WOMEN AND FILM: REPRESENTING RACE AND ETHNICITY Emory University, Spring, 1994 Instructor: Maria T. Pramaggiore E:mail: mpramag@emoryu1.cc.emory.edu RELEVANT INFO: I taught this as a mixed undergrad/grad class (not my choice) and the reading was too heavy for undergrads, although a few stuck with it. Overall, the course worked very well, except for the dearth of readings toward the latter part of the course--partly lack of material, partly difficulty of tracking down sources. But, new work in this area is being published every day. I have included most recent works in the reference list. Also note: weekly discussion also included detailed textual analysis of the films in relation to the topics/issues for that week. I distributed handouts with film information (production personnel, actors) and discussion questions. "The poems of our day must be clad in steel. Poets too must know how to fight" Nguyen Tat Thanh (Ho Chi Minh) Description: This course will examine film representations of women, race and ethnicity in two contexts: mainstream Hollywood cinema dnd low/budget/independent and/or experimental films made by African-American women, Native American women, Asian-American women, Latinas and Chicanas. We will appraise whether feminist film theory, postcolonial theory, and/or cultural studies' discussions of race, ethnicity and sexuality account for the politics of representation in these films, in both formal and thematic terms. We will further raise the question of whether and how film can be a tool of resistance to hegemonic culture. TEXTS: Lester Friedman, ed., *Unspeakable Images:Ethnicity and the American Cinema* bell hooks,* Black Looks: Race and Representation* Patricia Erens, ed., *Issues in Feminist Film Criticism* (Note, this book might be replaced with Carson, Dittmar, Welsch, eds., *Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism* which just came out in 1994) Rosa Linda Fregoso, The Bronze Screen: Chicano and Chicana Film Culture Gina Dent, ed., Black Popular CUlture Mark Reid, Redefining Black Film See reference list below for additional sources. WEEK I FILM: Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) READINGS: Laura Mulvey "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" pp. 28-40 in Erens. Tania Modleski, "Vertigo" in *The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory* DISCUSSION: Feminist Film Theory I: Sexual Difference, Race and class in Vertigo WEEK 2 FILM: Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959) READINGS: Jane Gaines, "White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory" pp, 197-214 in Erens Tania Modleski, "Cinema and the Dark Continent: Race and Gender in Popular Film," in *Feminism Without Women* Robyn Wiegman, "Black Bodies/American Commodities," in Friedman, pp. 308-328. Lauren Berlant, "National Brands, National Body: Imitation of Life" in *Comparative American Identities* (ed. Hortense Spillers) Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, "Imitation(s) of Life: The Black Woman's Double Determination As Troubling 'Other'" in *Imitation of Life* ed, Lucy Fischer DISCUSSIONS: Historical Images of Arican-American WOmen; Feminist FIlm Theory II: Racial Difference WEEK 3 FILM: She's Gotta Have It (Lee, 1986) READINGS: Michele Wallace, "Boyz N the Hood and Jungle Fever," pp. 123-31 in Dent. Robyn Wiegman, "Feminism 'the Boyz' and Other Matters Regarding the Male" in *Screening the Male* (eds, Steve Cohan and Ina Rae Hark). bell hooks, "Selling Hot Pussy," in Black Looks, pp. 61-77. Jacquie Jones, "The Accustaory Space," in Dent pp. 95-8. Jacquie Jones, "The New Ghetto Aesthetic," *Wide Angle* 13 (July-Oct, 1991): 32-43. Michele Wallace, "Spike Lee and Black Women " in *Invisibility Blues* by Wallace DISCUSSIONS: Contemporary Black Cinema; Spike Lee WEEK 4 FILMS: Daughters of the Dust (Dash, 1991) Illusions (Dash, 1982) Just Another Girl on the IRT (Harris, 1992) READINGS: Mark Reid, "Black Fekminism and the Independent Film" in Reid Ada Gay Griffin, "Sexing the Moving Image" in Dent, pp. 228-33 Jacqueline Bobo, "The Color Purple: Black Women as Cultural Readers" in Pribram, ed, *Female Spectators* also in Diawara Hartman and Griffin, "Are You as Colored as That Negro? The Politics of Being Seen in Julie Dash's Illusions, "Black American Literature Forum 25(2), Summer 1991: 361-73. DISCUSSIONS: Black Women's Independent Cinema, Issues of Historical and/versus Psychoanalytic criticism WEEK 5 FILM: Slaying the Dragon (Gee, 1987) READINGS: Eugene Wong, ch. 1 in On Visual Media Racism: Asians in The American Motion Pictures. DISCUSSION: Hollywood history and Asian stereotypes; musicals; Suzie Wong WEEK 6 FILM: Surname Viet Given Name Nam (Trinh, 1989) READINGS: Susan Jeffords, "The Remasculinization of America" --Chapter 6 in book of same name. Trinh Minh-ha, "Surname Viet Given Name Nam" (screenplay) in *Framer Framed* DISCUSSIONS: Asians and War Films: Vietnam War Films (Full Metal jacket, Platoon) Post-Vietnam Films (Turtle Beach; Heaven and Earth) WEEK 7 FILMS: Two Lies (Tom, 1989) My Mother Thought She Was Audrey Hepburn (Jue, 1991) My Niagara (Lee, 1992) DISCUSSION: Independent Asian Women's Cinema WEEK 8 FILM: The Searchers (Ford, 1956) READINGS: Brian Henderson, "The Searchers: An American Dilemma," in Movies and Methods II, ed. Bill Nichols Rayna Green, "The Pocohontas Perplex: The Image of Indian Women in American Culture" Massachusetts Review, 16(4) 1975, pp. 698-714. DISCUSSIONS: Cowboys, Indians and their women; Western genre WEEKS 9-10 FILMS: And Woman Wove it in a Basket (Azzouz, Fanum & Kunecki, 1989) Navajo Talking Picture(Bowman, 1989) The Right To Be (Skye, 1994) Tenacity (Eyre--work in progress) DISCUSSION: Documentary and Ethnographic Film; spectatorship; reflexivity in film WEEK 11 FILM: El Norte (Nava, 1983) Zoot Suit (Valdez, 1981) READINGS: Fregoso, *The Bronze Screen*, Chapters 1, 2 &5 Francisco Camplis, "Towards the Development of a Raza Cinema," in Chon Noriega, ed., *Chicanos and Film:Essays on Chicano Representation and Resistance* DISCUSSIONS: Chicano film and politics; la Malinche and revisions in Chicana cinema; mestizo/a identity WEEK 12 FILMS: Despues del Terremoto (Portillo, 1979) How To Kill her (Simo, 1989) READINGS: Fregoso, Ch. 5 DISCUSSION: Chicana independent representation GENERAL REFERENCES: Black cinema Donald Bogle, *Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks* __________, Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America's Black Female Superstars* __________, Blacks in American Films anmd Television: An Encyclopedia* Thomas Cripps, *Slow Fade to Black: the Negro in American Film, 1900-42* __________, Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from WWII to the Civil Rights Era* John Gray, Blacks in Film and Television: A Pan-African Bibliography of FIlm, Filmmakers and Performers Peter Noble, The Negro in Films Gladstone Yearwood, Black FIlm as Genre Edware Guerrero, Black Frames Manthia Diawara, ed., Black American Cinema Mark Reid, Redefining Black Film Asian American Cinema Eugene Wong, On Visual Media Racism: Asians in the American Motion Pictures Russell Leong, ed, Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific Media Arts Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman/Native Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism __________, Framer Framed __________, When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender and Cultural Politics Asian American Women United of California, Making Waves: an Anthology of Writings by and about Asian American Women Indian/Native American cinema Michael Hilger, The American Indian in Film Ralph and Natasha Friar, The Only Good Indian... Gretchen Bataille and Charles Silet, Images of American Indians on Film: An Annotated Bibliography ELizabeth Weatherford and Emelia Seubert, Native American on Film and Video Chicano/a and Latino/a Cinema Allen Woll, the Latin Image in American Film John King, Ana Lopez & Manuel Alvarado, Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas Chon Noriege, ed., Chicanos and Film: Essays on Chicano Representation and Resistance Rosa Linda Fregoso, The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture