On a recent Patreon episode of Colors of the Dark, I heard a new (to me) term: para-cinema. In the same way that the paranormal lies outside the accepted bounds of normality and parapsychology lies outside the accepted bounds of psychology, paracinema lies (supposedly) outside the accepted bounds of (what many consider) cinema.
Paracinema includes what “mainstream” taste would consider trash. Low-budget horror, sci-fi, creature features… it’s a catch-all term for movies made and enjoyed by and for people whose idea of a good time doesn’t align with “serious” cinema.
The term was coined by film scholar Jeffrey Sconce in his 1995 article, “Trashing the Academy: Taste, Excess and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style.” I may try to get ahold of this article and write something up on it here.
I just got rid of about two bookshelves’ worth of academic texts, and I can already feel the urge to fill them back up with film studies books. Oh no…
Jacob N. Given 