Black-Yellow Fences: Multicultural Boundaries and Whiteness in the Rush Hour Franchise

Posted in Articles, Communications/Media Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2012-07-16 00:04Z by Steven

Black-Yellow Fences: Multicultural Boundaries and Whiteness in the Rush Hour Franchise

Critical Studies in Media Communication
Published Online: 2012-07-06
DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2012.697634

David C. Oh, Visiting Professor of Communications
Villanova University

The Rush Hour films disrupt the interracial buddy cop formula largely by erasing whites from the films. Despite the unconventional casting, the franchise has achieved “mainstream” popularity, which I argue is at least partly because the films construct Carter and Lee in an oppositional binary as a multiracial “odd couple,” converting Carter and Lee, the two lead detectives played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, into physical embodiments of blackness and yellowness, fencing in the perimeters of whiteness. Thus, whiteness is able to remain protected and undetected in the normative center. Like a physical fence, however, the boundaries are semi-permeable, creating narrative openings to challenge whiteness. Therefore, the Rush Hour franchise protects white normality but leaves it somewhat vulnerable at the margins.

Nearly 15 years have passed since the release of the film Rush Hour, and, to date, there have been no major Hollywood blockbusters outside the franchise with African American and Asian American leads in a buddy film or in any other genre. This is despite the fact that Rush Hour was an enormous box office success the film series has been one of the most successful franchises in the action-buddy cop genre (Box office mojo, n.d.). Although the box office is only one key indicator of impact, it is, nevertheless, noteworthy because the films financial success points at least in part to its broad cultural appeal. But, why is the film appealing? Is it that the racially progressive casting is indicative of racial progressiveness? If so, what makes its replicability so elusive in a media system that historically gobbles up commodifiable bodies? I argue that the film’s appeal may have something to do with its semblance of progressive casting that referentially constructs whiteness between the binary poles of blackness and yellowness. Through the metaphor of racial fences, I will point to the…

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