World Cinema Will not Work

Abstract

In this essay, I engage with the concept of ‘world cinema,’ identifying ways in which the term ‘world’ might always already come loaded with masculine and, in particular, white connotations, such that a turn to ‘world cinema’ runs the risk of reaffirming the centrality of masculinity and whiteness—at a time when, perhaps it is of utmost importance, for the sake of the continuation of human and other life, to challenge and perhaps even to negate that centrality. What applies to ‘world’ (which may be a shorthand for white masculinity) may also apply to cinema, and so it is that cinema and white masculinity alike that must be abandoned for human life on Earth to progress. To propose a turn to world cinema may thus not ‘work’ as a means to develop film studies in an ethical, more inclusive direction, since both world and cinema are by nature exclusive, rather than inclusive.