{"id":56794,"date":"2018-08-22T04:01:37","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T04:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56794"},"modified":"2018-08-22T04:01:37","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T04:01:37","slug":"the-passing-genre-overlooks-questions-of-colourism-treats-racial-identity-as-rigid-and-fixed-and-the-complexities-of-the-mixed-race-experience-are-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56794","title":{"rendered":"The [passing] genre overlooks questions of colourism, treats racial identity as rigid and fixed, and the complexities of the mixed-race experience are ignored."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>The [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=5864\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passing<\/a>] genre overlooks questions of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Discrimination_based_on_skin_color\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">colourism<\/a>, treats racial identity as rigid and fixed, and the complexities of the mixed-race experience are ignored. And then there is the issue of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/optics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">optics<\/a>. It is tricky for the passing character to move from page to screen. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_M._Stahl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">[John M.] Stahl\u2019s<\/a> selection of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fredi_Washington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">[Fredi] Washington<\/a> for the role of Peola [in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Imitation_of_Life_(1934_film)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Imitation of Life<\/em><\/a> (1934)] was hugely progressive for the 1930s. Not only did he give an actor who identified as black a significant role, but the film\u2019s monochrome palette meant that Washington really looked white, which petrified southern segregationists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Janine Bradbury, \u201c\u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56781\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Passing for white\u2019: how a taboo film genre is being revived to expose racial privilege<\/a>,\u201d <em>The Guardian<\/em>, August 20, 2018. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2018\/aug\/20\/passing-film-rebecca-hall-black-white-us-rac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/film\/2018\/aug\/20\/passing-film-rebecca-hall-black-white-us-rac<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The [passing] genre overlooks questions of colourism, treats racial identity as rigid and fixed, and the complexities of the mixed-race experience are ignored. And then there is the issue of optics. It is tricky for the passing character to move from page to screen. [John M.] Stahl\u2019s selection of [Fredi] Washington for the role of [&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":[9754,28934,27894,2103],"class_list":["post-56794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-fredi-washington","tag-janine-bradbury","tag-john-m-stahl","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56794","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=56794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56795,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56794\/revisions\/56795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}