Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926-1963
- Authors:
- Publisher:
- 2022
Summary
In Instructional Cinema and African Audiences in Colonial Kenya, 1926–1963, the author argues against the colonial logic instigating that films made for African audiences in Kenya influenced them to embrace certain elements of western civilization but Africans had nothing to offer in return. The author frames this logic as unidirectional approach purporting that Africans were passive recipients of colonial programs. Contrary to this understanding, the author insists that African viewers were active participants in the discourse of cinema in Kenya. Employing unorthodox means to protest mediocre films devoid of basic elements of film production, African spectators forced the colonial government to reconsider the way it produced films. The author frames the reconsideration as bidirectional approach. Instructional cinema first emerged as a tool to “educate” and “modernize” Africans, but it transformed into a contestable space of cultural and political power, a space that both sides appropriated to negotiate power and actualize their abstract ideas.
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Bibliographic data
- Copyright year
- 2022
- ISBN-Print
- 978-1-7936-4924-9
- ISBN-Online
- 978-1-7936-4925-6
- Publisher
- Lexington, Lanham
- Language
- English
- Pages
- 160
- Product type
- Book Titles
Table of contents
- Contents No access
- Introduction No access Pages 1 - 18
- Chapter One. Making Instructional Cinema: Historical Overview No access Pages 19 - 46
- Chapter Two. Mobile Cinema Vans and African Assistants No access Pages 47 - 66
- Chapter Three. “A Problem of Something Like Chicago Gangsterdom”: Mau Mau War and Instructional Cinema No access Pages 67 - 88
- Chapter Four. Child Spectators and Cinema Spaces as Zones of Encounter and Contested Political and Cultural Power No access Pages 89 - 110
- Chapter Five. “They Found Our Pictures Inferior in Quality”: Africans’ Reaction to Instructional Cinema No access Pages 111 - 134
- Conclusion No access Pages 135 - 138
- Bibliography No access Pages 139 - 150
- Index No access Pages 151 - 158
- About the Author No access Pages 159 - 160





