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- Title
YOU AND I... WE'RE THE SAME: MEN AND WOMEN OUTSIDE THE ROMANCE PACT.
- Authors
KANJERE, ANASTASIA
- Abstract
This article investigates the raced and gendered dynamics of films that feature a white woman and a black man as the two leads, a narrative phenomenon that has not yet received adequate scholarly attention. The article draws on examples from four films: The Pelican Brief (Alan J. Pakula, 1993), The Long Kiss Goodnight (Renny Harlin, 1996), I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004), and Hancock (Peter Berg, 2008). Hollywood's taboo on the depiction of interracial romance renders the relationships between these leads necessarily sexless; through an analysis of the texts, the article argues that it is the requirements implicated in the role of romantic companion to a man that limit and circumscribe the gender performance of female characters. Identifying four themes--similarity, intimacy, flexibility in gender roles, and containment--the article demonstrates that in the provisional digression from white patriarchal heteronormativity represented in these texts, moments of egalitarianism, intensity, and intimacy between the male and female leads are possible. The final theme of containment delineates this excursion outside the romance pact, which ultimately returns the narratives of the texts under consideration to approved, racially homogenous heterosex.
- Subjects
GENDER role; GENDER; BLACK men; EQUALITY; ROMANCE fiction; SPRAY painting
- Publication
Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 2020, Vol 29, Issue 2, p75
- ISSN
0847-5911
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3138/cjfs-2019-0020