, to see if you have full access to this publication.
Book Titles No access
Screen Saviors
Hollywood Fictions of Whiteness
Authors:
|
Publisher:
2003
Summary
Screen Saviors studies how the self of whites is imagined in Hollywood movies—by white directors featuring white protagonists interacting with people of another color.
This collaboration by a sociologist and a film critic, using the new perspective of critical "white studies," offers a bold and sweeping critique of almost a century's worth of American film, from Birth of Nation (1915) through Black Hawk Down (2001). Screen Saviors studies the way in which the social relations that we call "race" are fictionalized and pictured in the movies. It argues that films are part of broader projects that lead us to ignore or deny the nature of the racial divide in which Americans live. Even as the images of racial and ethnic minorities change across the twentieth century, Hollywood keeps portraying the ideal white American self as good-looking, powerful, brave, cordial, kind, firm, and generous: a natural-born leader worthy of the loyalty of those of another color.
The book invites readers to conduct their own analyses of films by showing how this can be done in over 50 Hollywood movies. Among these are some films about the Civil War—Birth of a Nation , Gone with the Wind, and Glory; some about white messiahs who rescue people of another color—Stargate, To Kill a Mockingbird, Mississippi Burning, Three Kings, and The Matrix; the three versions of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, 1962, and 1984) and interracial romance—Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Forty years of Hollywood fantasies of interracial harmony, from The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night through the Lethal Weapon series and Men in Black are examined.
This work in the sociology of knowledge and cultural studies relates the movies of Hollywood to the large political agendas on race relation in the United States. Screen Saviors appeals to the general reader interested in the movies or in race and ethnicity as well as to students of com
Search publication
Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2003
ISBN-Print
978-0-8476-9946-9
ISBN-Online
978-1-4616-4286-2
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
204
Product type
Book Titles
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Foreword: A Nation of Sheep No access
Acknowledgments No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 4
1 Learning to Be White through the Movies No access Pages 5 - 14
2 The Divided White Self No access Pages 15 - 32
3 The Beautiful White American: Sincere Fictions of the Savior No access Pages 33 - 51
4 Amistad: Civilization and Its Contentments No access Pages 52 - 66
5 Mutiny on the Bounty: Civilization and Its Discontents No access Pages 67 - 83
6 Racism as a Project: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner No access Pages 84 - 99
7 Scarlett and Mammy Revisited:White Women and Black Women in Hollywood Films No access Pages 100 - 114
8 White Out: Racial Masquerade by Whites in American Film I No access Pages 115 - 132
9 White Out: Racial Masquerade by Whites in American Film II No access Pages 133 - 153
10 Black and White Buddies I No access Pages 154 - 170
11 Black and White Buddies II No access Pages 171 - 184
12 Conclusion: The Crisis of Whiteness No access Pages 185 - 194
Index No access Pages 195 - 202
About the Authors No access Pages 203 - 204
Similar publications
from the topics "Media Science, Communication Research"
