The Spectator 02

Question 1

What does the term “third-world” refer to?

Answer 1

Victims of colonialism; nations of the world whose economic and political structure have been shaped and deformed within the colonial process.

Question 2

How is racism defined?

Answer 2

The generalized and final assigning of values to real or imaginary differences, to the accuser’s benefit and his victim’s expanse, in order to justify the former’s own privilege or aggression

Question 3

In terms of racist sterotypes, what are “positive images”?

Answer 3

A bending-over-backwards-not-to-be-racist attitude in films…

Question 4

Are racist/rationalized/stereotype images universal?

Answer 4

No, cultural patterns lead to this; not necessarily racially connoted but culturally imposed

Question 5

How is racial and political position in films accomplished?

Answer 5

Through film form - perspective conventions - spectators are sutured on one side or the other through filmic conventions; (i.e. POV, composition, soundtrack, off-screen sound, scale… Anything that might side audience sympathies with one group or another)

Question 6

From a sociological perspective, how might we see the spectator as former-of-meaning in the film experience?

Answer 6

Cultural and ideological assumptions that spectator brings with them into the cinema.. (I.e. - high production values that put-off third-world viewers)

Question 7

Is racism inherent in the film medium? How might we understand where this subtext comes from?

Answer 7

It is not inscribed in celluloid or even in the human mind; its form is ever-changing and reflects every aspect of production, including the spectator (even more, perhaps, than the filmmaker)

Question 8

What would Eisenstein’s perspective be on reality and the use of film form to shape it?

Answer 8

Film doesn’t show reality. It is shaped from so-called reality, but it is biased and film’s power is its potential for propaganda. Eisenstein would advocate a deliberate shaping of “reality” through film.

Question 9

What is the “aesthetics of hunger”?

Answer 9

A kind of production value that reflects the socioeconomic conditions of the less fortunate. This aesthetic contrasts against the high-production values of Hollywood; the privalidged and upper-class aesthetic that, in itself, turns away the underprivileged.

Question 10

Stam and Spence discuss how racial and cultural difference (from one’s own; western) is transformed into ____

Answer 10

Transformed into ‘other’-ness and exploits or penalized by and for power.