Hawai'i and the Pacific in Film

We will examine the history and current state of cinema in and about Hawai'i and the Pacific. Our study will include early silent films, Hollywood musicals of the 1930s, and more recent war and romance films, as well as films featuring such past stars as Clara Bow, Dolores Del Rio, Bing Crosby, John Wayne and Elvis Presley. Much of the course will focus on how popular films have worked to encourage and justify Euro-American colonization of Hawai'i and the Pacific. The final weeks of the course will feature screenings of several recent, oppositional films by Maori, Kanaka Maoli and others, who provide alternative representations of the Pacific's past, present and future.