This essay relates our experience in a course that we have co-taught periodically called Honors Africans in Film. It is an upper-level, undergraduate course that engages honors students in watching and analyzing mainly Hollywood movies that are set in Africa. The challenge we present to our mostly U.S. American students is to examine both the representations depicted on film and to confront their own preconceptions of Africa and Africans. The feedback we have received over the years suggests that most students perceive the semester-long experience as eye-opening, promoting substantial self-reflection and the development of a critical perspective. In addition, the course makes it difficult for many to watch films about Africa in the same way ever again, such as the highly acclaimed and Academy Award winning Out of Africa (1985), or the comedy classic The Gods Must Be Crazy (1981). The course is centered on an interrogation of stereotypes and reflection on the tremendous difficulties encountered in uprooting and displacing them despite changing cultural, social, and political circumstances over time. Toward this end, perhaps the most challenging sections of the course are those in which we view relatively recent films. These include, for example, Blood Diamond (2006) or The Constant Gardener (2005), which incorporate a 21 century Hollywood concern for social justice and appear to pay closer attention to race and gender portrayals. Such recent films are generally presumed to do a better job than earlier productions of representing Africa and Africans, having learned and processed the lessons of problematic past representation. It does not take long, however, for students to see that old habits of representation die hard, and they note the clever ways that racism and sexism are represented in such newer films. We teach the course as one of a selection of “team-taught” courses that students in our college are required to take as part of the curriculum. We teach in a residential, liberal arts honors college within a large university, located on a satellite campus where students take all their courses at the honors level. The result is an immersive and scholarly undergraduate experience, with an emphasis on encouraging interdisciplinary thinking

中文翻译：

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好莱坞的非洲：种族、性别和刻板印象的教训

这篇文章讲述了我们在定期共同教授的一门课程中的经验，该课程称为“电影中的非洲人荣誉”。这是一门高级本科课程，让荣誉学生观看和分析主要以非洲为背景的好莱坞电影。我们向大多数美国学生提出的挑战是检查电影中描绘的表现并面对他们自己对非洲和非洲人的先入之见。多年来我们收到的反馈表明，大多数学生认为整个学期的经历大开眼界，促进了大量的自我反思和批判性观点的发展。此外，该课程使许多人难以再次以同样的方式观看有关非洲的电影，例如备受赞誉并获得奥斯卡奖的《走出非洲》（1985），或经典喜剧《众神一定疯了》（1981）。该课程的中心是对陈规定型观念的审问，并反思尽管随着时间的推移文化、社会和政治环境发生了变化，但在将它们连根拔起和取代它们时所遇到的巨大困难。为此，本课程中最具挑战性的部分可能是我们观看相对较新的电影的部分。例如，《血钻》（2006 年）或《不朽的园丁》（2005 年），它们融合了 21 世纪好莱坞对社会正义的关注，似乎更关注种族和性别刻画。人们普遍认为，这些最近的电影比早期代表非洲和非洲人的作品做得更好，因为它们吸取并处理了过去有问题的代表的教训。然而，用不了多久，让学生看到旧的表现习惯很难改掉，他们注意到种族主义和性别歧视在这些新电影中表现出来的巧妙方式。我们将这门课程作为我们学院学生必须作为课程一部分参加的一系列“团队授课”课程之一来教授。我们在一所大型大学内的一所住宿式文科荣誉学院任教，位于卫星校园内，学生在那里学习所有荣誉级别的课程。结果是身临其境的学术本科体验，重点是鼓励跨学科思维 我们将这门课程作为我们学院学生必须作为课程一部分参加的一系列“团队授课”课程之一来教授。我们在一所大型大学内的一所住宿式文科荣誉学院任教，位于卫星校园内，学生在那里学习所有荣誉级别的课程。结果是身临其境的学术本科体验，重点是鼓励跨学科思维 我们将这门课程作为我们学院学生必须作为课程一部分参加的一系列“团队授课”课程之一来教授。我们在一所大型大学内的一所住宿式文科荣誉学院任教，位于卫星校园内，学生在那里学习所有荣誉级别的课程。结果是身临其境的学术本科体验，重点是鼓励跨学科思维