Brackett, Charles, et al. The King and I. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp., 1956.

Césaire, Aimé, and Robin Kelley. “A Poetics of Anticolonialism.” Discourse on

          Colonialism, Monthly Review Press, 2000, pp. 7–29.

Fliotsos, Anne. “Cultural Specificity and the American Musical:Rodgers and

          Hammerstein Revivals.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 28, no. 3, 2006, pp.

          1–17. JSTOR.

Fliostos argues that The King and I ultimately serves as a narrative with an "imperialist attitude," with Siam filtered through a Westerner's distorting gaze (Fliostos 8). She also takes it upon herself to dispel the claims that Anna Leonowens made about her experience and identity.

Glassmeyer, Danielle. ""A Beautiful Idea": The King and I and the Maternal 

          Promise of Sentimental Orientalism." The Journal of American Culture,

          vol. 35, no. 2, 2012, pp. 106-122. ProQuest. 

Glassmeyer introduces the concept of "sentimental orientalism," arguing that America's expansionism was justified by the depiction of benevolent, maternal Americans who needed to save puerile Asians from themselves. Furthermore, Glassmeyer claims that although she is British at face-value, Anna represents America's idealized view of itself during the Cold War.

Hammerstein, Oscar, and Richard Rodgers. Rodgers & Hammerstein's South

          Pacific. YouTube, Magna Productions, 1958.

Jayawardena, Kumari. “Introduction.” Feminism and Nationalism in the Third

          World, Verso, 2016, pp. 1–24.

Klein, Christina. “Asians in America.” Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the

          Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961, Univ. of California Press, 2009, pp.

          223–261.

Klein argues that, post WWII, America had to reconstruct the Asian narrative, changing their racialized image from "foreign…unassimilable…'alien'" to ethnical people who can by incorporated into the Americanized, capitalist world order (Klein 224)

Konzett, Delia Caparoso. Hollywood's Hawaii: Race, Nation, and War. Rutgers

          University Press, 2017.

Ma, Sheng-mei. “Rodgers and Hammersteinʹs ‘Chopsticks’ Musicals.” East-West

          Montage: Reflections on Asian Bodies in Diaspora, University of Hawai'i

          Press, 2007, pp. 143–156. JSTOR.

Ma gives background on both South Pacific and the King and I, delivering an overview that was foundational to my exploration of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Chopsticks Musicals". Furthermore, the author speaks of the trope of the white English teacher, who serves as a civilizing agent and a point of entry for white audiences. Through the English teacher, Ma argues, American audiences see the exotic world of the East through American eyes. Ma also gives insight into the harmful stereotypes of Asian women, and the connection of their bodies to territory, using them to point to the greater context of America's "obsession with containment during the height of the Cold War" (Ma 147).

McConachie, Bruce A. “The ‘Oriental’ Musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein

          and the U.S. War in Southeast Asia.” Theatre Journal, vol. 46, no. 3, 1994,

          pp. 385–398. JSTOR.

McConachie argues that the container metaphor in film was so powerful for American audiences in the 1950s, because they internalized the Cold War's ideological conflict as representative of themselves. Thus, Rodgers and Hammerstein's orientalist musicals provided symbolic justifications for America's race against the domino effect.

Raheja, Michelle H. “Ideologies of (In)Visibility.” Reservation Reelism: Redfacing,

          Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in Film,

          University of Nebraska Press, 2011, pp. 46–101.

Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun. “Women Warriors.” Radicals on the Road: Internationalism,           Orientalism, and Feminism during the Vietnam Era, Cornell University Press,

          2013, pp. 244–265.

Van Esterik, Penny. “Anna and the King: Digesting Difference.” South East Asia

          Research, vol. 14, no. 2, 2006, pp. 289–307. JSTOR.

Van Esterik provides historical context of Mongkut's Siam, arguing that interpreting The King and I as a "colonial, orientalist representation of Thailand" overlooks the complexity of the situation (Van Esterik 292). According to the author, the pride of Siam's elite drove them to internalize Western culture in their attempt to prove the nation's superiority and thus its eligibility to be self-ruled. In addition, Van Esterik asserts that Americans were attracted to the superficial tale of "East meets West," which conveniently glossed over the more serious details of the threat of colonialism. Delving into the king and Anna's strategies to present Siam as civilized, Van Esterik makes the case that the film antithetically depicts Asians as childlike, exotic, and backwards. Lastly, the author introduces the concept of culinary colonialism, drawing a line between the banquet, colonial stereotypes, and the history of food's power to civilize a "lesser people."