Pacific Studies Journal
Abstract
This article considers representations of Polynesian women in two early Hollywood films: Moana (1926) and Tabu (1931). It ponders the tensions not just between the cinematic visions of Robert Flaherty and F. W. Murnau, but between ethnographic recuperations and romantic celebrations of Polynesian women, in the light of de Lauretis’s contentions (in Technologies of Gender, 1987) that gendered identities are neither fixed nor immutable, but shifting and fluid effects.
Recommended Citation
Jolly, Margaret
(1997)
"WHITE SHADOWS IN THE DARKNESS: REPRESENTATIONS OF POLYNESIAN WOMEN IN EARLY CINEMA,"
Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 20:
No.
4, Article 10.
Available at:
https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol20/iss4/10
Included in
Film and Media Studies Commons, History of the Pacific Islands Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Sociology Commons, Women's Studies Commons