Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 19221965 [Hardcover]

The growing scholarship of film censorship in America, and particularly, in the Jim Crow South sheds important light on the complex relationship between governance and popular culture. Melissa Ootens thorough study, Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia, 1922 1965, is a welcome addition. . . .She convincingly argues that issues regarding not only race but also gender, sexuality, and class informed Virginias movie censorship. . . .Ootens examination of how discourses of race and gender informed Virginias censorship board is a vital contribution to understanding cinema and its exhibition in the Jim Crow South.Ooten's Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia sheds light on the importance and relevance of film in shaping a hierarchical, racialized, and gendered society. It offers an interesting vantage point from which to view white supremacy and southern history.Melissa Ooten not only illuminates the tangled intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class in Virginias movie censorship program, but also deftly explores the public discourse and debates regarding state, local, and individual power over access to cultural texts.??This study adds an important layer to our understanding of film as a tool to both extend and challenge hegemonic power within the context of Jim Crow Virginia.??With its focus on state and local contexts,?Race, Gender, and Film Censorship in Virginia?is a significant addition to the literature on race and film and would be an excellent text for courses on film or American Studies.Ooten artfully tells the story of civil rights through the lens of film censorship in Virginia. The greatest strength of this fine book lies in the way Ooten recovers the voices of Virginiansfarmers, ministers, politicians, and mothersas they debated film censorship, the meaning of race and sex in filmand ultimately, wrestled with their own approach to modernity.?Her thorough archival research reveals in rich detail how Virginias film censors uslc-