Cinema, the Settler

Bibliographic Data

ID20249078
AuthorsL Veracini (0000-0002-3481-8535, Swinburne University of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume12
Issue3
Pages40
Publication date2023-05-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHumanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/h12030040
OpenAlexW4377104651
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited34

While the history and technology of cinema are considered for the purpose of achieving decolonial ends, this paper suggests that ‘classic’ cinema may be considered a quintessentially settler colonial medium. However, the moving image is now delivered in new ways and through new devices, and streaming has transformed global patterns of cinema production and consumption. Thus, two developments are considered in relation to this transformation. On the one hand, there are signs that mainstream cinema may be genuinely addressing its implication with colonialism, and this paper focuses on a formal apology and on a big budget movie that adopted a radically innovative approach to representing Indigenous peoples: Prey (2022). On the other hand, streaming has made cinema portable and has made consumption in personally deliberated instalments possible. The ‘digital natives’ consume cinema in fragmented and noncollective patterns, and their activity is subjected to unprecedented modalities of surveillance and appropriation. This paper concludes that a form of digital colonialism supported by streaming operates in ways that are homologous with modes of settler colonial appropriation

Aesthetics · Appropriation · Art · Colonialism · Epistemology · Indigenous · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Movie theater · Political science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · History · Law · Philosophy