The Ethical Cringe, or the Dated Film as Revelatory Genre

In this essay, I propose both a definition and pragmatic reclamation of the dated text—and specifically film—not as endorsement or nostalgia camp, but embodied temporal revelation. particular, seek to reappropriate (now) racist, sexist, homophobic, otherwise ethically compromised film means seeing ideology, perceiving societal change, re-cognizing contingency every historical moment, including our own. Indeed, define here one that provokes experience contemporary ethics such. Presentist critiques past, however well-intentioned, inadvertently reify present its ideologies. They erroneously imply, like Francis Fukuyama, we have reached “end history,” values now are (and should be) eternal. The film, then, serves an antidote hubris opens onto greater possibilities for future.