ABSTRACT
Throughout this chapter, the author considers how Amy Jackson, an 'outsider', as a white woman of British origin, has emerged as a prominent figure within Tamil cinema. However, this distinction has an important role in differentiating between ideas of whiteness as an aesthetic and social norms of acceptable behaviour in Tamil Nadu: two factors that equally contribute to Jackson's appeal. Whiteness as an aesthetic of beauty is clearly exemplified in both Rai and Jackson, who are respectively Western-enough and Indian-enough to switch between national and transnational contexts. On a basic level, Jackson's whiteness is not stigmatised as the people have seen it can be when viewed through the nativist paradigm of the Westernised woman. Simultaneously, Jackson's promotion as a glamorous figure on screen is aided by the idea of whiteness as a transnational aesthetic of beauty. In contrast, Gethu glorifies Jackson's ethnicity, in the newer tradition of Whiteness as a globalised aesthetic of beauty.
