Week 4: Human - Screening Question

Thoughts on Screening

At the end of The Couple in the Cage, or rather after the end (as it is shown unorthodoxly outside the realm of what is normatively considered the span of the film, i.e. after the credits), is a part of a scene from an older video ethnography. This instance of the scene is a repetition, for it is also featured within the film. Within the film, this footage serves the message of the creators of the film, that is to critique the Eurocentric bias of modern anthropology. However, after the credits the scene plays a role somewhat in opposition to the film's message (although not by any means a polar opposition). By placing the scene outside the film, the anthropologist's problematic claim that he is a neutral observer shows that while trying to expose racial hypocrisy, the film makers are unable to escape the biases associated with Western discourse even as they vilify it. Consider the effects of the film's satirization of the exhibition -- in terms of man and his confrontation with the artificial/illusory condition of the other.

AB + AM