Kobena Mercer’s classic analysis of the burden of representation on black British cinema in the 1980s identifies a critical requirement that the individual minority film “speak for” the community it represents and from which its creators come. Yet Mercer is also acutely aware of the limitations such expectations impose as well as the broader context in which they take place.

XREF: Relates to discussions of representation and the burden faced by artists from marginalized communities, a recurring theme in cultural criticism.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 161