The Alien Whiteness of Scarlett Johansson

Springer ^ | December 4, 2019 | Sean Redmond

[Angelino97]

Taking up a discourse of idealised whiteness in conjunction with star theory, Sean Redmond frames white female stardom as a privileged yet restrictive state.

Locating Johansson within such a construction of stardom, Redmond looks to how her idealised white star image as resolved through her roles in Her, Under the Skin and Ghost in the Shell is simultaneously recognisable and alienating within these texts. As idealised white star, Johansson traverses the cinematic universe, moving with privileged access into roles, spaces and intimacies laid open for her. Yet as an unobtainable and non-reproductive idol, Johansson is also alienating, an embodiment of the loneliness, fragmentation and isolation that plagues contemporary (white) social existence...

In science fiction film one can see how the whitely markers of Heaven and Angel are transposed to the impressive vastness of utopian Space, and the figure of the Alien Messiah who descends to earth and is given symbolic transformative powers, such as the ability to heal, resurrect and, if wronged, seek vengeance. The Alien Messiah confuses and upsets binary reproductive structures, and is implicated in the non-reproductive framework of idealised whiteness since they are beyond reproduction and see it as a lesser form of evolution.

In Arrival, the Heptapods communicate in circular cryptograms which render time and space anti-chrononormative: they are beyond reproduction but allow Louise Banks, the whitely linguist in the film, to give birth again to the daughter that has already died...

Elizabeth Ellsworth calls this essential paradox the “double binds of whiteness,” whereby rationalised purity necessarily brings privileged white people closer to their own negation since they lack empathy and deny the sex drive that in the end would result in the eradication of the species.

In a great many science fiction films, the figure of the hyper-white scientist is presented as dangerous...

[NorthMountain]

To the author of this drivel:

“What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

[dfwgator]

Great movie.

[Varsity Flight]

Another manifestation of Jealousy.

“Thou shall not covet”

Satanic beneath sheep’s clothing.

[Paladin2]

Neither are popular with me, and I tend toward listening to “wymyn” singers.

Linda Ronstadt
Grace Slick
Alison Krauss
Dolly Parton
Emmylou Harris
Ella Fitzgerald
no shortage of et. al.

[NorthMountain]

James Downey’s delivery was epic.

[Adder]

Of course she’s an beautiful white alien from the planet Hotcheemama...

Thought everyone knew...

[Lazamataz]

Scarlett is the bomb. Why can’t I have her for a few weeks?

[Angelino97]

All that matters is mom. There is no such thing as half Jewish.

According to Jewish law, that's true.

According to the law of DNA, that's not true.

According to Mormon law, if the Mormons baptize a Jew after death, that person is Mormon.

According to Canon law, if a person converts to Catholicism, that person is Catholic.

We all have our preferred law. I prefer the law of DNA for ethnicity, and Catholic Canon law to determine one's spiritual peoplehood.

[Robert DeLong]

Great minds think alike. 🙂👍

[Paladin2]

There’s always mitochondrial DNA to track...

[Paladin2]

There’s always mitochondrial DNA to track...

[Angelino97]

True. And people around the Mediterranean and within Europe have heavily mixed with each other over the centuries.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"Whitely"? That's a new one.

The gentleman behaved whitely when he gave his seat on the subway to an elderly woman.

[Paladin2]

“Who’s jo mama....”

[Noumenon]

They’re both gyrating, autotuned 304s.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

The story I heard is that the European Jews got there primarily by working their way up the Italian peninsula over generations until they settled in places that ultimately became Poland, Germany, etc.

If they were a mostly insular group, either by choice or forced segregation, then they would have retained their unique genetic markers. However, if there was some intermarriage with local populations then those markers would be significantly diluted with some self-proclaimed Jews having no Jewish genetic markers.

[rockabyebaby]

Scarlett is the bomb. Why can’t I have her for a few weeks?

Colin Jost would not be amused!

[toast]

I show up for a few nice pics, and this is what I get?

[DeplorablePaul]

Incoherent gobbledygook.

I really like Scarlett in Don Juan. She was authentic. She is a working class gal.

[Angelino97]

There was a lot of intermarriage in Spain during the Muslim occupation, especially among the ruling elite. Intermarriage among Jewish, Christian, and Muslim nobles, merchants, doctors (i.e., the upper classes) was not uncommon.

I've read that 40% to 45% of Spaniards have traces of Sephardic Jewish DNA.