{"id":135130,"date":"2021-02-08T14:57:26","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T00:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=135130"},"modified":"2021-02-19T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T22:09:35","slug":"filipina-film-actress-mistress-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/02\/08\/filipina-film-actress-mistress-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Filipina film actress, MacArthur’s mistress focus of new book"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"book<\/p>\n

The life of Filipina vaudeville and film actress Isabel Rosario Cooper is the focus of a new book by a University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa professor. Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez<\/strong>, Department of American Studies<\/a> professor and Honors Program<\/a> director, details Cooper\u2019s relationship with General Douglas MacArthur by portraying her not as a tragic heroine, but as someone caught within the violent histories of U.S. imperialism. Their relationship was a failed love affair between a venerated war hero and a young woman of Filipino and American heritage.<\/p>\n

“My motivation for the book was to tell the story that is often hidden by convenient or familiar narrations—especially of women, and women like actors, or mistresses—and get a more complex picture of their humanity as they navigated a shifting social order,” Gonzalez said. “So much of Isabel Cooper\u2019s story is wrapped up in her relationship to Douglas MacArthur, and as a consequence, that overshadows a lot of other interesting details about her.”<\/p>\n

Gonzalez illustrates Cooper\u2019s life in the Philippines, Washington, D.C.<\/abbr> and Hollywood, where she died penniless. Gonzalez uses speculative fictional segments to fill in the archival gaps of Cooper’s life that challenge the authority of official archives and the one-sided characterizations of her.<\/p>\n

“I had to learn to be patient and figure out what kind of genre best fit the story of Isabel Cooper,” Gonzalez said. “It wasn\u2019t going to be a straightforward biography, and I also wanted to leave room for speculation and fiction and a way to fold in a discussion of historical documents and archives, so it ended up quite differently from what I had first imagined.”<\/p>\n

Gonzalez added, “I’m also not someone who identifies firstly as a historian, so I had to work out my own issues around that, since I had to dive headfirst into the scattered archive that makes up her life. So in that sense, I had to figure out how to do the research about her, then how to write her story.”<\/p>\n

Empire\u2019s Mistress, starring Isabel Rosario Cooper<\/em> will be released on February 23. You can preorder the book with a 30% discount using the code: E21GNZLZ<\/abbr><\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is Gonzalez\u2019s third book published by Duke University Press. The first was Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawaiʻi<\/span> and the Philippines<\/em> in 2013, and the second was a co-edited collection, Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi<\/span><\/em> in 2019. Gonzalez\u2019s research interests include: American empire, tourism and militarism, gender and sexuality and ethnic and cultural studies.<\/p>\n

This work is an example of 东精影业<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s goal of Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), one of four goals identified in the 2015–25 Strategic Plan<\/a> (PDF<\/abbr><\/span>), updated in December 2020.<\/p>\n

Related 东精影业 News<\/em> story:<\/p>\n