Cannibals inside Colombia?

Ethnicizing imaginations of revenge, racializing imagery, culturalizing interpretations of the world. On the colonial coding of revenge in The Revenge of the Cannibals (1981)

Abstract

Drawing on cultural anthropological and cultural historical perspectives on the intertwining of (post)colonialism and gender, this article examines narratives and imaginations of revenge in Umberto Lenzi’s film Cannibal Ferox (1981). One aim of the paper is to outline the colonial coding of revenge through the deconstruction of pop cultural productions, particularly the significance of social figures such as the Colombian cannibals as cultural representations. Here, it is especially the colonial / imperial gaze, i. e. white positions, that shape the visual regimes, imaginaries and observer positions on the ‘other’. As a cultural artifact, the film refers to specific forms of materialized and medialized knowledge (production) that are not only virulent in popular culture, but have also been continuously (re)produced by philosophical, legal-historical, literary, media and ethnological research traditions since the 19th century.