Transnational cult paratexts: exploring audience readings of Tartan's Asia Extreme brand. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pett, Emma
• Is Part Of: Transnational cinemas. Volume 8:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 35
• Page End: 48
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Asia Extreme -- affect -- agency -- audience studies -- encoding/decoding -- orientalism -- paratexts; Motion pictures -- Periodicals; Motion pictures and globalization -- Periodicals; Motion picture industry -- Periodicals; Motion picture industry; Motion pictures and globalization; Periodicals; 791.43
• DOI: 10.1080/20403526.2016.1251679
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2040-3526

Abstract

Abstract: Recent scholarship on the branding of contemporary cult Asian cinema for western audiences has frequently drawn on Said's seminal treatise Orientalism as a means to critique sensationalist marketing materials. Whilst the excessive character of paratexts produced by film distributors such as Tartan clearly facilitates such readings, in this article I argue that this oft-repeated criticism becomes problematic when employed indiscriminately to theorise, by extension, the audiences for these films. Drawing on a recent empirical study of responses to Asian Extreme cinema and its distribution in the UK and North America, I offer an intervention in this debate by constructing a more nuanced interpretation of the ways in which cult audiences articulate their attraction to cinematic representations of cultural difference.