Visions of Blood, Sex and Money: Fantasy Spaces in Popular Ghanaian Cinema
Author: Meyer B.
Source: Visual Anthropology, Volume 16, Number 1, 1 January 2003 , pp. 15-41(27)
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Abstract:
This article focuses on Ghanaian popular cinema,1 which emerged in the late 1980s and has become a major form of entertainment for urban audiences. It shows that the filmmakers, who produce films in the video format which are very close to everyday life experiences and dreams, offer visions which they and their audiences regard as being similar to those provided by religious prophets and preachers. Watching these films allows for complex negotiations between the desires for transgression of the moral order, the longing to feel morally superior, and the striving for knowledge to understand one's world. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the film Women in Love, which conjures up a fantasy space located at the bottom of the sea where money and commodities are generated in exchange for sex and blood, this article argues that popular cinema is part and parcel of a new culture of vision, one characterized by the visualization of otherwise invisible fantasy spaces as well as by its easy accessibility through such modern mass media as video and TV. The article argues that these fantasy spaces should not be regarded as misguided distortions, but as sources for gaining insight into what Marx called "the religion of everyday life," and thus as revelations of the fantasy dimension of global capitalism.Document Type: Research article
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