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The 'White Savior' Post-Racial Hollywood? The ‘White Savior’ Concept in Selected 21st-Century U.S. Movies Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Jennifer WICHMANN am Institut für Amerikanistik Begutachter: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Stefan L. Brandt Graz, 2018 EIDESSTATTLICHE ERKLÄRUNG Ich erkläre an Eides statt, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstständig verfasst, andere als die angegebenen Quellen/Hilfsmittel nicht benutzt und die den benutzten Quellen wörtlich und inhaltlich entnommenen Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe. STATUTORY DECLARATION I declare that I have authored this thesis independently, that I have not used other than the declared sources / resources and that I have explicitly marked all material which has been quoted either literally or by content from the used sources. ii Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 2. Exploring the Concepts of Race, Ethnicity, and Racism .................... 5 2.1. What is Race? – Race as a Social Construct ................................................................ 5 2.2. Race vs. Ethnicity – Two Concepts of Constituting Identity ....................................... 8 2.3. What is Racism? – The Color-Blind Approach to Understanding Race Relations in the 21st Century ............................................................................................................ 9 2.3.1. What are Stereotypes? – The Practice of ‘Othering’ .......................................... 11 2.3.2. Obvious vs. Subtle: The Different Forms of Racial Discrimination................... 13 2.3.3. What is Color-Blindness? – Understanding the Perpetuation of Racist Notions in U.S. Society in the 2000s ................................................................................ 15 3. Constituting Whiteness through Hollywood Movies ......................... 18 3.1. “Maintaining as Colorless Its Color” – Whiteness as a Universal Concept .............. 18 3.1.1. “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” – The Concept of White Privilege ........... 20 3.1.2. The Concept of ‘White Supremacy’ ................................................................... 22 3.2. Defining Whiteness Through the Movies .................................................................. 25 4. Racial Representation in Hollywood Movies ..................................... 27 4.1. Why Analyze Movies with Regard to Race? ............................................................. 28 4.1.1. We are What We See – The Practices of Representation ................................... 28 4.1.2. Consumption of Hollywood Movies in the U.S. ................................................. 30 4.2. Racial Representation in the Hollywood Industry and Its Movies from a Historical Perspective ................................................................................................................. 31 4.3. Hollywood’s Interaction with Race and Color-Blindness in the 21st Century ........... 35 5. A Critical Analysis of the ‘White Savior’ Trope in Selected 21st- Century U.S. Movies ..................................................................................... 39 5.1. “Leaving a White Hero to Save the Day” – Definitions and Origins of the ‘White Savior’ Narrative in Hollywood Movies .................................................................... 40 5.2. Stereotyping Whiteness and Non-Whiteness: Commonly Employed Stereotypes in ‘White Savior’ Hollywood Narratives ....................................................................... 44 5.2.1. White Innocence: Violent, Larcenous, and Sexual Behavior of Non-Whites .... 45 5.2.2. Reinforcing White Sophistication: Backwardness, Laziness, and a Lacking Work Ethic of Non-Whites ................................................................................. 47 5.2.3. Serving White Redemption: Spiritual and “Magical” Non-Whites .................... 49 5.3. Findings: Stereotyping as a Means of Perpetuating White Supremacy ..................... 51 5.4. The Characteristics of the ‘White Savior’ Narrative in Selected 21st-Century Hollywood Movies ..................................................................................................... 53 iii 5.4.1. “Crossing the Color and Culture Line”: White Intrusion into Non-White Space ................................................................................................................... 54 5.4.2. The Messianic Nature of the ‘White Savior’ ...................................................... 61 5.4.3. “White Suffering”: The ‘White Man’s Burden’ in Action ................................. 69 5.4.4. Emphasizing White Saintliness: The Savior and The Bad White ....................... 76 5.4.5. “The Color of Meritocracy”: Teaching How to be White .................................. 80 5.4.6. “Writing History with Lightning”: Racialized Historiography ........................... 84 5.5. Findings: The ‘White Savior’ Narrative as a Social Practice to Maintain the Racial Status Quo .................................................................................................................. 88 6. What is Wrong with the ‘White Savior’? – The Impact of the ‘White Savior’ Narrative on the Perpetuation of Racial Discrimination and Color-Blindness in the U.S............................................................................ 90 7. Conclusion: The Myth of Being ‘Post-Racial’ ................................... 94 8. References .............................................................................................. 97 8.1. Works Cited and Consulted ....................................................................................... 97 8.2. Filmography ............................................................................................................. 101 8.3. Webliography ........................................................................................................... 102 8.4. Figures ...................................................................................................................... 105 iv If the society allows existing wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that such wrongs have the support of the majority, and, as a consequence, they sail unchallenged into the future. − Barbara Jordan1 1 qtd. in Holmes 2000: 39. v 1. Introduction [M]ass media acts as: a horizon-widener; as an attention focuser [sic]; as an aspiration raiser; and as a creator of a development climate. As part of the decision-making process, media can indirectly help to change beliefs and practices; it can contribute to interpersonal communication channels; it can confer status; it can broaden the dialogue on national policy; it can enforce social norms; it can formulate tastes; and it can affect attitudes. (Olson 1989: 69) This quote serves to illustrate the power and impact of mass media on our personal, interpersonal, political, and societal lives. Movies – the primary focus of this paper’s analysis – are a huge part of mass media and have a great potential to influence our attitudes regarding race relations in pervasive ways. From their invention in the late 19th century onwards, movies have played a substantial role in American culture and even became the most popular and influential form of media until the mid-1900s (cf. Sklar 1994: 3). Even though different forms of media, such as music, books and newspapers, gained traction along with the digitalization in the 21st century, moving pictures are still ubiquitous as they provide viewers with the opportunity to flee everyday life by entering extra-ordinary worlds (cf. Dixon & Foster 2011: 189). The quote also sets up a critical framework for this paper and its analysis of depictions of whiteness in Hollywood movies. Hence, I will put forth an analysis of three Hollywood productions of the 2000s that employ the ‘white savior’ trope. The ‘white savior’ can be described as a “genre in which a white messianic character saves a lower- or working-class, usually urban or isolated, nonwhite character from a sad fate” (Hughey 2014: 1) or, as Vera & Gordon put it, the ‘white savior’ in movies is the redeemer of the weak, the great leader who saves blacks from slavery or oppression, rescues people of color from poverty and disease, or leads Indians in battle for their dignity and survival. (2003: 33) These definitions are applicable to the three selected movies, The Last Samurai (2003), Freedom Writers (2007), and Gran Torino (2008), as well as to many other Hollywood films produced over the last century. Therefore, these movies function as representatives for the ‘white savior’ trope2 and are used to show how white supremacy is perpetuated through their specific cinematic narratives. The depictions of whiteness and non-whiteness in the specific Hollywood narrative of the ‘white savior’ will be analyzed in order to shed light on the underlying racial order and its construction in 21st-century Hollywood movies. The ‘white savior’ trope is of particular interest as it is dealing with race relations in a highly implicit way, 2 Other films of the 2000s that can be classified ‘white savior’ movies include (but are not limited to) Finding Forrester (2000), Blood Diamond (2006), Half Nelson (2006), Avatar (2009), The Blind Side (2009), District 9 (2009), The Soloist (2009), and The Help (2011). Earlier examples of ‘white savior’ movies are Indiana Jones movies, Stargate (1994), Dangerous
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