The Hypersexuality of Race
Celine Parreñas Shimizu
(Author)
Description
Shimizu combines theoretical and textual analysis and interviews with artists involved in various productions. She complicates understandings of the controversial portrayals of Asian female sexuality in the popular Broadway musical Miss Saigon by drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with some of the actresses in it. She looks at how three Hollywood Asian/American femme fatales-Anna May Wong, Nancy Kwan, and Lucy Liu-negotiate representations of their sexuality; analyzes 1920s and 1930s stag films in which white women perform as sexualized Asian characters; and considers Asian/American women's performances in films ranging from the stag pornography of the 1940s to the Internet and video porn of the 1990s. She also reflects on two documentaries depicting Southeast Asian prostitutes and sex tourism, The Good Woman of Bangkok and 101 Asian Debutantes. In her examination of films and videos made by Asian/American feminists, Shimizu describes how female characters in their works reject normative definitions of race, gender, and sexuality, thereby expanding our definitions of racialized sexualities in representation.
Product Details
| Publisher | Duke University Press |
| Publish Date | June 01, 2007 |
| Pages | 352 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9780822340331 |
| Dimensions | 8.7 X 6.6 X 0.8 inches | 1.1 pounds |
About the Author
Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Associate Professor of Asian American, Film, and Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a filmmaker whose movies include The Fact of Asian Women (2002), which won four national festival awards; Super Flip (1997); and Her Uprooting Plants Her (1995).
Reviews
"An intriguing examination of the Asian femme fatale in cinema. . . . Guiding readers on a well-documented foray into the world of erotic cinema, Shimizu argues that these representations are expressions of a desire for better, more realistic representations of race and gender."--Teresa Coates "Curve"
"The book is a rigorous and intriguing attempt to reframe and recapture the self-determination of Asian American women in film representations . . . . Parreñas-Shimizu should be commended for her bold attempt to relocate the debate on Asian American women in film."--Valerie Soe "Afterimage"
"The Hypersexuality of Race promises to be an influential and perhaps notorious book. Refusing to shy away from the complexity of sexuality and its contradictory meanings, Celine Parreñas Shimizu does not distinguish between positive (or politically correct) and negative sex acts but rather situates Asian (American) women's expressions of sexuality in relation to racial formation, class consciousness, and other discourses of identity. She emphasizes context and contingency."--Peter X Feng, author of Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video
"I find The Hypersexuality of Race nothing short of brilliant, a rigorous and galvanizing scholarly endeavor that promises to make an immediate impact on the fields of Asian American studies, feminist theory, theater and performance studies, and film and cultural studies."--Daphne A. Brooks, author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910
Earn by promoting books
