South Seas (genre)

The South Seas genre is a genre of literature, film, or entertainment (such as Tiki culture) that is set in Oceania.^[1]

Though many Hollywood films were produced on studio backlots or Santa Catalina Island, the first feature non documentary film made on a Tahiti location was Lost and Found on a South Sea Island.

Elements of the genre may include:

• Adventure
• Miscegenation
• World War II in the Pacific
• Noble savage
• Historical incidents
• Exploration
• Comedy
• Romance
• Degeneracy
• Volcanos
• Culture Clash
• Shipwreck or crashed aircraft

Noted authors of the genre, and key works, include

• J. Allan Dunn: The Island of the Dead (1915), Beyond the Rim (1916), etc.
• Robert Dean Frisbie: The Book of Puka Puka (1929), etc.
• Jack London: Adventure (1911), South Sea Tales, etc.
• W. Somerset Maugham: The Moon and Sixpence (1919), "Rain," etc.
• Herman Melville: Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), etc.
• James A. Michener: Tales of the South Pacific (1947)
• Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall: Mutiny on the Bounty (1932)
• Frederick O'Brien: White Shadows in the South Seas (1919)
• Robert Louis Stevenson: In the South Seas (1896)
• Charles Warren Stoddard: South-Sea Idyls (1873), Summer Cruising in the South Seas (1874), etc.

References

1. P. 544 Lal, Brij V. & Fortune, Kate The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia 2000 University of Hawaii Press

External links

• South Seas Cinema http://www.southseascinema.org/