Page 173 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

processes indicate the way in which Laura Gemser's casting in the film extends the connotations of
sexuality and ethnicity established in her role as Black Emanuelle. Equally, it also confirms the status
of both this character and Eva as sites of sexuality and death. This is confirmed in the finale of Black
Cobra. Here, Eva is killed by Judas' prized snake after she returns to tell him how she engineered
Julius' demise.
CONCLUSION

Eva's death in many respects represents the logical conclusion to the monstrous status Gemser
demonstrated as Emanuelle. In terms of Grant's analysis of the tensions contained within the cult and
exploitation text, the film recuperates 'that which has initially posed a threat to dominant ideology'.21
This is a figure that by virtue of her sexual and racial difference both attracts and repels, a figure whose
contradictory status is first elaborated and then expelled. In this respect the fate of Eva and the many
other Emanuelles before her highlight the monstrous constructions of female sexuality and ethnicity
haunting this cycle of European exploitation cinema.
On a somewhat more general level it also shows to what extent the figure of Black Emanuelle
is a site both of confirmation of European fears, and of a desire to sexually exploit those fears. The
Black Emanuelle cycle can be seen as addressing long-standing colonial traditions which seek to depict
the black body as an erotic and disturbing spectacle. At the same time, its generic self-consciousness
questions the gratuitous display of sexually ambiguous attractions of the exotic and monstrous 'Other'
for European cultures. This makes Black Emanuelle a transgressive icon indeed, continuously sliding
back and forth, culturally in and out of place.

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