Gender and Ethnographic Film

Abstract

Ethnographic film emerged in the first part of the twentieth century in parallel with social/cultural anthropology. Like documentary cinema, it was understood to offer an objective representation in a scientific frame. Ethnographic film reflected the same masculinist sensibility as did anthropology more generally, and its representation of gender was unquestioned until the 1970s. Thereafter ethnographic films began to appear with women as their central subject, in some cases being directed by women filmmakers. The objectivity of anthropology began to be questioned along with the legitimacy of ethnographic film. Today, subjective approaches often by indigenous and local filmmakers have largely replaced the masculine authority of the traditional ethnographic film form.