Goona-goona epic
Exploitation film genre
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The goona-goona epic is a particular type of native-culture exploitation film set in remote parts of the Far East, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and the South Pacific.
Background
In Hollywood trade magazines "goona-goona" was a descriptive term for films or photos showing women of color with bare breasts, usually in a supposed spirit of ethnographic interest.[1] The use of the term as a film genre derives from the 1932 film Goona-Goona, An Authentic Melodrama of the Island of Bali by Andre Roosevelt and Armand Denis.[2] The term originates from guna-guna, an Indonesian word for witchcraft.[3]
Characteristics
The genre made use of orientalist and exoticist themes.[3] Examples included documentaries (often of questionable authenticity) and dramas, both of which rely heavily on travelogue and stock footage scenes (and sometimes fabricated scenes) of semi-nude native peoples performing exotic rituals and customs.
Popularity and decline
The semi-pornographic nature of the genre provided scandal for the conservative American general audiences of the 1920s and 1930s, which made it popular.[4]
Additionally, the genre grew during a time when Southeast Asia, particularly Bali, had become a popular destination among the Western public due to its perception as an "Eastern Paradise" compared to war-torn Western Europe.[5] As Western audiences began consuming more pornography, and as many colonized nations sought independence in the post-war era, the genre became obsolete.[4]