1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809984503321

Autore

Brasell R. Bruce

Titolo

The possible South : documentary film and the limitations of biraciality / / R. Bruce Brasell

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Jackson : , : University Press of Mississippi, , 2015

ISBN

1-4968-0412-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (313 p.)

Classificazione

PER004030HIS036120SOC031000

Disciplina

305.800975

Soggetti

Cultural pluralism - Southern States

Documentary films - United States - History and criticism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-291)000 and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; The Possible South; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction-Southern Discourse, Mediated Distinctiveness, and the Devaluation of the Audiovisual; Part I: Biraciality and Southern Discourse

Chapter One-"Experience our past as part of your future": Biraciality and Tell About the South, Cultural Citizenship, and Bi-Civic Heritage  Chapter Two-"God-created difference": Racial Performance, Regional Exceptionalism, and broken/ground                                                                                                            ; Part II: Biracial Denial One-Miscegenation

Chapter Three-"In slave time you know everything happened": The Racial Closet, Southeastern Expatriate Road Film, and Family Name  Chapter Four-Praying Pigs and Wooden Peg Legs: Racial Poaching, Redemptive Ethnography, and 1970's Southeastern Documentaries

Part III: Biracial Denial Two-Existence of Other Races and Ethnicities Chapter Five-"Wonder if our culture will survive": Racial In-Betweenness, Cultural Preservation, and the Sound of Ethnicity in Mosquitoes and High Water, Living in America, and Nuestra Communidad

Chapter Six-"So that we have our own color": Racial Negotiation, Textual Posturing, and Mississippi Triangle Chapter Seven-"Too much bad blood": Racial Legitimacy, Representational Strategies, and Real Indian; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography                   ; Index



Sommario/riassunto

"Using cultural theory, author R. Bruce Brasell investigates issues surrounding the discursive presentation of the American South as biracial and explores its manifestation in documentary films, including such works as Tell about the South, bro-ken/ground, and Family Name. After considering the emergence of the region's biraciality through a consideration of the concepts of racial citizenry and racial performativity, Brasell examines two problems associated with this framework. First, the framework assumes racial purity, and, second, it assumes that two races exist. In other words, biraciality enacts two denials, first, the existence of miscegenation in the region and, second, the existence of other races and ethnicities. Brasell considers bodily miscegenation, discussing the racial closet and the Southeastern expatriate road film. Then he examines cultural miscegenation through the lens of racial poaching and 1970s southeastern documentaries that use redemptive ethnography. In the subsequent chapters, using specific documentary films, he considers the racial in-betweenness of Spanish-speaking ethnicities (Mosquitoes and High Water, Living in America, Nuestra Communidad), probes issues related to the process of racial negotiation experienced by Asian Americans as they seek a racial position beyond the black and white binary (Mississippi Triangle), and engages the problem of racial legitimacy confronted by federally non-recognized Native groups as they attempt the same feat (Real Indian)"--