White Lies and Allies in Contemporary Black Media

Emily Ruth Rutter is Associate Dean of the Honors College and Associate Professor of English at Ball State University. She is author of Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line, The Blues Muse: Race, Gender, and Musical Celebrity in American Poetry, and Black Celebrity: Contemporary Representations of Postbellum Athletes and Artists. She is co-editor of Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era. Her scholarship appears in African American Review, MELUS, and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, among other journals and edited collections.

• 1. Ally Betrayal: The Performance of White Wokeness in Jordan Peele’s Get Out 2. ‘Skin in the Game’: Black Empowerment and White Antiracist Identity Development in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman 3. Black Gazes and White Women: Reconfiguring the Female Foursome Formula in Issa Rae’s Insecure and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It 4. Ally Satire and Accountability in Justin Simien’s Dear White People

“High praise for Emily Rutter’s White Lies and Allies in Contemporary Black Media. Skillfully showcasing the innovative work of Jordan Peele, Issa Rae, Spike Lee, and others, Rutter astutely illuminates what happens when Black media producers train a “Black gaze” on the “White ally figure” in film and television. Featuring diverse iterations of this figure—ranging from the performative to the progressive—Rutter examines how Black screenwriters, directors, and showrunners explore white privilege and possibilities for racial solidarity. Expertly addressing a critical gap on this topic during turbulent political times, this book offers fresh insights for scholars and activists, alike.”Kathy Glass, Associate Professor of English, Duquesne University, USA