Race and Ethnicity in Pop Culture
General Sites
- Art Crimes. A visually rich graffiti art site.
- Asian American Filmography.
- Black Cultural Studies Web Site. Compiled by Tim Haslett, Nimmy Abiaka, and Paula Lee. Includes information about Manthia Diawara and Arthur Jafa.
- Black Film Center.
- Gender, Race and Ethnicity in Media. Several web pages compiled by Karla Tonella, University of Iowa.
- Hispanic Experience Filmography.
- The Movies, Race and Ethnicity. Excellent general resource from the University of California, Berkeley library, with sections on different ethnic/racial groups, bibliographies and links to online articles.
- Race and Ethnicity. A collection of works (articles, fiction, non-fiction, links, etc.) pertaining to issues of race and ethnicity.
Featured Books:
Bodyminds Reimagined: Disability, Race and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction (Duke University Press, 2018), by Sami Schalk.
Black Women in Sequence Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime (University of Washington Press, 2015) by Deborah Elizabeth Whaley.
Online Articles
- Black Masculinity and Visual Culture. An article by Herman Gray that discusses jazz men, rappers, the Cosby Show and Clarence Thomas.
- Cleopatra Jones: 007: Blaxploitation, James Bond and Reciprocal Co-optation. An article by Chris Norton exploring race and gender politics in the spy genre.
- Fear of the White Unconscious: Music, Race, and Identification in the Censorship of "Cop Killer." An excellent study of the issues of violence vis-a-vis rap by Barry Shank.
- Media Blackface: “Racial Profiling” in News Reporting. An article by Mikal Muharrar, for EXTRA!
- Morphing Out of Identity Politics: Black or White and Terminator 2. An article by Ron Alcalay.
- The Portrayal of Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in Televised International Athletic Events. A very interesting study by Don Sabo, et al. of American TV coverage of international games.
- Rap, Black Rage, and Racial Difference. An article by Steven Best and Doug Kellner.
- Savages,Swine, and Buffoons: Hollywood’s Selective Stereotypical Representations of Japanese, Germans, and Italians in Films Produced during World War II. An article by Ralph Donald.
- Race Matters, Media Matters. An essay by Chon Noriega on the importance of understanding race in visual culture in contemporary US.
Bibliography
[Few topics on popular culture can be adequately researched on the web alone. These reading suggestions are designed as beginning points for further offline study.]
- The Representation of the Black Male in Film. A critique by Christopher Miller of the cinema industry’s exclusion and stereotyping of black males: there aren’t enough good role models for black youths in films.
- Bird, S. Elizabeth, ed.Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Popular Culture.Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
- Essays range over two centuries and many forms, from “wild west” shows to Disney’sPocahontas.
- Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films.New York: Viking Press, 1973.
- Classic study (updated in 1998 edition) of African American stereotypes, from the silent film era to late 20th century.
- Churchill, Ward. Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians.Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1992.
- Blunt, often incisive, critique of issues ranging from genocidal Westerns to sports mascots to New Age wannabe Indians.
- Diawara, Manthia, ed. Black American Cinema.New York: Routledge, 1993.
- Excellent collection of essays on aesthetics, history, and reception of African American film.
- Fregoso, Rose Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
- The best study yet of Chicanas as subjects in and creators of film.
- Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition.Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
- Brilliant interpretation of a major Chicano art retrospective that raises key questions about the construction of high art vs. popular art among marginalized ethno-racialized groups.
- Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for “Blackness”.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
- Brilliant interpretation of the evolution of representations of African Americans in television news and fiction programming, from the 1980s to the present.
- Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film.Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
- Among the very best general works on African Americans and film.
- Hamamoto, Darrell Y. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
- Wide-ranging study that includes issues of internment, and the war in Southeast Asia, in addition to ongoing, everyday stereotypes of TV orientalism.
- Jhally, Sut.T he Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the Political Economy of Meaning in the Consumer Society.New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
- Strong study of how advertising texts shape racial, gender, and class beliefs and create a “consumer” consciousness.
- Jhally, Sut and Justin Lewis. Enlightened Racism:The Cosby Show,Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream. Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
- Combines audience surveys and textual analysis to look at how confusions of race and class in the US are reflected in and reinforced by Cosby’s mid-80s show.
- Lee, Robert G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture.Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999.
- The most comprehensive study to date on Asian Americans in pop culture, covering two centuries and many different cultural forms.
- Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
- Innovative study of relations between mass-produced pop culture and the realities of communal memory dimly present in those commodified productions.
- ———. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism and the Poetics of Place. London; New York: Verso, 1994.
- Incisive study of various musical ethnic subcultures and their complex negotiations with the dominant culture and their co-resisters in a global/local struggle over meaning.
- Lutz, Catherine and Jane L. Collins. Reading National Geographic.Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
- Two visual anthropologists study the racial, gender, and international politics of this influential journal.
- McNair, Brian. Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture.UK: Arnold Publishers, 1996.
- Sociology-based analysis weighing various arguments about the production and consumption of pornography; focused primarily on the US and Britain.
- Pratt, Ray. Rhythm and Resistance: The Political Uses of Popular Music.Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1994.
- Examines the political impact of spirituals, gospel, the blues, and rock ‘n’ roll in American culture.
- Reid, Mark. Redefining Black Film.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
- Important history of the black independent film industry that has long sought to counter and complicate mainstream Hollywood representations of African Americans.
- Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America.Hanover, NH: Published by University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
- Arguably the best book yet on rap, this study analyses both the political economic cultural roots of rap, and its textual meanings.
- Ross, Andrew, Tricia Rose, and Andrew Ross, eds. Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture.New York: Routledge, 1994.
- Excellent collection of essays on rock, rap, heavy metal, dance scenes, and the youth cultures that surround them.
- Tomlinson, John. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction.Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
- A fine, brief survey of issues surrounding the ways in which US pop culture may or may not be overwhelming other world cultures.
