White

Richard Dyer

Routledge, 1997 - Art - 256 pages

White people are not literally or symbolically white; nor are they uniquely virtuous and pure. Racial imagery and racial representation are central to the organisation of the contemporary world but, while there are many studies of images of black and Asian people, whiteness is an invisible racial position. At the level of racial representation, whites are not of a certain race. They are just the human race, a 'colour' against which other ethnicities are always examined.
In White, Richard Dyer looks beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness and argues for the importance of analysing images of white people. Dyer traces the representation of whiteness by whites in Western visual culture, focusing on the mass media of photography, advertising, fine art, cinema and television.
Dyer examines the representation of whiteness and the white body in the contexts of Christianity, 'race' and colonialism. In a series of absorbing case studies, he discusses the representations of whiteness in muscle-man action cinema, from Italian 'peplum' movies to the Tarzan and Rambo series; shows the construction of whiteness in photography and cinema in the lighting of white and black faces, and analyses the representation of white women in end-of-empire fictions such as The Jewel in the Crown, and traces the disturbing association of whiteness with death, in vampire narratives and dystopian films such as Blade Runner and the Aliens trilogy.

What people are saying

Review: White: Essays on Race and Culture

User Review  - Simone - Goodreads

This book is a game changer. It's so amazing. The scope and breadth of his argument is staggering. If you aren't familiar with the book he breaks it down like this in the introduction: "But this then ...

Review: White: Essays on Race and Culture

User Review  - Chuck Williamson - Goodreads

Sometimes I just want to give Richard Dyer a big, sloppy kiss.

About the author

Richard Dyer is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the author of"Stars, Heavenly Bodies, Now You See It: Studies in Lesbian and Gay Film, Only Entertainment "and "The Matter of Images".

Bibliographic information

• Title: White; Cultural studies; Cultural studies-Race and ethnicity
• Author: Richard Dyer
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Routledge, 1997
• ISBN: 0415095379, 9780415095372
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Art / Popular Culture