Celine Parrenas Shimizu

Who is Celine Parrenas Shimizu?

Celine Parreñas Shimizu is an award-winning filmmaker and film scholar.

Shimizu is the daughter of political refugees from the Philippines. Her family relocated to Boston when she was in her early teens. She attended the University of California at Berkeley and received a B.A. in Ethnic Studies in 1992. She has an M.F.A. in Film Directing and Production from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Modern Thought and Literature. She is married to Daniel P Shimizu with whom she has two sons.

Shimizu is a Professor of Film and Performance Studies in the Asian American, Comparative Literature, Feminist, and Film and Media Studies Departments at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is well known for her work on race, sexuality and representations.

Her sole-authored books include STRAITJACKET SEXUALITIES: UNBINDING ASIAN AMERICAN MANHOODS IN THE MOVIES. The book studies scenes of cinematic intimacy in the forging of ethical manhoods on and off screen for Asian American men. Her first book THE HYPERSEXUALITY OF RACE: PERFORMING ASIAN/AMERICAN WOMEN ON SCREEN AND SCENE won the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. In it, she analyzes hypersexual representations of Asian American women in various media including industry and independent film, pornography and feminist video. She edited the book FEMINIST PORN BOOK along with Constance Penley, Mireille Miller-Young, and Tristan Taormino.