Film Studies

“This exceptionally talented and distinguished group of authors provides a detailed and careful study of the centrality of race within the imagery of classic Hollywood films and the comparative dimensions of ‘whiteness’ as a representational system.” George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness and Time Passages

Leading scholars address the myriad ways in which America’s attitudes about race informed the production of Hollywood films from the 1920s through the 1960s. From the predominantly white star system to segregated mise-en-scènes, Hollywood films reinforced institutionalized racism. The contributors to this volume examine how assumptions about white superiority and colored inferiority and the politics of segregation and assimilation affected Hollywood’s classic period.

Contributors: Eric Avila, Aaron Baker, Karla Rae Fuller, Andrew Gordon, Allison Graham, Joanne Hershfield, Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong, Arthur Knight, Sarah Madsen Hardy, Gina Marchetti, Gary W. McDonogh; Chandra Mukerji, Martin F. Norden, Brian O'Neil, Roberta E. Pearson, Marguerite H. Rippy, Nicholas Sammond, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Peter Stanfield, Kelly Thomas, Herman Vera, Karen Wallace, Thomas E. Wartenberg, Geoffrey M. White, and Jane Yi.

Daniel Bernardi is assistant professor in the Department of Media Arts at the University of Arizona and editor of The Birth of Whiteness: Race and the Emergence of U.S. Cinema.

University of Minnesota Press
Printed in U.S.A.
Cover design by Brad Knorr