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ThROUgh ThE SALLYPORT
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Depiction of Disease in film Promotes negative images
Ever since the age of globalization began following World War
lowed such a format, depicting
II, film media have regularly depicted invisible diseases.
aliens taking on the form of
human beings. Homosexual-
ity as sexual deviance also can
be depicted this way, as seen in
According to the first historical others. To depict contagion,
an educational film for military
analysis of these films, whose films have turned to the same
recruits from 1945. Using foot-
relevance is underscored by the production tools time and time
age of two men, one of whom
threat of recent contagions like again: documentary coverage,
is infected with a disease, work-
SARS and bird flu, the tech- animation or graphics, and
ing in close proximity to each
niques used to represent unseen voice-over. Independently, they
other—perhaps inappropriately
threats also contain embedded don’t convey the presence of a
close—the film cuts to an ani-
views of racial impurity and pathogen, but together, they
mated arrow showing that such
sexual deviance, inadvertently create a highly charged mixture
close contact has spread the
promoting negative images of of images and words.
pathogen from the first man’s
racism and sexuality. The filmmakers, Ostherr says,
Kirsten ostherr
bunk to the second’s, and then
In her book Cinematic Pro- do not necessarily raise issues of
phylaxis: Globalization and Con- race and sexuality intentionally. with a voice-over from the an-
to the entire bunkhouse and
tagion in the Discourse of World However, the impact of even chor, followed by an animated
beyond.
Health, Rice English professor unintentional negative associa- graph. A public health film from
In an era when outbreaks
Kirsten Ostherr details depic- tions can jump from the screen the mid-20th century used
such as SARS, bird flu, and
tions of the spread of disease in to the real world. “One of the similar devices. Documentary
foot-and-mouth disease con-
various types of film media and great consequences of the idea footage of an African village
tinue to threaten the global
argues that the problem boils of an underdeveloped world as connected to a pathogen in-
community, Ostherr knows her
down to a simplified division of source of disease is to isolate the cluded a voice-over, then moved
research won’t help prevent
the world. “Historically, these source or imply the ‘primitiv- to an animated image of a
such pathogens, but she hopes
films convey a sense that there’s ism’ of the origins of the dis- globe, with arrows showing the
it will make producers and audi-
a developed world and a devel- ease,” Ostherr says. “If a film path of the disease starting from
ences more aware of the impli-
oping world,” explains Ostherr, represents a place as incapable Africa and spreading around the
cations of such depictions.
“where the developed world of profiting from advances in world. Both of these portrayals
“If we can think critically of
is full of healthy white people healthcare or medicine, it’s hard are problematic, Ostherr says.
the images that are used,” she
and the developing world is full to convince a country of voters “In both,” she notes, “you get
says, “and if producers can un-
of nonwhite, diseased people that such a place deserves fund- the idea that African bodies or
derstand the subtle implications
spreading contagions.” ing for healthcare research and Chinese bodies are inherently
of the images they use, some
First sparked by an interest in support.” diseased.”
of these broader but more in-
how AIDS was covered in the A recent television news re- Films also can convey a
sidious problems may be dimin-
late-1990s, Ostherr analyzed port on bird flu, for example, “pathological other” who might
ished over time.”
a variety of sources, including started with a news anchor initially look like the audience
—Jennifer evans
public health films from the providing some background. It but who, due to some deviant
1940s, alien invasion films of then cut to documentary foot- behavior, is different and thus
the 1950s, and the 1995 Hol- age of Chinese people in close diseased. The alien invasion
lywood movie Outbreak, among proximity to dead chickens, films of the 1950s often fol-
8 rice sallyport
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