Infectious Inequalities

<p>This book explores societal vulnerabilities highlighted within cinema and develops an interpretive framework for understanding the depiction of societal responses to epidemic disease outbreaks across cinematic history.</p><p>Drawing on a large database of twentieth- and twenty-first-century films depicting epidemics the study looks into issues including trust distrust and mistrust; different epidemic experiences down the lines of expertise gender and wealth; and the difficulties in visualizing the invisible pathogen on screen. The authors argue that epidemics have long been presented in cinema as forming a point of cohesion for the communities portrayed as individuals and groups “from below” represented as characters in these films find solidarity in battling a common enemy of elite institutions and authority figures. Throughout the book a central question is also posed: “cohesion for whom?” which sheds light on the fortunes of those characters that are excluded from these expressions of collective solidarity.</p><p>This book is a valuable reference for scholars and students of film studies and visual studies as well as academic and general readers interested in topics of films and history and disease and society.</p><p>The Open Access version of this book available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.</p>