Travelling through cinema space: the film spectator as tourist

Abstract

This paper develops the notion of cinema spectatorship as a travel experience. Drawing on well-known and lesser-known works on spectatorship theory and cinematic space, it argues that part of the pleasure of spectatorship is imagining one is inhabiting a virtual space, distinct from the real space of viewing. Cinematic space is thus fundamentally ‘other’ but it is a contained otherness that allows the spectator both the thrill of experiencing something distinct from one's norm and the comfort of protection from this difference. The dynamic of contained otherness is most akin to the travel experience of tourism. While these qualities are inherent in the medium of fictional moving images, film form also plays a role in accepting a touristic gaze or questioning it.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Stephen Monteiro for organizing the original Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference panel that gave rise to this special issue. Feedback from Elizabeth Nathanson and two anonymous reviewers has helped immeasurably during the revision process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amy Corbin

Amy Corbin is an Assistant Professor of Media & Communication and Film Studies at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. She specializes in the representation of race and cultural difference in American film, and is specifically interested in how racial and cultural issues are symbolized by places and geographical relationships like travel. She has published essays on race and place in the volumes Southerners on Film and Native Americans on Film, and has an essay forthcoming in Black Camera. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on her doctoral dissertation entitled Traveling Spectators: Cinema, Geography, and Cultural Difference in America.