Whitewashing the Movies: Asian Erasure and White Subjectivity in U.S. Film Culture - Softcover

Oh, David C

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1978808623 ISBN 13: 9781978808621

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Whitewashing the Movies addresses the popular practice of excluding Asian actors from playing Asian characters in film. Media activists and critics have denounced contemporary decisions to cast White actors to play Asians and Asian Americans in movies such as Ghost in the Shell and Aloha. The purpose of this book is to apply the concept of “whitewashing” in stories that privilege White identities at the expense of Asian/American stories and characters. To understand whitewashing across various contexts, the book analyzes films produced in Hollywood, Asian American independent production, and US-China co-productions. Through the analysis, the book examines the ways in which whitewashing matters in the project of Whiteness and White racial hegemony. The book contributes to contemporary understanding of mediated representations of race by theorizing whitewashing, contributing to studies of Whiteness in media studies, and producing a counter-imagination of Asian/American representation in Asian-centered stories.

About this title

About the Author

DAVID C. OH is an associate professor of communication arts at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1978808623
• ISBN 13: 9781978808621
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 210