The One-Drop Rule and the History of Racial Boundaries ― Focusing on the Film Passing and the Rhinelander Case ―

This study seeks to re-examine the historical formation and operation of the one-drop rule by analyzing the 1925 Rhinelander case, as referenced in both the film Passing and the original novel. Although these two events unfold in distinct discursive arenas―one in a courtroom and the other in cinematic (and literary) representation―they reveal a shared social anxiety surrounding the notion of visible race. In the Rhinelander trial, race had to be established as a legally verifiable fact, whereas in the film, race is portrayed as an identity that is socially performed and read by others.Accordingly, this study investigates the politics of the “visible” and the “invisible,” that is, the ambivalent processes through which race is inscribed on the body and simultaneously concealed. To this end, it first examines the historical origins and institutional consolidation of the one-drop rule. It then traces how race came to be defined through visual evidence by analyzing the proceedings and legal reasoning of the 1925 Rhinelander case. Next, this study investigates the subjective realities of racial performance as represented in the cultural text of the film Passing, focusing on the paradoxes inherent in racial passing. Ultimately, by juxtaposing these two cases, the study aims to illuminate the coercive impact of the one-drop rule on individual lives and identities and to reconsider its continuing legacy in the present.