ABSTRACT
What do The Color Purple, The Great Gatsby, and Barbie have in common? They can fruitfully be analyzed by using Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies. Literature and culture do not arise in a social and historical vacuum. Rather, novels, films, and other cultural productions both reflect and reproduce historically specific social hierarchies, but they may also challenge them. In order to understand these processes, categories such as “race,” class, and gender – as well as sexuality, dis/ability, age, etc. – are central for an analysis (not only) of North American culture. These categories are socially constructed, which means that they result from current as well as historical power relations between social groups. There is nothing natural about them. It is only the constant repetition of the assertion that some people are better than others that naturalizes and normalizes them, i.e., makes social hierarchies appear “natural” and “normal.”
