Cities are intimately tied to the media that portrays them, in fact, they co-produce one another. Paula J. Massood points to the early race films of the 1920s as the beginning of a rich media tradition of delegating a Black metropolitan population's modern experiences and anxieties through film. Simultaneously, these early race films gave non-urban Black audiences a glimpse of the urbanity and early 20th century modernity they desired. Lisa Cartwright, examining Philadelphia (1993) and the HIV/AIDS crisis media portrayal, argues that the film embodies "a decomposing history of the city," in which the process of making the film assembles an unfolding, topographical narrative of both the city and, implicitly, the medium of film itself.
Who's Afraid of Philadelphia? tackles the phantasma of "a city in decline" as it is imagined and depicted in movies. Emphasizing cameos of angular buildings, industrial warehouses, and dusty backlots, I hope to bring to the fore the oft-ignored Philadelphian mise-en-scènes which, whether we like it or not, continue to inform our own perceptions and myths about this city.