Unbearable Whiteness of Gone Girls
Hullo dear readers. I wrote a short piece about whiteness, women and the missing persons narrative in popular media for Avidly, a site I very much admire. Here is an excerpt:
“I had barely considered the role whiteness plays in the missing persons narrative when I first read Gillian Flynn’s novel two years ago. Race comes up in the novel a couple of times but mostly Gone Girl is a story about white people who we are not necessarily cued to think of as being white. Their whiteness is not highlighted as something which has any bearing on the narrative events. Whiteness in the novel Gone Girl, as in so much of American mass culture, is a neutral character trait, the default setting on a character, the box that remains unchecked.”
Read the full essay here.
judgmental observer 