ONLINE FIRST
published on October 9, 2024
Seth Vannatta
https://doi.org/10.5840/filmphil202410332
Shannon Sullivan¡¯s White Privilege and Antisemitism in James Gray¡¯s Armageddon Time
This paper investigates Shannon Sullivan¡¯s concept of white privilege through the lens of James Gray¡¯s 2022 film, Armageddon Time. Sullivan investigates the concept of white racial privilege and the problem with middle-class, white anti-racism. In Armageddon Time, the Graff family, ¡°good white people¡±, progressives with anti-racist intentions, actually strive to achieve the white privilege Sullivan analyzes. The dynamics of white privilege in the film are more complex because the family is Jewish. I argue that antisemitism provides a problem for Sullivan¡¯s analytical matrix regarding white privilege, provide an alternative strategy for dealing with ethnic and religious nuances within the category of whiteness and offer a conjecture as to why Sullivan relies on a mostly binary white and non-white analysis.