I agree with Stam’s stance on heightening trance religions to greater cultural importance. This is not to say that the religions are not important already, but that they lack significant means of disseminating them into popular culture. In order to achieve Stam’s idea of lifting trance religions to the respect and recognition of European and Abrahamic religions, there would need to be a greater form of distributing such cultural ideas. Whereas in Europe this is done through the church, Stam seeks to accomplish this through film.

I do however disagree with Stam’s relation to transgenderism and transracism as displayed in this text. I feel that he relates to African trance religions, though without Eurocentric stereotypes, with a liberal lens. While this is not a distinctly negative action, I think it fails to recognize that much of the world does not operate through the same world view. I think he fails to properly contextualize the gender and race views of these cultures and is instead imposing his views onto them. In doing so, he crafts an idea that due to this, these cultures are more moralistic and, therefore, better. I am not saying this is not true or possible, but I do think he fails to properly analyze his viewpoints on a foreign entity, which he does not contextualize enough.