Hollywood's Africa after 1994 / edited by MaryEllen Higgins.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Higgins, MaryEllen, 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures.

History.

Africa--In motion pictures.

Africa.

Human rights in motion pictures.

Imperialism in motion pictures.

Culture conflict in motion pictures.

Motion pictures--United States--History--21st century.

United States.

Physical Description:

vi, 274 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Hollywood's Africa After 1994 investigates Hollywood's colonial film legacy in the postapartheid era, and contemplates what has changed in the West s and Holly-wood's representations of Africa. The contributors to this, multidisciplinary collection question twenty-first-century projections or human rights issues including the representation of child soldiers, genocide, the exploitation of the poor by multinational corporations, dictatorial rule, truth and reconciliation, "new" military humanitarianism, and Western support for regime change in Africa and beyond. Films including Black Hawk Down, Hotel Invictus, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, The Constant Gardener. Shake Hands with the Devil Tears of the Sun, and District 9, all made after the fall of the apartheid government in South Africa in 1994, construct explicit and implicit arguments about the effects of Western intervention in Africa. Do the emphases on human rights in the films offer a poignant expression of our shared humanity? Do they echo the colonial tropes of former "civilizing missions"? Or do human rights violations operate as yet another mine of sensational images for Hollywood's spectacular storytelling?

The volume provides analyses by academics arid activists in the fields of African studies, English, him and media-studies, international relations, and sociology across continents. This thoughtful and highly engaging book is a valuable resource for those who seek new and varied approaches to films about Africa. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: African blood, Hollywood's diamonds? Hollywood's Africa after 1994 / MaryEllen Higgins

The cited and the uncited: toward an emancipatory reading of representations of Africa / Harry Garuba and Natasha Himmelman

The troubled terrain of human rights films: Blood diamond, The last king of Scotland, and, The devil came on horseback / Margaret R. Higonnet, with Ethel R. Higonnet

Hollywood's representations of human rights: the case of Terry George's Hotel Rwanda / Joyce B. Ashuntantang

Hollywood's cowboy humanitarianism in Black Hawk down and Tears of the sun / MaryEllen Higgins

Again, the darkness: Shake hands with the devil / Kenneth W. Harrow

Ambiguities and paradoxes: framing northern intervention in The constant gardener / Christopher Odhiambo Joseph

Minstrelsy and mythic appetites: The last king of Scotland's heart of darkness in the Jubilee Year of African independence / Ricardo Guthrie

"An image of Africa": representations of modern colonialism in Africa in Peter Jackson's King Kong / Clifford T. Manlove

Plus 'a change, plus c'est la méme chose: Hollywood's constructions of Africa in Lord of war / Earl Conteh-Morgan

New Jack African cinema: Dangerous ground; Cry, the beloved country; and Blood diamond / Bennetta Jules-Rosette, J.R. Osborn, and Lea Marie Ruiz-Ade

"It is a very rough game, almost as rough as politics": rugby as visual metaphor and the future of the new South Africa in Invictus / Christopher Garland

"Every brother ain't a brother": cultural dissonance and Nigerian malaise in District 9's new South Africa / Kimberly Nichele Brown

Coaxing the beast out of the cage: secrecy and disclosure in Red dust and Catch a fire / Jane Bryce

Situating agency in Blood diamond and Ezra / Iyunolu Osagie

Bye bye Hollywood: African cinema and its double in Mahamet-Saleh Haroun's Bye bye Africa / Dayna Oscherwitz.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780821420157

0821420151

9780821444337

0821444336

OCLC:

793221841