Hollywood’s transnational imaginaries: colonial agency and vision from Indiana Jones to World War Z

Abstract

The concept of transnational cinema, in increasing use over the last decade, remains one whose sense and significance in the context of production, thematic organization and reception remains fuzzy, eliciting similar debates as the concept of globalization more generally did before it. The paper attempts to re-specify what the concept of the transnational could mean for film and to locate in the process some distinct variants or modalities of the transnational. The paper does this through an exploration of the production and aesthetics, politics and narrative structure of three Hollywood blockbusters, locating each within distinct global configurations of the contemporary political order, and identifying their isomorphism with wider public discourses and policies. The ‘transnational’ in these specific films describes, not merely a cross-national mix of production locales, actors, narrative elements and distribution venues, but a narrative imaginary that, conjoined with Hollywood’s global reach – its economy of pleasure - can engender a dynamic through which diverse audiences may be drawn into the perceptual and affective space of the neo-colonial or imperial order.