“Brown Looks: Theories of Brown Queer Filmmaking Since 9/11”

FAIN: HB-289574-23

Rebecca Kumar
Spelman College (Atlanta, GA 30314-4399)

Research and writing for two essays examining the self-representation of new categories of ethnic identification in U.S. media in the last twenty years.

“Brown Looks” examines how Brown queer filmmakers have shaped their own representation within American televisual culture since 9/11. A still emerging racial category, Brown has gained traction in the United States, owing to panic over border securitization and anxiety about national identity. Against mainstream media which overrepresents “the browning of America” in contradictory terms – either as a national threat or a sign of multicultural progress – this project studies how Brown queer independent films, serials, and comedy sketch shows reverse the camera, offering a gaze that deconstructs this neoliberal dualism. This grant will fund the completion of two essays that aim to develop the nascent field of Critical Brown Studies by closely reading media that has been integral to the self-racialization of brown skinned people in the United States.