AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	33. Visualizing Africa, from there to here, between now and then.
Paper ID	476
Author(s)	Musila, Grace A.
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	This paper reflects on contemporary Hollywood films' representations of Africa. The paper suggests that Africa's so-called 'crises' – chiefly the trinity of poverty, disease and political violence – have re-emerged as Hollywood's new creative 'frontier'. Through a reading of three recent films on Africa:- The Interpreter (2005), The Constant Gardener (2005), and Blood Diamond (2006); the paper suggests that there is an emergent trend in Hollywood filmic practice which entails a voyeuristic scavenging on Africa (n)s miseries. In many senses, the paper argues, the three films reveal that Hollywood's filmic practices are discursively challenged, with regard to Africa; as suggested by the rehashing of old discursive frameworks, both at the levels of the narrative and the visual codes in the construction of Africa(ns). Yet, at the same time, the paper argues; these films give us insights into the West's 'battles of conscience' with itself, which find expression in these ‘staged’ dramatizations of interventions in Africa's 'crises'. But what are the political implications of these discursive tropes, both within the films, and extra-textually? What are the possible ways of understanding this unyielding grip of imperialist discourses on Hollywood film, beyond a simplistic resort to 'racism'? What possibilities lie in these 'performed' battles of conscience, especially in light of the limited space for self-interrogation by the West in the three films? These are some the questions this paper explores.

Hollywood's New Frontier: 'Performing' Conscience and Playing Africa's Messiah in The Interpreter (2005) The Constant Gardener (2005), and Blood Diamond (2006)