Mirror communities and straw individualisms: Essentialism, cinema and semiotic analysis

<jats:p>A pragmaticist alternative to the radical basis of identity using debates on African cinema is the objective of this article. Post-Freudian psychoanalytical film theory is thus debated from the perspective of a Peirceian pragmatism. Essentialism is critiqued. Position of the scholar is examined in terms of cultural proscriptions.</jats:p>