What has to be identified is the use to which a particular text is put, its function within a particular conjuncture, in particular institutional spaces, and in relation to particular audiences. (Neale 1977:39-40) Discussions of ethnographic authority and representation usually focus on ethnographic research and writing, concerned primarily with the production of ethnographies and their conventional shape as texts. Perhaps because they assume an ideal reader of academic peers, and therefore a shared framework for assessing the ethnographic authority of representations, these discussions tend to slight consideration of the text's reception, particularly by audiences outside of academic circles. Aside from a small literature looking at the subject group's reception of ethnographics featuring themselves, exemplified by Steven Feld's reflections on the Kaluli reaction to Sound and Sentiment (Feld 1987), reflexive analyses which consider representation and authority in the context of other audiences' reception of ethnographic works are rare.1 Ethnographic film presents us with an even murkier situation. Given the financial resources necessary for film/video production, most producers need to obtain funding from government agencies, and vindicate their budget requests by gearing their work to wider, more audiences. The reactions of these general audiences are diverse, somewhat unpredictable, and divergent from those within academia. There are other frameworks for interpreting representations and assessing their authority, and we need to relativize our analyses of ethnographic authority to address these other interpretive positions. At the outset, the audience's reception of a film hinges on their receptivity towards the subject. With works about other cultures, reception is influenced by potential audiences' interest in those particular cultures. Jeff Titon, Tom Rankin and I encountered a complex mix of reactions with the reception of Powerhouse for God (1989), an ethnographic documentary about an Appalachian Baptist church and its preacher. Powerhousefor God has been well received in academic presentations to audiences of folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and anthropologists, but seems to be fighting against