{"id":40200,"date":"2015-03-02T01:35:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T01:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40200"},"modified":"2021-11-23T02:21:49","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T02:21:49","slug":"the-mixed-female-figure-was-unofficially-accepted-as-a-body-onto-which-white-men-could-project-and-enact-their-sexual-fantasies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40200","title":{"rendered":"The mixed female figure was (unofficially) accepted as a body onto which white men could project and enact their sexual fantasies."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cIt is largely through the on-screen body of the mixed-race female that racial laws have been written and mixed-race issues have been explored. \u00a0The mixed female figure was (unofficially) accepted as a body onto which white men could project and enact their sexual fantasies. \u00a0Hence the popularity of mixed girls in chorus lines at all-white American clubs, known as \u2018caf\u00e9-au-lait cuties\u2019 in the 1930s (5), and as performers in otherwise white films (see the careers of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lena_Horne\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lena Horne<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Josephine_Baker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Josephine Baker<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nina_Mae_McKinney\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nina Mae McKinney<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dorothy_Dandridge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dorothy Dandridge<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fredi_Washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fredi Washington<\/a>). As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.luc.edu\/english\/faculty\/suzannebost.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Suzanne Bost<\/a> observes \u2018throughout popular culture and literature, debates about the nature of mixed-race identity are mapped out on the body of a woman because thinking about racial mixing inevitably leads to questions of sex and reproduction\u2019 (6). <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.warwick.ac.uk\/fac\/arts\/cas\/staff\/smyth\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">J. E. Smyth<\/a> (7) confirms that in this way, women embody the past, present and future of race relations; mixed women are thus symbolic of the histories of racial mixing and possibilities of integration and equality.\u201d\u00a0\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/zelieasava.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Z\u00e9lie Asava<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Beti Ellerson, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=40187\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Z\u00e9lie Asava: mixed-race identities and representation in Irish, U.S. and French cinemas<\/a>,\u201d <em>African Women in Cinema Blog<\/em>, (February 28, 2015). <a href=\"http:\/\/africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com\/2015\/02\/zelie-asava-mixed-raced-identities-and.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/africanwomenincinema.blogspot.com\/2015\/02\/zelie-asava-mixed-raced-identities-and.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt is largely through the on-screen body of the mixed-race female that racial laws have been written and mixed-race issues have been explored. \u00a0The mixed female figure was (unofficially) accepted as a body onto which white men could project and enact their sexual fantasies. \u00a0Hence the popularity of mixed girls in chorus lines at all-white [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17882,17881,245],"class_list":["post-40200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-african-women-in-cinema-blog","tag-beti-ellerson","tag-zelie-asava"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62347,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40200\/revisions\/62347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}