also pushing them further by making the politics of representation visible.