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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Being lost: tourism, risk and vulnerability in the post-‘9/11’ entertainment industry

subject

description

This study explores the ways in which the post-‘9/11’ film industry employs tourism as a plot that re-creates mythical imageries of the ‘West’ in relation to a radical ‘other’. Reflecting on sociological and psychological concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘risk’, the authors undertake a content analysis of four ‘horror’ or ‘terror’ films and reveal complex discourses linked to nationalist sentiment, political ideology, the power of expertise and public insecurity in the post-‘9/11’ USA. One interesting feature of the current horror-movie genre is the extent of violence and sadism exerted on Western tourists going abroad. Drawing on the image of the tourist as victim, the authors further discuss the tensions between mobility, hospitality and hostility, not only as a means to create cinematic suspense, but as underlying expressions of insecurity in the currently unstable global settings.