Performing difference representations of "the other" in film and theater

Includes bibliographical references.

Section I. Race and ethnicity. A conscience for Hollywood? : the 'social issue' films of Twentieth Century Fox, 1947-1950 / Jonathan C. Friedman -- Grounding race : Powder and the shifting terrain of whiteness / Dalton Anthony Jones -- Shylock : Shakespeare's sympathetic 'other' / Paul Pfeiffer -- The 'new marginality' : representations of the favela in recent Brazilian cinema / Tia Malkin-Fontecchio -- Liminal spaces in Faith Akin's Gegen die Wand/Head on : orientalism vs. globalization / Margarete Landwehr -- Fantasies on loss : melancholia and ethnicity in Israeli cinema / Raz Yosef -- Cinematic Asian representation in Hollywood / Jun Xing -- Passing : a reading on a Jewish woman's identity / Bonnie Morris.

Section II. Gender and sexual orientation. 'This manifest indignity' : Hollywood's portrayal of the gender integration of the Armed Forces in the World War II era / Melissa Ziobro -- Batting for the other team : masculinity, homosexuality, and sports in contemporary drama and film / John M. Clum -- Mestiza feminisms and Julie Taymor's Frida / Geetha Ramanathan -- The problematic ethnic and sexual discourses of Eytan Fox's The bubble / Jonathan C. Friedman.

Section III. The Holocaust, war, and genocide. Time and representation : generic transformations and historicist interpretations of Holocaust films / Ilan Avisar -- The bystander and the 'other' in Holocaust films / John J. Michalczyk and Susan A. Michalczyk -- Fiend, foe and friend : the German image in American World War II films / Christopher Thomas -- Representations of genocide in recent films / Edward C. Hanes -- Genocide and redemption in the modern Western / William L. Hewitt.

"Performing Difference is a compilation of seventeen essays from some of the leading scholars in history, criticism, film, and theater studies. Each author examines the portrayal of groups and individuals that have been traditionally marginalized or excluded from dominant historical narratives. As a meeting point of several fields of study, this book is organized around three meta-themes: race, gender, and genocide. Included are analyses of films and theatrical productions from the United States, as well as essays on cinema from Southern and Central America, Europe, and the Middle East. Topically, the contributing authors write about the depiction of race, ethnicities, gender and sexual orientation, and genocides. This volume assesses how the performing arts have aided in the social construction of the "other" in differing contexts. Its fundamental premise is that performance is powerful, and its unifying thesis is that the arts remain a major forum for advancing a more nuanced and humane vision of social outcasts, not only in the realm of national imaginations, but in social relations as well."--Jacket.