ENGL 2771 - Africa in Hollywood

(crosslisted)
(also ASRC 2771, PMA 2403) (LA-AS)

Fall. 4 credits.

M. Ngugi.

In Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America, Africa is a place of nobility, where even lions are at peace with lambs. In contrast, Leonardo DeCaprio’s Blood Diamond is a violent look at the role the demand for diamonds has played in destabilizing mineral-rich African countries. But if Hollywood has long been concerned with depicting Africa in particular ways, African filmmakers are at the same time creating their own stories. Popular and scholarly film critics are also contributing to the battle over who speaks for Africa. In this course we will explore these competing images of Africa, questions of imagination versus reality, and the extent to which artists should, if at all, be responsible to the subject of their art.