This paragraph caught my eye on page 17:
"Film and television, for example, have been notorious in disseminating images of racial minorities which establish for audiences what people from these groups look like, how they behave, and "who they are". The power of the media lies not only in their ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology, but in their capacity to shape that ideology in the first place. "
This phenomenon isn't specific to racial minorities, as anyone with a liberal arts degree can attest, wincing as they touch the bump on their head where they were repeatedly beaten with post-modernism.
Before the advent of mass media, race and culture were primarily experiential. According to this same essay, before the late 1700's there was really no concept of black vs. white in America. Without going into too much unnecessary detail, color differences were largely exploited by the wealthy elite to keep the slave class (at one time, poor whites, too, were slaves) from uniting in rebellion. Thus race was largely manufactured, as it still is today (2).
Racial politics is not really my area, I'll be the first to admit. I generally rely on things I read to tell me what's going on. What interests me is how race pertains to media studies, or, in this case, how black people in television affects black culture.
There are two reasons that African Americans make a good case study.
First, and most obvious, they have made more strides in television than any other ethnic group while still retaining minority status (3). They have their own channel, which I'll disregard, because everyone has their own channel. They have been making deep inroads in film and television since the seventies. By this I mean, mainstream, primetime television specifically contextualized around black life in America. Most, if not all of these shows, had at least one black person working as a producer or writer. I'm not saying it's perfect, as many of these shows were still created by white people, but it is substantial. We are just beginning to see this develop with Latino culture, and we have yet to see it with any other American racial group.
Second, anyone who reads this and has horrible college flashbacks of dead horses will know that in the age of post-modernism, TV is a feedback loop. Put simply, television producers glean what they can from pre-existing popular culture to write shows that they think people will like. People take their cues from television and mimic it in popular culture. Television producers act on these initiatives to create yet more distilled, hyper-realized television truths which in turn create the culture that they mimic. At a certain point it becomes unclear, and in fact, impossible to discern who's mimicking whom. African-Americans, I'd venture to say, have been dealing with a similar culture war for centuries, as they were unwillingly assimilated into this country and given artificial mandates about who they are. The result is, even today they struggle to assume an identity that is their own - yet not reactionary.
"Racial Formations" goes on to say (still on page 17)
In US television, the necessity to define characters in the briefest and most condensed manner has led to the perpetuation of racial caricatures, as racial stereotypes serve as shorthand for scriptwriters, directors and actors, in commercials, etc. Television's tendency to address the "lowest common denominator" in order to render programs "familiar" to an enormous and diverse audience leads it regularly to assign and reassign racial characteristics to particular groups, both minority and majority.
The "lowest common denominator" may look racially motivated, but at heart it is economic. Most television today takes no leading role in creating newer, healthier attitudes toward the "other", but rather reflects the simplest assumptions made by the largest number of people. This is especially true in sitcoms, which are largely situational comedies with little time for character development. I say it isn't racially motivated because, where the profit margin is involved, no one is safe. As a woman, I turn on the television and learn that my gender is slutty, catty, idiotic, petty, judgmental, humorless, and obsessed with babies and weddings. As a straight man, you turn on the television and learn that you are obsessed with sex, a simian couch potato with no common sense, no complexity, and no passions other than sports.
The problem of whites controlling black television is obvious. But black media professionals face a more unique dilemma. If I were a black person, I would want my ethnic identity to be preserved in the transition to popular media, but ways that are neither pejorative nor assimilated into “white” culture. It's the eternal dilemma, blending without forfeiture, yet remaining distinct without isolation.
Pulling from an unlikely source, I recently read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (5). There is no way to tell you how interesting this book is, just go read it. What pertains here is how McCloud details the gradual movement of images from physical representation to iconic representation. As this happened, the images grew simpler and simpler. Instead of, for example, many thin swooshy lines trying to look like movement, you had strong, thick lines that symbolizes movement. I would argue that because of this country's racial history, dark skin has become iconic (7). In the brief moments of co-habitation before people had time to develop this specific prejudice, the appearance of blackness meant you came from Africa. Now, far removed from Africa, the appearance of blackness signals a long list of character traits that may or may not have anything to do with the actual person. Conversely, the actual person is faced with the unweildy task of defining and redefining their race every day as a living symbol (7). This is how "blackness" has come to be "shorthand".
So, how do black TV writers, directors and producers deal with this issue? Could you say that their hand in mainstream television has advanced black culture? I would say yes, but not in perfect way. Black is still "iconic", meaning, "reductionist". I made a list of a few popular television shows with all black casts with at least one black person behind it. Then I made a list of popular television shows which are mostly all white with one or two black characters. It seems to me that in both cases, "blackness" is a significant part of the equation, but in all black shows, a significant effort is made to "normalize" blackness, whereas in white shows with black characters, blackness is used for emphasis or contrast (6).
Black television marketed to white people is a particularly curious thing. Take Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which is almost a cult classic among white people (to the extent that that's often the only "rap" most white people know). It features a somewhat sterilized street kid who is supposed to represent black urban culture with his garish, brightly colored graffiti name and sideways baseball cap, coming to life with his stuffy, naive, and obscenely rich black relatives.
The conflict between them represents many things. Imagine if the Banks family was white. They would seem like an almost extreme version of whiteness, wouldn't they? Yet they are black, and in so being they represent the clash within black culture itself. Furthermore, setting the Banks family opposite an imminently like-able Will normalizes black culture on both ends. There is something of a debate in the black community over whether people like the Banks (to use an extreme, fictional example) are insulting because they "act white", or if community blacklash against "acting white" is merely a symptom made up by white people to account for their own racism (8).
Do these shows represent an attempt to de-stigmatize African-Americans? Do they succeed or do they just make them white for easy consumption? That's not a thing I can answer. But I do have a sneaking suspicion that a deeper representation of blacks - not an iconic one - would not look like this. But then again, 20 minute episodes rarely allow for depth of any color.
I don't pretend to have all the answers, but black presence in television interests me because my life's goal is to improve access to the media machine for all under-represented groups. African Americans have done quite well for themselves already, so they give us an idea of what it looks like when alternative perspectives enter mainstream (mainstream still being primarily white-male dominated). What are the complications? What are the dangers to the original culture? What does equal representation actually look like? Have we even begun to achieve it?
This is not fair representation in television for television's sake. I am not trying to artificially inject the entertainment world with my values. It's pragmatically crucial because, as I said earlier, television creates culture. Not just television. All media. If we continue to whitewash it, if we continue to grow gender, class, race, orientation, locations, etc to mythical proportions then the ideology of the masses will reflect that myth.
Only one thing is clear. The only way that media can dispel harmful myth and facilitate complexity, not just of race but of any stigmatized demographic, is to let people speak for themselves and allow for a wider range of voices on the creative end of media. I don't think this is artificial. I think rich white male hegemony is artificial. Diversity is a method by which we can dismantle that artifice, not to mention make television more interesting.
2) described in great detail in "Racial Formations", you should really check it out.
3) I'm disregarding Jewish people, while not completely free and clear of discrimination, essentially became white after WWII, when every racist in America was grabbing their awkward collars.
4) Baudrillard, my fave post-modernist.
5) Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
6) I didn't include many specific examples in the interest of space. It's still an issue, keeping things short. Working on it!
7) This isn't offered as proof of point, but this relevant Daria clip is an insightful illustration. Good stuff starts at 1:15. I'd like to point out the iconography of blackness. Jodie has to represent, or symbolize, her entire race, whereas Daria has only to speak for herself. It's a rather unfair burden.
8) One example: "Acting White" Also, more lengthy: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3212736.html
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment