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WHITE
DIAMOND:
ELIZABETH
TAYLOR’S
ADVENTURES
IN
AMERICAN
EMPIRE
AND
THE
ECSTASY
OF
POSTCOLONIAL
WHITENESS
by
Gloria
Shin
A
Dissertation
Presented
to
the
FACULTY
OF
THE
USC
GRADUATE
SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY
OF
SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA
In
Partial
Fulfillment
of
the
Requirements
for
the
Degree
DOCTOR
OF
PHILOSOPHY
(CRITICAL
STUDIES)
August
2012
Copyright
2012
Gloria
Shin
Object Description
| Title | White diamond: Elizabeth Taylor's adventures in American empire and the ecstasy of postcolonial whiteness |
| Author | Shin, Gloria Yoo Sun |
| Author email | rice_punch@hotmail.com;gshin@usc.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Cinema-Television (Critical Studies) |
| School | School of Cinematic Arts |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-06-08 |
| Date submitted | 2012-07-31 |
| Date approved | 2012-07-31 |
| Restricted until | 2012-07-31 |
| Date published | 2012-07-31 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | McPherson, Tara |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Lippit, Akira Mizuta Marez, Curtis |
| Abstract | This dissertation examines the iconicity of movie star Elizabeth Taylor and theorizes that the amalgam of her onscreen and off screen images forms a textual body that serves as a metaphor for American Empire at the apex of its power. Taylor is also an exemplar of postcolonial whiteness, a social and political formation which she reveals is reified through the performance of a global citizenship that is characterized by encumbered transnational mobility and white noblesse oblige. ❧ This work closely investigates Taylor’s various iterations during her seventy years of unprecedented fame: her turn as the plantation mistress in a cycle of films who helps recuperate the colonial past as the U.S. emerges as the world’s greatest military power in the 1950s, her transformation as the ecstatic globetrotting oriental in whiteface whom Taylor constructs in part through her evasions of blackness in the 1960s and 1970s, and finally onto her work as the stalwart AIDS activist during the sexually repressive and politically conservative Reagan 1980s. In these various guises the star shows an anxious and captivated audience fearing the loss of white power after the official death of empire and the rise of black liberation movements that postcoloniality actually promises whites a carte blanche to experience a modernity based on an imperative of personal liberation, pleasure, and political agency without the burdens of race. ❧ Interpreting archival materials pertaining to Taylor in the Margaret Herrick Library and the Warner Bros. Archives and using work from critical race theory, postcolonial theory, gender studies, film theory and political theory including the notion of the possessive individual for whom American citizenship was invented to protect its subjects’ rights to freedom and accumulation, this work maps how Elizabeth Taylor is the singular figure who simultaneously glamorizes capitalism and romanticizes imperialism. Through her performances of exceptional whiteness in numerous media, including Hollywood films and countless photographs which imbricate her image as both excessively glamorous and strangely beautiful star, Taylor’s signification as an unapologetic and engrossing imperial figure is used to argue that whites are indeed deserving of the exclusive privileges guaranteed by racialized juridical citizenship. |
| Keyword | stardom; Hollywood cinema; race; performance; postcolonialism |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Rights | Shin, Gloria Yoo Sun |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-ShinGloria-1084.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | WHITE DIAMOND: ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S ADVENTURES IN AMERICAN EMPIRE AND THE ECSTASY OF POSTCOLONIAL WHITENESS by Gloria Shin A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (CRITICAL STUDIES) August 2012 Copyright 2012 Gloria Shin |
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