The Subject of Film and Race is the first comprehensive intervention into how film critics and scholars have sought to understand cinema's relationship to racial ideology. In attempting to do more than merely identify harmful stereotypes, research on 'films and race' appropriates ideas from post-structuralist theory. But on those platforms, the field takes intellectual and political positions that place its anti-racist efforts at an impasse. While presenting theoretical ideas in an accessible way, Gerald Sim's historical materialist approach uniquely triangulates well-known work by Edward Said with the Neo-Marxian writing about film by Theodor Adorno and Fredric Jameson. The Subject of Film and Race takes on topics such as identity politics, multiculturalism, multiracial discourse, and cyborg theory, to force film and media studies into rethinking their approach, specifically towards humanism and critical subjectivity. The book illustrates theoretical discussions with a diverse set of familiar films by John Ford, Michael Mann, Todd Solondz, Quentin Tarantino, Keanu Reeves, and others, to show that we must always be aware of capitalist history when thinking about race, ethnicity, and films.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: What is Critical Race Film Studies?
Chapter 1: Key Developments in Critical Race Film Studies
First Generation CriticismSecond Generation Criticism
Separate and Equal: The Impact of Identity Politics
Chapter 2: Theorizing Race with a Wide Open Text: The Searchers
Searching for Closure, Ford, and Ethan
Chapter 3: Poststructuralism and the Neo-Marxian Subject
Critical Subjects, Cinema, and the Culture Industry
The Subject of Adorno's Contradictions
Racial Subjects and the Problem of Biological Essentialism
Chapter 4: Postcolonial Hazards: Edward Said and Film Studies
Film Studies' Poststructuralist Readings of Orientalism
What is a Saidian Methodology for Race in Film Studies?
Chapter 5: Postmodern Multiracial, Keanu Reeves
Hybridity, Postmodern Subjectivity, and Keanu Reeves
Multiracials and Postmodern Ahistoricism
Hybrid Politics in Film Studies
Cyborg Metaphors
Conclusion
A Materialist Method for Critical Race Film Studies
Bibliography