Razza cagna:mondomovies, the white heterosexual male gaze, and the 1960s–1970s imaginary of the nation

Abstract

This article investigates the role, reception, and socio-cultural, political relevance ofmondomovies in the context of late 1950s–early 1980s film and documentary. Themondogenre debuted with reportage films about sexuality in Europe and reached its pinnacle with Gualtiero Jacopetti’s assemblage films. The historical context in which this genre evolved, and white masculinity was rearticulated and positioned at the centre of the national imagined community, is mapped focusing both on gender and race constructions and on thegazeidentifying, encoding and decoding the sensationalist presentation of postcolonial/ decolonising Otherness. A brief review of some of the author’s published work on 1962–1971mondomovies introducesCannibal Holocaust(1979) and director Ruggero Deodato’s controversial reflection on the white, capitalist, sexist, Western and neo-colonial anthropological gaze.