ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 offers an interpretative framework for understanding films that have depicted epidemics-a framework that has inequality, (dis)trust, and vulnerability at the core. The chapter suggests that this framework is almost a product of the many complications in screening disease-either as the invisible and unseen microbe or as the visually unappealing symptoms. This introductory chapter provides a rationale for using cinema as a lens into societal responses to epidemic diseases, provides an outline of the book argumentation and overall structure, and provides an overview of the dimensions of the film database that this book is centered around-with some insights into the chronological development of the production of films that depict epidemic disease outbreaks.
