What is Postcolonial Film? A Short Introduction to Postcolonialism and Cinema

What is postcolonial film? And what, exactly, makes a film 'postcolonial'? In this episode, we'll answer those questions and explore some of the creative ways that postcolonial filmmakers are working to decolonize cinema.

The host, Dr. Alexander K. Smith, holds an MA from Oxford University and a PhD in the anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas from the University of Paris, France.

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Endnotes:

1) The phrase ‘the white man’s burden’ was coined by English author and arch-colonialist, Rudyard Kipling, in a 1899 poem published in The Times (London). The phrase began to be used by pro-colonial authors across entire the English-speaking world. The concept, in extreme brief, was that Western civilization (by which Kipling and his contemporaries would have meant ‘white’ civilization) had a moral obligation to carry their colonies from a state of ‘savagery’ to a state of ‘civilization’. The phrase’s popularity saw it used for decades as a rallying cry for the alleged ethical-imperatives of colonialism. It’s worth noting, however, that some contemporaneous authors living in colonial states were highly critical of the concept.

2) I should note that a number of authors, like Fanon, preferred the term ‘imperial gaze’ rather than colonial gaze, which is similar but has its own etymology and particular historical usage. The phrase “imperial gaze” has also grown enormously in popularity due to is usage by E. Ann Kaplan in her published work. For the sake of simplicity, however, in this introductory video, I am conflating the two terms. On “the gaze” in a general sense, I would recommend reading “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectatorship” (1992), which is a brilliant critique of Laura Mulvey’s "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (1975), which pioneered the concept of The Male Gaze. E. Ann Kaplan’s "Women in Film: Both Sides of the Camera" (1983) and "Looking for the Other: Feminism, Film and the Imperial Gaze" (1997) are also great starting points.

3) This is one of the core arguments of Fanon’s seminal “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952), although you will find aspects of this argument in many of his major works – including “The Wretched of the Earth” (1961), “A Dying Colonialism” (1959), and “Toward the African Revolution” (1964). Honestly, Fanon is one of the most brilliant political and revolutionary minds of his generation. If you’re reading this – I cannot recommend his work more highly. Although, keep in mind that across the majority published work, Fanon is not writing as an academic. His work is explicitly partisan and revolutionary – but it is extremely well reasoned, moving, and articulate.

4) To my knowledge, Fanon first used the phrase ‘colonial mentality’ in this sense in “The Wretched of the Earth” (1961).

5) See: Fanon. 1952. “Black Skin, White Masks” and Fanon. 1961. “The Wretched of the Earth”.

6) So, ‘hybridity’ is one of the most widely referenced (and also widely disputed) concepts in postcolonial theory. They core text here is Homi K. Bhabha’s “The Location of Culture” (1994). However, colonial and post-colonial hybridity are much more theoretically complex than they appear to be at face value, so there’s no space to dig into it here. If you are interested, though, in additional to Bhaba (1994), have a look at Gayatri Spivak’s and Néstor Gariía Canclini’s discourses as well, as they take a different tack on the issue.

7) Something that I’ve noticed from my classroom teaching is that North American students often (and understandably) think of post-colonialism entirely in terms of race. But there are also post-colonial subjectivities that stem from historical, indigenous perceptions of ethnicity and cultural diversity (which can differ significantly from the perception of race in North American political discourse). Ireland is one of the classic examples. Hence this clip from the (great) postcolonial film The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006).

8) Language oppression is one of the core policies shared, historically, by many different colonial governments, but it is also a key component of cultural genocide. See: Bosmajian, Haig (1983) “The Language of Oppression”. For a history of colonial policies of abducting children, see: Schissel and Wotherspoon (2002) “The Legacy of School for Aboriginal People: Education, Oppression, and Emancipation” and “They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools” (2012) published by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

00:00 Empire Films
00:55 The Colonial Gaze
02:41 How Empire Films Internalized Colonial Biases
04:10 "Decolonizing the Mind"
05:00 Defining Postcolonial Film
06:34 Indigenous Non-Western Perspectives
08:01 Identity and Hybridity
10:09 The Importance of Speaking Non-Western Languages
12:19 Conclusion