1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910453143003321

Autore

Fenner Angelica

Titolo

Race under reconstruction in German cinema : Robert Stemmle's Toxi / / Angelica Fenner

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto, [Canada] ; ; Buffalo, [New York] ; ; London, [England] : , : University of Toronto Press, , 2011

©2011

ISBN

1-4426-6187-9

1-4426-7017-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (294 p.)

Collana

German and European Studies

Disciplina

791.43/72

Soggetti

Race in motion pictures

Black people in motion pictures

Race relations in motion pictures

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. A Changing Postwar Landscape -- 2. Toxi's Allegorical Narrative: Adjoining Reality and Fantasy -- 3. Genealogy, Geography, and the Search for Origins -- 4. 'Black' Market Goods, White Consumer Culture -- 5. The Reterritorialization of Enjoyment in the Adenauer Era -- 6. Intertextual Echoes -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Race Under Reconstruction in German Cinema investigates postwar racial formations via a pivotal West German film by one of the most popular and prolific directors of the era. The release of Robert Stemmle's Toxi (1952) coincided with the enrolment in West German schools of the first five hundred Afro-German children fathered by African-American occupation soldiers. The didactic plot traces the ideological conflicts that arise among members of a patrician family when they encounter an Afro-German child seeking adoption, herein broaching issues of integration at a time when the American civil rights movement was gaining momentum and encountering violent resistance.Perceptions of 'Blackness' in Toxi demonstrate continuities



with those prevailing in Wilhelmine Germany, but also signal the influence of American social science discourse and tropes originating in icons of American popular culture, such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Birth of a Nation, and several Shirley Temple films. By applying a Cultural Studies approach to individual film sequences, publicity photos, and press reviews, Angelica Fenner relates West German discourses around race and integration to emerging economic and political anxieties, class antagonism, and the reinstatement of conventional gender roles.The film Toxi is now available on DVD from the DEFA Film Library.