Captive Bodies examines the film industry's fascination with bondage and captivity, seeking to revisualize American cinema through the lens of critical discourse on captivity narratives, slave narratives, and postcolonial critiques of cinematic constructions of "whiteness," "blackness," gender, and sexuality. Captivity is also examined here in relation to both those in front and behind the camera. Are we "subject" to others? Are we "bound" and "captive" in images? Are we "captive" bodies and "captive" audiences, held hostage to the spectacles of voyeuristic pleasure? Are those behind the camera involved in a process not unlike that of the slave system, enslaving the body in the image? To answer these and other questions, Captive Bodies draws upon a wide range of critical methodologies, including postcolonial studies, feminist film criticism, anthropology, and phenomenology.
- ISBN10 0791441555
- ISBN13 9780791441558
- Publish Date 23 April 1999
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 1 August 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint State University of New York Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 249
- Language English