White is the new brown

Saverimuttu, Meenaatchi 2020. White is the new brown. Velayutham, Selvaraj and Devadas, Vijay, eds. Tamil Cinema in the Twenty-First Century Caste, Gender and Technology, London: Routledge, pp. 99-114. (10.4324/9780429244025-8)

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Abstract

Throughout this chapter, the author considers how Amy Jackson, an 'outsider', as a white woman of British origin, has emerged as a prominent figure within Tamil cinema. However, this distinction has an important role in differentiating between ideas of whiteness as an aesthetic and social norms of acceptable behaviour in Tamil Nadu: two factors that equally contribute to Jackson's appeal. Whiteness as an aesthetic of beauty is clearly exemplified in both Rai and Jackson, who are respectively Western-enough and Indian-enough to switch between national and transnational contexts. On a basic level, Jackson's whiteness is not stigmatised as the people have seen it can be when viewed through the nativist paradigm of the Westernised woman. Simultaneously, Jackson's promotion as a glamorous figure on screen is aided by the idea of whiteness as a transnational aesthetic of beauty. In contrast, Gethu glorifies Jackson's ethnicity, in the newer tradition of Whiteness as a globalised aesthetic of beauty.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9780429244025
Last Modified:	19 Feb 2025 12:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/175958

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