Race and popular cinema: The rhetorical strategies of whiteness in city of joy

This essay analyzes the hegemonic representations of whiteness in contemporary Hollywood cinema. By specifically focusing on the 1992 Hollywood film City of Joy, this essay examines the rhetorical strategies through which whiteness is enacted in popular culture in relation to non‐white “natives” of the “third world.” The essay also illustrates the rhetorical intersections between whiteness and gender. A central argument of this essay is that an understanding of the politics through which non‐white groups are culturally marginalized simultaneously requires an examination of the politics through which whites are centered and legitimized in cultural practices.

Key concepts:

• Whiteness
• race
• gender
• colonialism
• media