Representing the Ambivalence of Community

Abstract

Cinema and Community explores the way in which the highly ambivalent idea and practice of community has been represented in a number of different contexts in mainstream cinema. One aspect of this merits particular attention as it will crop up frequently throughout the book, albeit in different guises. I refer to the way in which many mainstream films focus on community boundaries and how these films reveal practices of inclusion and exclusion, of unification and separation and of identity and difference. Crossing and guarding community boundaries and managing inclusive and exclusive practices raise some important ethical issues.