Cosmopolitan pleasures and affects; or why are we still talking about yellowface in twenty-first-century cinema?

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorChan, Felicia
dc.date.accessioned2018-05-10T10:47:32Z
dc.date.available2018-05-10T10:47:32Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstractIt is now widely acknowledged that the postracial fantasies ushered in by Barack Obama’s two-term election success are now in tatters. Yet debates on yellowface casting practices in contemporary Hollywood (also said to have evolved into “whitewashing” practices), in such films as The Last Airbender (M. Night Shyamalan, 2010), Aloha (Cameron Crowe, 2015), Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson, 2016), Birth of the Dragon (George Nolfi, 2016), and Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders, 2017), have resurfaced in recent times. These press controversies seem almost anachronistic after a generation of “intercultural” artistic theory and practice, “diversity” management training, and numerous academic discourses on otherness and difference, including those on cosmopolitan theory and practice. This article reviews yellowface practices and debates in contemporary times and puts them in dialogue with cosmopolitan aspirations of being “open to difference”, and argues that the latter cannot be taken as self-evident. It offers a way of thinking about yellowface practice via cosmopolitan pleasures evoked largely through modes of consumption, which “hollow out” the subjectivity of the character being depicted. On the site of the intersection between representation and subjectivity is where the identity politics occurs, yet, rather than universalising the issue, the article argues that a cosmopolitan approach should take on board localised conditions and contexts of production and reception in ways that acknowledge the multilayered complexity of the issues at hand.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationChan, F. (2017) ‘Cosmopolitan pleasures and affects; or why are we still talking about yellowface in twenty-first-century cinema?’, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media,14, pp. 41–60. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.14.02en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.14.02
dc.identifier.endpage60
dc.identifier.issn2009-4078
dc.identifier.issued14
dc.identifier.journalabbrevAlphaville
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage41
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/6060
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.urihttp://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue14/ArticleChan.pdf
dc.rights© 2017, The Author(s)en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectPostracialen
dc.subjectYellowfaceen
dc.subjectCastingen
dc.subjectWhitewashingen
dc.subjectDifferenceen
dc.subjectDiversityen
dc.subjectIdentity politicsen
dc.subjectCosmopolitanen
dc.subjectThe Last Airbenderen
dc.subjectAlohaen
dc.subjectDoctor Strangeen
dc.subjectBirth of the Dragonen
dc.subjectGhost in the Shellen
dc.titleCosmopolitan pleasures and affects; or why are we still talking about yellowface in twenty-first-century cinema?en
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
ArticleChan issue 14.pdf
Size:
807.15 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Published Version
Download
Collections
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 14: For a Cosmopolitan Cinema