Description
Book Synopsis From the earliest accounts of contact with Europeans, Polynesians have been perceived as sensual and sexual beings. By the late 1800s, publications, lectures and stage plays about the Pacific became popular across Europe, and often contained exotic and erotic components. This book details the fusion of truth and fiction in the representation of Pacific Islanders, focusing on the sexualization of Polynesians in American cinema and other forms of mass communications and commercial entertainment.
With messaging almost subliminal to American audiences, the Hollywood media machine produced hundreds of tropical film titles with images of revealing grass skirts, scanty sarongs, female toplessness and glistening exposed male pectorals. This critical filmography demonstrates how the concept of sex sells, especially when applied on a large scale, shaped American social views on Polynesian people and their culture. Chapters document this phenomenon and an annotated filmography of s
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by Ed Rampell
- Preface
- Introduction: A Brief History of Polynesian Representation by the Other
- Part I—Race, Romance,and Representation
- 1. South Seas Cinema: Definition and Facts
- 2. Arriving in Eden: The Canoe Greeting Trope
- 3. Peeking Through the Ferns: The Lagoon Swim Scene
- 4. Climax of the Feast: The Sensual Dance Cliché
- 5. Solidifying the Conquest: Native First Kiss and Beyond
- 6. Sexual Appropriation: White Women in Grass Skirts
- 7. Other World War II Conquests: Prostitution in the Pacific
- 8. The Greetings Continue: Romance in the Tourist Trade
- 9. Breaking the Cycle: How to Change the Course
- Part II—Annotated Filmography of Polynesian Sexualized Tropes and Sexual Relationships
- Conclusion: Possible New American Enlightenment
- Polynesian Vocabulary of Interest
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
