Yella gal
Eartha Kitt's racial modulations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5152115 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Colleen Kim Daniher (Amherst College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 16-33 |
| Publication date | 2018-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Women & Performance a journal of feminist theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0740-770X • E-ISSN: 1748-5819 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0740770x.2018.1426200 |
| OpenAlex | W2792559325 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 21 |
This article investigates mid-century singer/dancer/actor Eartha Kitt’s ambiguous racial aesthetics, which ran the gamut from Eastern and Western Oriental sound and embodiment in dance, Afro-Latina voicings in song, and feline impersonation. Borrowing a figure from music theory, the author calls this performative aesthetic strategy “racial modulation.” She argues that while Kitt’s staged modulations of the black/white “yella gal” into “international” registers subverted white audiences’ assumed access to Kitt’s performing body, it also forged intimacies and associations with Asia and Latin America – geographies that, at the height of Kitt’s career, were implicitly linked to both U.S. Cold War imperialism and Third World decolonizing movements
Aesthetics · Art · Ballet · Dance · Diaspora · Latin Americans · Performative utterance · Political science · Sociology · Visual arts · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Music History and Culture · Race, History, and American Society
Cultures in Babylon
Bodies in Dissent
The Souls of Black Folk
Racial Geometries of the Black Atlantic, Asian Pacific and American Theatre
Race against Empire
Cold War Orientalism
Reading the Intersection of Race and Gender in Narratives of Passing
The Red Mask of Sanity
The Oxford Dictionary of Music
Yellowface
Babylon Girls
Nicki-aesthetics
Surface Reading
"Singing "Angelitos Negros
Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe
Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |