"South Sea Island idyll" by Henry Hintermeister based on Gilda Gray in Aloma of the South Seas in the 1920s

The South Seas genre is a genre of literature, film, or entertainment (such as Tiki culture) that is set in the islands of the southern Pacific Ocean.^[1] Many Hollywood films were produced on studio backlots or on Santa Catalina Island. The first feature non documentary film made on location was Lost and Found on a South Sea Island, shot in Tahiti.

The genre was known for its portrayal of tropical men as savages and cannibals, and women as shapely, innocent, exotic beauties.^[2] The genre was seen as financially lucrative by the movie studios in the 1940s, despite criticisms that the genre was unrealistic and not well-informed.^[3] Typical examples include 1941's South of Tahiti and White Savage (1943).^[4]

Noted authors

• 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.

Select films