Race and the Suburbs in American Film , livre ebook

Race and the Suburbs in American Film
Race and the Suburbs in American Film

Edited by
Merrill Schleier
Cover: Tony Espinoza and Noah Jupe in Suburbicon (Black Bear Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment, Huahua Media, Silver Pictures, Smokehouse Pictures, 2017), directed by George Clooney. Courtesy of Photofest.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Schleier, Merrill, editor.
Title: Race and the suburbs in American film / Merrill Schleier.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press [2021] | SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438484471 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438484488 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021938473
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Passing Through: The Black Maid in the Cinematic Suburbs, 1948–1949
John David Rhodes
2 Take a Giant Step : Racialized Spatial Ruptures in the Northern Cinematic Suburbs
Merrill Schleier
3 “Where Have You Been?”: Bill Gunn’s Suburban Nightmares
Ellen C. Scott
4 The House They Live In: Charles Burnett, Indie Hollywood, and the Politics of Black Suburbia
Joshua Glick
5 “Guess Who Doesn’t Belong Here?”: The Interracial Couple in Suburban Cinema
Timotheus Vermeulen
6 Alienated Subjects: Suburban Failure and Aspiration in Asian American Film
Helen Heran Jun
7 Inhabiting the Suburban Film: Arab American Narratives of Spatial Insecurity
Amy Lynn Corbin
8 Living in Liberty City: Triangulating Space and Identity in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016)
Paula J. Massood
9 Geographies of Racism: American Suburbs as Palimpsest Spaces in Get Out (2017)
Elizabeth A. Patton
10 The Limits and Possibilities of Suburban Iconoclasm: Suburbicon and 99 Homes
Nathan Holmes
11 “A Perfectly Normal Life?”: Suburban Space, Automobility, and Ideological Whiteness in Love, Simon
Angel Daniel Matos
Contributors
Index
Illustrations
1.1 Gussie (Louise Beavers) foregrounded as a literally two-dimensional figure, her labor extracted twice over in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (H. C. Potter, RKO Pictures, 1948). Digital frame enlargement.
1.2 Gussie (Louise Beavers) is remanded to the background in the final shot of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (H. C. Potter, RKO Pictures, 1948). Digital frame enlargement.
1.3 Sybil (Frances E. Williams) vacuuming as Ophuls’s mobile camera sweeps past her in The Reckless Moment (Max Ophuls, 1949, Columbia Pictures). Digital frame enlargement.
1.4 Sybil (Frances E. Williams) occupies the background while dusting in The Reckless Moment (Max Ophuls, 1949, Columbia Pictures). Digital frame enlargement.
2.1 Spence (Johnny Nash) confronts his racist teacher (actress uncredited) in Take a Giant Step (Philip Leacock, United Artists, 1959). Digital frame enlargement.
2.2 Spence (Johnny Nash) stares longingly into the malt shop in Take a Giant Step (Philip Leacock, United Artists, 1959). Digital frame enlargement.
2.3 Spence (Johnny Nash), the prostitute Violet (Pauline Myers), and the blonde doll in Take a Giant Step (Philip Leacock, United Artists, 1959). Digital frame enlargement.
3.1 Death as frozen whiteness in Ganja and Hess (Bill Gunn, Kelly/Jordan Enterprises, 1973). Digital frame enlargement.
3.2 Hess (Duane Jones) nude, having killed Ganja, and seen as still artistic object and extension of the home in Ganja and Hess (Bill Gunn, Kelly/Jordan Enterprises, 1973). Digital frame enlargement.
3.3 Ganja (Marlene Clark) and Hess (Duane Jones) returned to the moment of the fall in the primordial and African-inspired Garden of Eden in Ganja and Hess (Bill Gunn, Kelly/Jordan Enterprises, 1973). Digital frame enlargement.
4.1 Harry (Danny Glover) arrives at the doorstep of Gideon (Paul Butler) and Suzie’s (Mary Alice) in To Sleep with Anger (Charles Burnett, Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1990). Digital frame enlargement.
4.2 The family gathered around Gideon’s bedside in To Sleep with Anger (Charles Burnett, Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1990). Digital frame enlargement.
4.3 Advertisement, Los Angeles Times , October 24, 1990, F5.
5.1 Theresa (Zoe Saldana) and Simon (Ashton Kutcher) caught in the act by Percy (Bernie Mac) in Guess Who (Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Columbia Pictures, 2005). Digital frame enlargement.
5.2 Simon (Ashton Kutcher) walking away from the home as Theresa (Zoe Saldana) enters it, the two separated by a white picket fence in Guess Who (Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Columbia Pictures, 2005). Digital frame enlargement.
5.3 Percy (Bernie Mac) intrudes on Simon’s (Ashton Kutcher) personal space in Guess Who (Kevin Rodney Sullivan, Columbia Pictures, 2005). Digital frame enlargement.
6.1 Ben (Parry Shen) cataloguing his activities in Better Luck Tomorrow (Justin Lin, Paramount, 2002). Digital frame enlargement.
6.2 Ben (Parry Shen) driving down the road with Stephanie (Karin Anna Cheung) in Better Luck Tomorrow (Justin Lin, Paramount, 2002). Digital frame enlargement.
6.3 The Cheng family’s eviction in Children of Invention (Tze Chun, Paramount 2009). Digital frame enlargement.
7.1 Muna (Nisreen Faour) working at White Castle in Amreeka (Cherien Dabis, National Geographic/Imagenation Abu Dhabi, 2009). Digital frame enlargement.
7.2 Jasira (Summer Bishil) waits for the school bus in her suburban neighborhood in Towelhead (Alan Ball, Indian Paintbrush, 2007). Digital frame enlargement.
7.3 Fadi (Melkar Muallem) with his cousin Salma (Alia Shawkat) and classmate James (Andrew Sannie), viewing anti-Arab graffiti on his car in Amreeka (Cherien Dabis, National Geographic/Imagenation Abu Dhabi, 2009). Digital frame enlargement.
8.1 Chiron/Little (Alex Hibbert) and Kevin (Jaden Piner) as children on the playing fields of Liberty City in Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, A24, 2016). Digital frame enlargement.
8.2 Overhead shot of the Liberty Square housing development. From Roshan Nebhranjani, “A History of Liberty City,” The New Tropic , March 13, 2017. https://thenewtropic.com/liberty-city-history-moonlight/
8.3 Chiron (Ashton Sanders) on the beach at the end of Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, A24, 2016). Digital frame enlargement.
9.1 Andre Hayworth (La Keith Stanfield) walking in a suburb at night in Get Out (Jordan Peele, Universal Pictures, 2017). Digital frame enlargement.
9.2 Screenshot of Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford) auctioning off Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) to guests in Get Out (Jordan Peele, Universal Pictures, 2017). Digital frame enlargement.
10.1 Mrs. Mayers (Karimah Westbrook) in front of her new home in Suburbicon (George Clooney, Black Bear Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment, Huahua Media, Silver Pictures, Smokehouse Pictures, 2017). Digital frame enlargement.
10.2 Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) taking a drag from his e-cigarette in 99 Homes (Ramin Bahrani, Broad Green Pictures, Hyde Park Entertainment, Imagenation Abu Dhabi FZ, Noruz Films, 2014). Digital frame enlargement.
11.1 Simon (Nick Robinson) and his family in front of their suburban home in Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti, Twentieth Century Fox, 2018). Digital frame enlargement.
11.2 Ethan (Clark Moore) in front of Simon’s station wagon in Love, Simon (Greg Berlanti, Twentieth Century Fox, 2018). Digital frame enlargement.
11.3 Simon (Nick Robinson) comes out to Abby in Love, Simon (Alexandra Shipp) (Greg Berlanti, Twentieth Century Fox, 2018). Digital frame enlargement.
Acknowledgments
This collection has been several years in the making. It is an outgrowth of my abiding interest in cinema and the built environment, especially urban spaces, and their relationship to representations of gender, class, and race. In 2016, I was invited by Stefano Baschiera and Miriam De Rosa to contribute to their anthology Film and Domestic Space (2020), in which I explored Japanese American masculinity in post–World War II cinematic interiors in general and the suburbs in particular. I want to extend my thanks to the authors for providing the initial impetus for this project. My chapter in their book led, in turn, to my panel on “Race, Ethnicity, and the Cinematic Suburbs” in 2018 at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, of which the present collection is an outgrowth. Subsequently, I was invited to contribute to Angel Daniel Matos, Paula J. Massood, and Pam Robertson Wocjik’s collection, Crossroads: Intersections of Space and Identity in Screen Cultures (2021) in which I continued my interest in race and the suburbs, by exploring the intersection of whiteness and queerness in Crime of Passion (Oswald, 1956). I presented this research in 2019 at an SCMS panel, presided over by Elizbeth A. Patton, entitled “Screenin