Abstract
This is a reflection about the discursive strategies used by the British film “Black Narcissus” (1946) when dealing with erotic and racial signs facing Christian and Indian cultures in a colonial context, in the era of the Hollywood Production Code. We propose a dialogue among the different premises of Georges Bataille, Octavio Paz and Michel Foucault who dissect the issue of human sexuality and it’s repressive mechanisms from different perspectives. We emphasize the need to expand the issue of eroticism beyond polarized notions such as prohibition and transgression when dealing with non-Western societies and their subtle gradations between the sacred and the profane.
Eroticism; Movies; Censorship; Orientalism; Racial Stereotypes; Signs/Colors