Description
Book SynopsisA provocative theoretical critique of representations of race in socially engaged films made since the 1960s.
Trade Review“
Red, White and Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms is a provocative and challenging book. Wilderson exposes the darker side of cinematic narrative and the unspoken messages sent through film which reinforce the identities and cultures on all three groups mentioned, despite these identities and cultures being imposed rather than inherent. . . . A truly unique analyses of cinema, race, politics, power, society and identity.”
- Danielle Mulholland, M/C Reviews
“[An] exceptional and provocative book. . . . [T]he volume is clearly written, persuasively argued and – reflecting a particular strength of the book – immensely detailed.” - Adam Brown,
Media International Australia“Wilderson’s style of writing is persuasive while his passionate , uncompromising commitment to every word, passage, idea, in his book is undeniable.” - Säer Maty Bâ,
Cultural Studies Review“The work exceeds the typical trajectory of film writing, and Wilderson
writes with a conviction that can incite further thought, discussion, and even action. In a panel on literary activism at the National Black Writers Conference in 2010, Wilderson clarified his intentions: ‘The relationship of literature to struggle is not one of causality, but one of accompaniment.’ As such,
Red, White and Black is valuable reading for any filmmaker or theorist
interested in socially engaged cinema.” - Malia Bruker,
Journal of Film and Video“
Red, White & Black challenges scholars of film, race, ethnicity, American studies, and cultural studies to rethink many of the assumptions that animate our work. Pairing analyses of film representations of U.S. racial antagonisms animated by images of Blacks with those that work through images of Indians provides a new and exciting critical framework.
Red, White & Black provokes scholars to reckon with the political implications of Frank B. Wilderson’s call to think structures of Blackness, Whiteness, and Redness in the United States both in conjunction with and in contradistinction to each other.”—
Kara Keeling, author of
The Witch’s Flight: The Cinematic, the Black Femme, and the Image of Common Sense“
Red, White & Black is unique, incisive, and thought-provoking. The analytic frameworks that Frank B. Wilderson III develops surpass the conventional paradigms for exploring theory, race, power, and film in U.S. culture.”—
Joy James, editor of
Warfare in the American Homeland: Policing and Prison in a Penal Democracy“I have not read anything as striking as
Red, White & Black in some time. In this unsettling work, Frank B. Wilderson III theorizes the singularity of anti-Blackness as he refines our understanding of how political economy, popular culture, and law are shot through with identification and desire, pleasure and pain, sexuality and aggression. Anti-Blackness, which is carefully distinguished here from White supremacy, is not only an ideology and an institutional practice; it is also a structure of feeling with pervasive effects. This last, crucial point is glossed over by too many authors in their haste to provide rational analyses of and challenges to racism.”—
Jared Sexton, author of
Amalgamation Schemes: Antiblackness and the Critique of Multiracialism“
Red, White and Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms is a provocative and challenging book. Wilderson exposes the darker side of cinematic narrative and the unspoken messages sent through film which reinforce the identities and cultures on all three groups mentioned, despite these identities and cultures being imposed rather than inherent. . . . A truly unique analyses of cinema, race, politics, power, society and identity." -- Danielle Mulholland * M/C Reviews *
“[An] exceptional and provocative book. . . . [T]he volume is clearly written, persuasively argued and – reflecting a particular strength of the book – immensely detailed.” -- Adam Brown * Media International Australia *
“Wilderson’s style of writing is persuasive while his passionate , uncompromising commitment to every word, passage, idea, in his book is undeniable.” -- Säer Maty Bâ * Cultural Studies Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Unspeakable Ethics 1
I. The Structure of Antagonisms
1. The Ruse of Analogy 35
2. The Narcissistic Slave 54
II.
Antwone Fisher and
Bush Mama 3. Fishing for Antwone 95
4. Cinematic Unrest:
Bush Mama and the Black Liberation Army 117
III.
Skins 5. Absurd Mobility 149
6. The Ethics of Sovereignty 162
7. Excess Slack 189
8. The Pleasures of Parity 200
9. "Savage" Negrophobia 221
IV.
Monster's Ball 10. A Crisis in the Commons 247
11. Half-White Healing 285
12. Make Me Feel Good 317
Epilogue 237
Notes 343
References 365
Index 375
