Managing orientalism: biography, performance, and the films of Sabu and Merle Oberon

ABSTRACT

Considering biography in the case of actors of colour involves something other than resisting dominant narratives about film history and recuperating effaced performances. It requires reflection on the instability of the narratives and performances of self. This article considers Merle Oberon and Sabu, two actors of South Asian descent who gained international popularity in orientalist roles in 1930s Hollywood and British productions. These actors did not actively try to subvert the roles to which they were assigned, but this does not necessarily render them passive and complicit. Athleticism in the case of Sabu and restraint in the case of Oberon deviated from the normative performances of orientalism, often in ways that contradicted the biographies circulating about them.

KEYWORDS:

• Orientalism
• biography
• performance
• cinema
• Merle Oberon
• Sabu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on the contributor

Babli Sinha is Associate Professor of English and Chair of Media Studies at Kalamazoo College. She is the author of Cinema, Transnationalism, and Colonial India: Entertaining the Raj (Routledge, 2013) and editor of South Asian Transnationalisms: Cultural Exchange in the Twentieth Century (Routledge, 2011).