{"id":62237,"date":"2021-11-13T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T20:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62237"},"modified":"2021-11-13T20:59:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T20:59:00","slug":"how-netflixs-adaptation-of-passing-reflects-the-novels-time-and-ours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62237","title":{"rendered":"How Netflix\u2019s adaptation of Passing reflects the novel\u2019s time \u2014 and ours"},"content":{"rendered":"

How Netflix\u2019s adaptation of Passing reflects the novel\u2019s time \u2014 and ours<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Vox<\/a>
\n2021-11-10<\/p>\n

Alissa Wilkinson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Ruth Negga<\/a> and Tessa Thompson<\/a> in Passing<\/em><\/a>. Courtesy of Netflix<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Rebecca Hall\u2019s film<\/a>, Nella Larsen\u2019s story<\/a> comes to life in black and white.<\/em><\/p>\n

Halfway through Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> 1929 novel Passing<\/em><\/a>, the book\u2019s protagonist, Irene Redfield, is feeling uneasy. She has just had a tense argument with her husband. Now, watching him fiddle with his hat, Irene is worrying: \u201cWas she never to be free of it, that fear which crouched, always, deep down within her, stealing away the sense of security, the feeling of permanence, from the life which she had so admirably arranged for them all, and desired so ardently to have remain as it was?\u201d<\/p>\n

Larsen\u2019s book is suffused with that sense of unease, the feeling that one wrong move might undo a life entirely, that the structures on which our families, routines, and even identities rest are precarious. And the new Netflix movie based on Larsen\u2019s book, adapted for the screen by Rebecca Hall<\/a> and starring Tessa Thompson<\/a> and Ruth Negga<\/a>, brings Larsen\u2019s prose \u2014 unease and all \u2014 to vibrant, visual life.<\/p>\n

The story transitions seamlessly to the screen in part because the \u201cpassing<\/a>\u201d of the title refers primarily (though not exclusively) to its main characters\u2019 ability, in a segregated society, to \u201cpass\u201d as white<\/a>. The story centers on Irene (Thompson) and a childhood friend, Clare Kendry (Negga), with whom Irene unexpectedly reconnects one day at a whites-only hotel. Both women are Black, having parents or grandparents who were Black, but both are also light-skinned enough for white people of similar social class to assume otherwise…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Rebecca Hall\u2019s film, Nella Larsen\u2019s story comes to life in black and white.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,8,6462,20,25],"tags":[32374,87,29469,28879,827,19672,18116],"class_list":["post-62237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","category-women","tag-alissa-wilkinson","tag-nella-larsen","tag-netflix","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-vox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62237","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=62237"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62239,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62237\/revisions\/62239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}