The White Savior Film: Content, Critics, and Consumption

Index

Index Page locators in italics refer to figures and tables. Academy Awards (Oscars), 1, 14, 22, 160 active reinterpretation, 130 Adams, John Quincy, 68, 69, 107 advertisements, 74 affirmative action, 77, 78, 85, 104–105 African-as-savage trope, 10, 60–61 agency, 126, 130–131 alcoholism of white savior, 43–44 Allport, Gordon, 163 Amazing Grace, 33–34, 42, 117, 162 American Film Institute award, 22 American Nazi Party, 12 Amin, Idi, 44–45 Amistad, 7, 14, 23, 68, 105, 107 Anglo conformity, 83 anti-Communist films, 13 Apple, R. W., 105 appropriation of token objects, 173, 174 “Are Whites Racially Oppressed?” (CNN), 6 art world, 73–74 Ask the Film Critics (New York Times), 79 assimilation, 8, 11, 41, 83–84, 103 attacking white saviors, 95–96 audience, 8, 16–17; and agency, 126, 130–131; appeasing white, 86, 98–100; film critics as influencing choices of, 72–74; and filmgoing as ritualized social activity, 75; how film is seen by, 126–127, 127–129; and structure, agency, and context, 130–131 audience opinions: black points of view, 136; cinematic racial stereotypes, 132, 146–148; color-blind interpretations, 132, 142–146; diversity as danger, 132, 134–137; diversity as exotic fetish, 132, 139–142; diversity as inherent good, 132, 133–134; dominant frames, 131–132, 132; embracing paternalism , 132, 152–156; films as propaganda, 135, 136–137, 158; ideal whiteness, 132, 156–157, 170–171; race as everywhere, 132, 132–142; race matters/racism exists, 132, 146–152; racism as normal, 132, 150–152; white defensiveness about race, 132, 144–146; white man’s burden trope, 132, 152–155; white pandering to people of color, 132, 137–139; white points of view, 135–136; white supremacy in modern film, 132, 148–152 Austin, Bruce, 74 authenticity, cinematic, 86, 98, 100–103, 172 author intention, 130–131, 158, 159 Avatar, 3, 14, 24, 28, 30–31, 51, 117; box office receipts for, 162, 162 awards, 1, 14, 22, 23–24, 67, 160 Axtell, James, 11 backlash, white (1993–1998), 6–7, 14–15, 66–67, 103–116, 106, 117; as discourse of racial neoliberalism, 76–78; grateful “others” and, 110; and morality personified, 106–108; 212 Index and nonwhites as dysfunctional, 111–113; and paternalistic figure, 105–110; and saving white saviors, 113–116 bad white (racist white character), 25, 26, 47–52, 166–167 Bagdikian, Ben, 19 Baker, Andy, 173 Balancing Acts: American Thought and Culture in the 1930s (Cooney), 13 Barthes, Roland, 130 “based on a true story.” See historiography, racialized (“based on a true story”) Basuroy, Suman, 74 Baumann, Shyonn, 73, 74 Becker, Howard, 73–74 Bell, Joyce, 86 Belle, 165 Benjamin, Walter, 101 Bernardi, Daniel, 15–16, 174 Berry, Halle, 14 Bertelsmann, 19 big-budget films, 22 Big Six media conglomerates, 19–22, 163 Birth of a Nation, 13–14, 153 The Birth of Whiteness (Bernardi), 174 blackface performances, 173 Black Hawk Down, 60 “The Black Pathology Biz” (Reed), 113 Black Reconstruction (Du Bois), 76 Black Robe, 34–35, 85 black self-esteem, 148 blaxploitation genre, 14, 149 The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (Lewis), 66 The Blind Side, 1, 7, 14, 66–67, 117; focus group discussions on, 131, 133–134, 136, 140, 143, 147–148, 153, 154, 155; nonwhites as dysfunctional in, 168 Blood Diamond, 24, 41, 59, 61–62, 69–70, 117 Boatwright, Peter, 74 Bobo, Larry, 165 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo, 77, 152, 168 Bonnett, Alastair, 7 bon sauvage character, 64 bootstrapping, 54, 58–59, 110, 118 Bourdieu, Pierre, 161 boxing, 10 box office receipts, 161–162 Brokaw, Tom, 104 Brooks, David, 3 Brown v. Board of Education, 14, 116 Buchanan, Pat, 85 Bullock, Sandra, 1, 2, 7, 14, 67 Bulworth, 23, 105, 108–109 Burke, Edmund, 60 Burr, Ty, 122 cable news networks, 77 cable television, 14 Cameron, Samuel, 74 Canby, Vincent, 93, 95 Cantril, Hadley, 163 celebrating difference, 86, 86–88 census projections, 5–6 Chan, Vera, 79 Charity, Tom, 123 Chatterjee, Subimal, 74 Chicago Defender, 2 Children of Men, 24, 32, 46, 117, 162 Church Arson Prevention Act (1996), 104 “The Cinematic Racial Order” (Denzin), 171 circuit of culture, 16 circuit of meaning, 16–17, 75 citizenship as white, 83–84 City of Joy, 36, 42, 85, 93 civil rights era, 7, 22, 77–78, 84, 94–95, 97, 102 The Clansman (Dixon), 14 Clinton, Bill, 105 Cold War, 14, 85 Cole, Teju, 7 Coleman, Robin Means, 14 collective memory, 70–71, 98 colonialism, 9 colonialist fantasies, 59...