Description
Book SynopsisBased on author's own experiences as a Filapina American filmmaker and as a spectator to urge a shift in thinking about sexualized depictions of Asian/American women in film, video, and theatrical productions, this book moves beyond denunciations of sexualized representations of Asian/American women as necessarily demeaning or negative.
Trade Review“
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“
The Hypersexuality of Race is an elegantly written, intellectually invigorating, and necessary addition to gender studies, Asian American studies, and moving images studies. Equally, as porn studies continues to gain serious academic interest, intelligent studies of race and sex like Parreñas-Shimizu’s volume will become indispensable.” -- Jun Okada * Journal of Asian American Studies *
“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 *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
1. The Hypersexuality of Asian/American Women: Toward a Politically Productive Perversity on Screen and Scene 1
2. The Bind of Representation: Performing and Consuming Hypersexuality in
Miss Saigon 30
3. The Sexual Bonds of Racial Stardom: Asian American Femme Fatales in Hollywood 58
4. Racial Threat or Racial Treat? Performing Yellowface Sex Acts in Stag Films, 1920–34 102
5. Queens of Anal, Double, Trip, and the Gangbang: Producing Asian/American Feminism in Pornography, 1940s–1990s 140
6. Sex Tourists with Movie Cameras and Prostitutes without Movie Cameras: Politicizing the Bottom in Southeast Asian Sex Tourist Movies 185
7. The Political Power of Hypersexuality in Asian American Feminist Films 226
8. New Horizons in Race-Positive Sexuality 267
Notes 275
Bibliography 301
Index 325
