Reviewers then debate June’s right to tell the story, echoing familiar conversations on whether authors should write about characters and histories outside their own race or lived experiences. In Yellowface, that initial query spirals into increasingly outlandish backlashes, and everything that was once coherent and proportionate disappears under a... See more

These anxieties reminded me of what Naomi Klein once called “the typical beauty myth double bind.” Here’s how she described it: “No matter what a woman’s appearance may be, it will be used to undermine what she is saying and taken to individualize—as her personal problem—observations she makes about aspects of the beauty myth in society.” That is,... See more