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colonial film unit

Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry (1)

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The Last Laugh: African Audience Responses to Colonial Health Propaganda Films *
Stephanie Newell
Journal:

Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry / Volume 4 / Issue 3 / September 2017

Published online by Cambridge University Press:

14 August 2017, pp. 347-361
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Focusing on the complexity of local spectators’ responses to the simple ideological formulae of colonial health and hygiene films, this article asks about the ways in which the presence of local aesthetic tastes and values represented a vital third space of mediation alongside film content and filmmakers’ “authorial” objectives in the much-studied media archives on public health and hygiene in colonial Africa. The article argues that a host of cognitive failures is encapsulated in colonial officials’ reports on the laughter of African audiences between the late 1920s and early 1950s. In attributing African laughter to unrefined “native” cruelty, colonial officials precluded the possibility of a politics of ridicule among audiences, among many other aesthetic and social practices affecting spectators’ reactions to films.