Race and the Suburbs in American Film (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema)

Explores how suburban space and the body are racialized in American film. This book is the first anthology to explore the connection between race and the suburbs in American cinema from the end of World War II to the present. It builds upon the explosion of interest in the suburbs in film, television, and fiction in the last fifteen years, concentrating exclusively on the relationship of race to the built environment. Suburb films began as a cycle in response to both America's changing urban geography and the re-segregation of its domestic spaces in the postwar era, which excluded African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinx from the suburbs while buttressing whiteness. By defying traditional categories and chronologies in cinema studies, the contributors explore the myriad ways suburban spaces and racialized bodies in film mediate each other. Race and the Suburbs in American Film is a stimulating resource for considering the manner in which race is foundational to architecture and urban geography, which is reflected, promoted, and challenged in cinematic representations. Merrill Schleier is Professor Emeritus of Art and Architectural History and Film Studies at the University of the Pacific. They are the author of Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 12 Introduction 14 Suburb Films—From Cycle to Genre 17 The Racialized Spatial Turn: Suburban Typologies, Suburban Neighborhoods 20 History of the Racialized Suburbs: American Dreams/American Nightmares 24 Racialized Production and Distribution of Suburb Films 29 Race and Bodies in Space 30 Contributions 32 Notes 36 References 40 1 Passing Through: The Black Maid in the Cinematic Suburbs, 1948–1949 44 Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House 50 The Reckless Moment 55 Notes 62 References 64 2 Take a Giant Step: Racialized Spatial Ruptures in the Northern Cinematic Suburbs 66 Black in the White Cinematic Spatial Imaginary 70 White Nooses around the Black Necks of the Cities 76 Class, Race, and Placelessness 79 Conclusion 83 Notes 84 References 86 3 “Where Have You Been?”: Bill Gunn’s Suburban Nightmares 90 Bill Gunn’s Working-Class Suburb 94 Place Out of Time: Afro (Near) Futurism and Suburban Portals 96 Still Life: Whites Aghast 97 Victim or Criminal? Scenes of Subjection and the Black Suburban Nude 100 Fields of Transformation: Wading through the High Grass 102 The Suburban Talking Cure 105 Conclusion 108 Notes 109 References 111 4 The House They Live In: Charles Burnett, Indie Hollywood, and the Politics of Black Suburbia 114 Visions of Indie Hollywood 116 LA’s Southern Folkways 118 Haunted House 121 Family Values and a New Black Cinema 124 Notes 129 References 133 5 “Guess Who Doesn’t Belong Here?”: The Interracial Couple in Suburban Cinema 136 “This Is My House, My Rules” 138 “It’s Not That He’s White” 144 “It Doesn’t Matter What I Say, You People Are Gonna Think I’m Racist” 149 Knock, Knock. Who’s There? The Other. 151 Notes 153 References 154 6 Alienated Subjects: Suburban Failure and Aspiration in Asian American Film 156 Suburban Pathology 157 Agency as Failed Enterprise 165 Conclusion 173 Notes 174 References 176 7 Inhabiting the Suburban Film: Arab American Narratives of Spatial Insecurity 180 Assimilation and Racialization in Post-9/11 America 183 Suburban Isolation 188 Teenage Alienation and Rebellion 191 Conclusion 195 Notes 196 References 198 8 Living in Liberty City: Triangulating Space and Identity in Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016) 200 Space, Race, and History 202 Space, Race, and Identity 207 Space, Race, and Aesthetics 210 Notes 215 References 217 9 Geographies of Racism: American Suburbs as Palimpsest Spaces in Get Out (2017) 220 The Suburb’s Hidden Racial Legacies of Exclusion, Violence, and Control 222 Racial Geographies of Institutional Segregation 227 The Sunken Place, Racial Amnesia, and the Importance of Collective Memory 229 Conclusion 234 Notes 235 References 237 10 The Limits and Possibilities of Suburban Iconoclasm: Suburbicon and 99 Homes 240 Notes 256 References 258 11 “A Perfectly Normal Life?”: Suburban Space, Automobility, and Ideological Whiteness in Love, Simon 260 Unpacking Suburban Spatiality and Whiteness in Love, Simon 262 The Critical Limits and Potentialities of Automobility in Love, Simon 268 An Unsustainable Fantasy 274 Notes 276 References 278 Contributors 282 Index 284