Visual Difference ─ Postcolonial Studies and Intercultural Cinema

Heffelfinger and Wright (both English, Western Carolina U.) examine a number of movies set in various post-colonial environs, with the goal of illuminating modern American culture's relationship with post-colonialism, and of providing a structure for criticism of such media. To this end they consider Hollywood's view of Africa in the films Blood Diamond and Last King of Scotland; the reinvention of the Maori in Whale Rider and Once were Warriors; our imposition of sexual abandon on the Caribbean through Jane Eyreand its companion films; and the complex issues arising from the partnering of Bollywood and Hollywood, and analysis of the films of non-resident Indian directors such as Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair. South Africa is viewed from four very different perspectives through the films Tsotsi, Disgrace, District 9, and Invictus. Finally the authors argue that the highest grossing film in history, Avatar, constitutes a disappointingly formulaic composite of Hollywood colonialist cliches. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Elizabeth Heffelfinger is Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator of the Motion Picture Studies program in English at Western Carolina University. She specializes in film and cultural studies. Her articles have appeared in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television and Journal of Popular Film and Television. Her PhD is from Carnegie Mellon University.
Laura Wright is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in English at Western Carolina University, where she specializes in postcolonial literature and theory. She holds a PhD from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her first book Writing ?Out of All the Camps?: J. M. Coetzee’s Narratives of Displacement was published in 2006; a second, ?Wilderness into Civilized Shapes?: Reading the Postcolonial Environment, was published in April of 2010.