Jim Crow and Internment in Green Book and George Takei’s Allegiance

Abstract

Contemporary political and cultural realities make the renegotiating of African American cultural images an urgent matter. A recent movement to improve the position of African Americans in the movie business has produced a new wave of debates. Current movies show a variety of approaches to defining those images. The success of Green Book has been viewed as a major achievement. It offers an oddly cheerful view leading to a happy ending, as strangers become friends. Today’s interracial movies contrast with the scant attention paid to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.