{"id":64153,"date":"2023-02-02T01:49:02","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T01:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=64153"},"modified":"2023-02-02T02:03:04","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T02:03:04","slug":"imitation-of-life-on-passing-between","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64153","title":{"rendered":"Imitation of Life:\u00a0<\/em>On Passing Between"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imitation of Life<\/strong>: On Passing Between<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Criterion Collection<\/a>
\n2023-01-10<\/p>\n

Miriam J. Petty<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor in the department of Radio\/Television\/Film
\nNorthwestern University, Evanston, Illinois<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2005, the National Film Preservation Board<\/a> of the Library of Congress<\/a> added the 1934 version of Imitation of Life<\/em><\/a> to the National Film Registry<\/a>, its roster of \u201cculturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\u201d films. Archivist Ariel Schudson\u2019s essay<\/a> marking the occasion touts the film as \u201ca defining moment in the history of women in film and a watershed moment for African American casting in Hollywood.\u201d Directed by John M. Stahl<\/a> for Universal Pictures<\/a>, and based on Fannie Hurst\u2019s<\/a> best-selling 1933 prefeminist rags-to-riches novel of the same name<\/a>, the film raises issues of gender roles, labor, race, identity, and the American dream in a melodramatic framework that might have otherwise been regarded as that of a mere \u201cladies\u2019 picture.\u201d Indeed, much of the film\u2019s action focuses on the domestic sphere and the intimate, homey matters regularly dismissed as women\u2019s work. But Stahl, like Hurst, uses domestic spaces to give audiences a closer perspective on such intimacies, employing the themes of interracial friendship and racial passing<\/a> as metaphor and provocation…<\/p>\n

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

In 2005, the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress added the 1934 version of Imitation of Life to the National Film Registry, its roster of \u201cculturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\u201d films. Archivist Ariel Schudson\u2019s essay marking the occasion touts the film as \u201ca defining moment in the history of women in film and a watershed moment for African American casting in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8413,8,6462,20],"tags":[33260,2367,27894,4253,4254,33259],"class_list":["post-64153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-communications","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-criterion-collection","tag-fannie-hurst","tag-john-m-stahl","tag-miriam-j-petty","tag-miriam-petty","tag-the-criterion-collection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64153","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=64153"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64159,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64153\/revisions\/64159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}