Visual Representations of Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary American Pornography
Berries Bittersweet: Visual Representations of Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary American Pornography by Ariane Renee Cruz A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in African American Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Leigh Raiford Professor Percy C. Hintzen Professor Patricia Penn Hilden Spring 2010 Berries Bittersweet: Visual Representations of Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary American Pornography © 2010 by Ariane Renee Cruz Abstract Berries Bittersweet: Visual Representations of Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary American Pornography by Ariane Renee Cruz Doctor of Philosophy in African American Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Leigh Raiford, Chair My dissertation, Berries Bittersweet: Visual Representations of Black Female Sexuality in Contemporary American Pornography interrogates how pornography, from the 1930s to the present, functions as an essential site in the production of black female sexuality. Closely reading a diverse pool of primary pornographic visual materials, across print, moving image and the internet, such as photographs, magazines, trade magazines, videos, DVDs, and internet website viewings, I argue that pornography offers an ambiguous casting of black female sexuality, simultaneously constructing the black female body as craved and contemned yet ultimately not merely other, but in-human (not woman). Pornography’s inscription of racial, sexual alterity on the black female body is both somatic and symbolic. After an overview of the history of pornography, its central yet liminal relationship to nation and oft ignored collisions with race, I unveil print pornography (photograph, cartoon and magazine) as a medium that ultimately speaks to the photograph’s task of visualizing a “real” and authentic racialized body.
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