| dc.description.abstract | This article proposes to address issues of gender and ethnicity in performances
by Irish female film stars since 2000. In Acting Irish in Hollywood, Ruth Barton
has noted that it has been easier, historically, for Irish male actors than for
females to succeed in Hollywood as film “stars”. Indeed, the young Irish
woman has largely been avoided both in Hollywood film narratives (as a
protagonist) and by industry casting directors (as “star” material). As seen by
the relative ubiquity in the press of Irish male actors like Colin Farrell, Cillian
Murphy and Michael Fassbender, “Irishness” in contemporary Hollywood
remains largely the province of male actor-stars. Nevertheless, since 2000,
several Irish film actresses have achieved notable mainstream recognition
outside of Ireland through Hollywood-made or otherwise widely-released
films: Ruth Negga, Saoirse Ronan, Evanna Lynch and Dominique McElligott.
This paper examines the different ways in which, both in film and press
appearances, such actresses have negotiated their Irishness, as well as the
performance of Irishness, from the perspective of being female. I will highlight
the ways in which more traditionally “Irish-looking” actresses have often
suppressed the Irish side of their personas in the construction of their star
images (building on Richard Dyer’s theory of the star image/persona), while
in the case of the “off-white” (borrowing a phrase from Diane Negra) actress
Ruth Negga, her Irishness has rather been highlighted. This paper will show
that contemporary Irish female stars in Hollywood are rapidly destabilising
traditionally held views of Irishness as “white” and, more specifically, Irish
femininity as domestic/maternal, or indeed, conventional at all. | en |
