Week 5: Ganja and Hess

The film this week is a perspective on the monstrous Other that I find intriguing because it's actively calling for sympathy for the characters, which I don't believe we've seen in this way thus far. Something that struck me about the Benshoff reading this week is what he says about media needing to appeal to a white dominated industry in order to find an audience: "the white main- stream media shape public opinion about black cultural products." It makes me think about the role of the viewer, or the relationship between the viewer and the main characters in Ganja and Hess. Ganja and Hess are both monsters, but the film frames them as the protagonists of the story and encourages the viewer to sympathize with them. What interests me about sympathy in this case as opposed to previous films we've watched, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is that the film itself calls for it. Sympathy for Leatherface is existent and complicated, but far from equally as prioritized as the entertainment value from his violence and monstrousness. Ganja and Hess doesn't prioritize entertainment over sympathy for it's characters. There's something about a film calling for sympathy from the audience for the monstrous Other that prevents the "normal" viewer from being passively unsympathetic. Is white-mainstream media's sort of non-response to this film just for the comparative lack of action packed entertainment or a way to ignore that call for sympathy for the monstrous Other? Probably both, but I do want to understand more about the relationship between emotional appeal for a "normal" audience, or white-mainstream media, and sympathy for the Other.