Performing Whiteness

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Description

2003 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

Performing Whiteness crosses the boundaries of film study to explore images of the white body in relation to recent theoretical perspectives on whiteness. Drawing on such diverse critical methodologies as postcolonial studies, feminist film criticism, anthropology, and phenomenology, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster examines a wide variety of films from early cinema to the present day in order to explore the ways in which American cinema imposes whiteness as a cultural norm, even as it exposes its inherent instability. In discussions that range from The Philadelphia Story to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Foster shows that, though American cinema is an all-white construct, there exists the possibility of a healthy resistance to cultural norms of race, gender, sexuality, and class.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Performing Whiteness

2. Inventing Whiteness

3. White Face, White Space

4. The Bad-White Body

5. Performing the “Good” White

6. Performing the “Bad” White

7. Performing White Otherness

Works Cited and Consulted

About the Author

Index

Sujets

• Popular culture
• Ethnic studies
• History of film

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780791487358
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 36 Mo

Extrait

Performing Whiteness

Performing Whiteness



Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w Yo r k P r e s s

Published by

S t at e U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w Yo r k P r e s s , A l b a n y

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Patrick Durocher

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey. Performing whiteness : postmodern re/constructions in the cinema / Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. p. cm.  (SUNY series in postmodern culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0791456277 (alk. paper)  ISBN 0791456285 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Whites in motion pictures. 2. Race relations in motion pictures. 3. Social problems in motion pictures. I. Title. II. Series.

PN1995.9.W45 F67 2003 791.43'655dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002029182

For Wheeler

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List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

1. Performing Whiteness

2. Inventing Whiteness

Contents

3. White Face, White Space

4. The BadWhite Body

5. Performing the Good White

6. Performing the Bad White

7. Performing White Otherness

Works Cited and Consulted

About the Author

Index

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Illustrations

Johnny Weissmuller, white king of the jungle, in Tarzan, the Ape Man

Charlton Heston, slave, in the originalPlanet of the Apes

Heath Ledger, goodwhite knight, inA Knights Tale

Mae West and Cary Grant inIm No Angel

Mae West appropriates performative blackness in Im No Angel

Barbara Stanwyck and Theresa Harris inBaby Face

Butterfly McQueen, Joan Crawford, and Jack Carson inMildred Pierce

Black figures at the crucifixion of Christ inLa Vie du Christ

Glenn Langan inThe Amazing Colossal Man

FIGURE Hayes in10. Allison Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

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