Teasers of Empire: 1930s Action-Adventure Trailers and the Spectacle of Imperialism

Thursday, May 26, 7 PM, In-Person, Free, RSVP

Teasers of Empire interweaves a selection of fifteen 35mm trailers from the Academy Film Archive with commentary by guest scholars to examine the connections between the Action-Adventure genre and the history of imperialism. Early sound films can help elucidate how Hollywood filmmaking practices and genre tropes developed in conjunction with dominant colonial narratives and audience tastes. Despite the technical mastery displayed by these films, screening them today presents a challenge given that many of them contain harmful stereotypes about minoritized peoples. Examining 1930s Action-Adventure trailers with this critical lens offers us an opportunity to study how the genre was shaped by borrowed colonial artistic and literary conventions that naturalized discourses of empire, conquest, and modernity, without reactivating the violence of screening the films in their entirety.

Post-screening discussion with: Ariel Rogers, Associate Professor in the Department of Radio/Television/Film, Northwestern Univ.; Rochona Majumdar, Associate Professor in Department of Cinema and Media Studies, Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago; and Emily Lyon, PhD Candidate in History, Northwestern Univ.

Curated by Emmanuel Ramos-Barajas a scholar, curator, and research-based image-maker who investigates the possession and consumption of land in US and Mexican art, cinema and visual culture.