Racializing the social problem: reception of Samson and Delilah in Germany

This article examines elements of German reception of the Aboriginal Australian film Samson and Delilah (2009). There is a discrepancy between the film's recognition at the Cannes Film Festival and its less enthusiastic audience reception. On the basis of qualitative interviews with German view...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Continuum (Mount Lawley, W.A.) W.A.), 2014-01, Vol.28 (5), p.666-677
Main Author: Haag, Oliver
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agency
Audiences
Australia
Cinema
Culture
Film makers
Germans
Indigenism
Motion picture festivals
Motion pictures
Native peoples
Qualitative research
Recognition
Social problems
Sovereignty
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Description
Summary:This article examines elements of German reception of the Aboriginal Australian film Samson and Delilah (2009). There is a discrepancy between the film's recognition at the Cannes Film Festival and its less enthusiastic audience reception. On the basis of qualitative interviews with German viewers, this article traces some of the patterns of reception and shows that audiences did not recognize the cultural codes of Aboriginal sovereignty and agency contained in this film. Instead, Samson and Delilah has largely been interpreted through dominant German cultural frameworks on race and racism. The film's reception has thereby resulted in the opposite effect of a racialized construction of social problems conferred upon Aboriginal Australians. The main reason for different comprehension of the film's cultural codes, as this study argues, lies in the lacking rendition of culturally unfamiliar codes.
ISSN:1030-4312
1469-3666
DOI:10.1080/10304312.2014.942025