Tarzan, a Black Man: Toward a Critique of the Polit Economy of the Name of “Africa”
Since 1912, countless texts – novels, radio shows, comic strips, television serials, films – have produced and articulated representations of Africa in narratives featuring Tarzan, a character created by the US author Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). Taking the name of “Africa” as a reference, the...
| Autor: | |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Institución: | Universidade Federal da Bahia (UFBA) |
| Repositorio: | Afro-Ásia (Online) |
| Idioma: | portugués |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.periodicos.ufba.br:article/38589 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://periodicos.ufba.br/index.php/afroasia/article/view/38589 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Cinema África Tarzan Racismo Africa Racism |
| Sumario: | Since 1912, countless texts – novels, radio shows, comic strips, television serials, films – have produced and articulated representations of Africa in narratives featuring Tarzan, a character created by the US author Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). Taking the name of “Africa” as a reference, the texts which surround and inhabit the name of “Tarzan” belong both to a Western genealogy and to a cross-cultural history. After examining the economy of the global circulation of the “Tarzan” trademark, I give a brief and schematic description of Tarzan’s filmography, which allows me to interrogate what I call the occidentalist name-in-closure of “Africa”. At last, by means of a close reading of Jean Rouch’s Moi, un noir (1959) as a prism through which Tarzan’s global circulation can be interpreted and reinvented, I suggest possibilities of imaginative overflow, opening up the cross-cultural spacing of the writing of “Africa” as political economy of the name of “Africa”. |
|---|