Are All Old, White Men Crazy?

Recently, someone said to me, "We don't go to see a production of King Lear and walk out angry that Shakespeare has made a negative generalization about all old white men - that they are all going to turn against their children and go crazy. So why do we look at a black African American, an aboriginal man or a Maori man, acting in a show, perhaps playing the alcoholic, the abuser, the thief or all of the above and assume that 'they' are all bad people?" This question struck a chord with me because I had absolutely no idea how to answer it. Is this true? Do we really think like this?

Ferguson (1998) states that, "We cannot seriously consider the identities or representations of 'others' without considering the representations or identities of what we call 'self'." (Ferguson, 1998:81) 'We', the white, privileged members of society today, have a heightened propensity to align ourselves with the often white members of a film, TV show or theatre production because they are portrayed as the norm (Hall, 1990:13). I propose that if Lear had been a Moor, as in Othello, there would have been an added racial discourse - purely because the white, old man was, and still is, considered the norm, rather than a Moor. Although these plays are examples of a time-period where overt racism was acceptable and perpetuated, we still attend performances of these old classics and, I believe, this racial element is crucial to our interpretation and understanding.

The 'inferential' racism as suggested by Hall (1990:30) and present in the question posed by my friend, is at the heart of this issue. If the audience is assumed to be a white, middle-class audience, the 'others' become those stereotyped in the question. By identifying that not all old, white men are considered crazy we can begin to understand that those negative stereotypes are also inaccurate portrayals of large groups. However, the stereotypes are not the only negative aspect of this concept. More important is the need to understand why these generalizations are made about whole groups based on a film or character, simply because they are black or 'ethnic'.

Shohat and Stam (1995) discuss the influential concept of the 'mark of the plural' (Shohat & Stam, 1995:183) suggesting that representations of members of the oppressed or under-represented communities tend to project a delinquent or negative image. This, in turn, becomes a generalisation for all members of that same community. So, unlike King Lear or "A corrupt white politician" (Shohat & Stam, 1995: 183), this one member is 'politically over-burdened' and seen to be a representation of all the under-represented individuals that we are not used to seeing. (Shohat & Stam, 1995:183)

I still don't have an answer to the question posed above but I think a clue lies in who is telling the stories. Any story that is communicated is told from one person or one group's perspective and is, therefore, likely to be linked to and biased toward one way of thinking or one ideology. Thus, the protagonist is likely to be a character who is easily relatable to, if you are a shared member of that same milieu. Shohat & Stam (1995) suggest that it is necessary to comprehensively analyse the institutions that generate and distribute mass-mediated texts. (Shohat & Stam, 1995:184) The 'glass ceiling' that restricts the indigenous members of many societies from securing instrumental roles in media production, reduces the likelihood of their view to be seen or heard in the public domain. (Shohat & Stam, 1995:184) If there are many different biases from many different ideologies represented equally within society, perhaps we would generalise about the white men just as much as we seem to about the young 'black' ones, or, even better, we wouldn't generalise at all. This is a very simplistic summary of a complex issue but the question raised is crucial to understanding the racial differences often portrayed in the media.

Incidentally, the question that began my thought process on this topic was taken from something said in a drama class that was given by Oscar Kightley, the well-known New Zealand co-author of Bro-Town and many other comedies.

References:

Hall, S (1990) "The Whites of their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media". The Media Reader. Alvarado, M. & Thompson, J. (eds.) London: BFI, 7 - 23

Shohat, E & Stam, R (1994) "Stereotype, Realism and the Struggle over Representation". Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multculturism and the Media. London/New York: Routledge, 178 - 219


Ferguson, R (1998) "Otherness, Eurocentrism and the representation of 'race'". Representing 'Race': Ideology, Identity and the Media. London: Arnold, 65 - 82

Intent, Not Outcomes

The Cracked Cocaine vs. Powdered Cocaine sentencing debate was very interesting when raised in class. While it can be revealed to be a form of institutional racism by comparing and contrasting users etc. a face value interpretation of this "unfair" sentencing issue is more than it seems; the law was changed in 2010 to appease offended individuals and demonstrate that the new 18:1 ratio - compared to 100:1 - was by far an improvement. However I believe that the attention attributed to this inferential racism obscures the issue at hand. Either way, most dangerous drugs are universally illegal, the key word here being "universally". Drug charges don't take race into consideration, because the most dangerous form of racism exists below the radar. Inferential racism is a term usually attributed to television content that unconsciously produces a racist outcome, but in this case I believe it highlights the need to focus on intent rather than outcomes. This complete reversal of Paul Spoonley's 'outcomes, not intent' notion does not attempt to showcase the idea as inferior, but highlight the way in which it contributes to a more negative reading of the North American legal system. If an unwanted racist outcome becomes the focus of a debate then its validity is no longer questioned, people will just assume that the intentions were bad. However if we shift our attention toward the original intention there is more room to directly address the issue, thus in turn leading to a manipulation of inferential racism. The modification of America's original 100:1 cracked cocaine law demonstrates an inability to analyse the original intentions of the lawmakers. Additionally, withdrawing the minimum five year sentence that cracked cocaine possession entails just increases the probability that cracked cocaine use will increase amongst all ethnicities.

How I met a "Magical Negro"

In a 2001 lecture Spike Lee coined and popularised the term "magical negro" in refering to an identifiable stereotype of African Americans in film. The character is presented as more spiritually concerned and balanced than surrounding white characters and with a seemingly inherent "natural wisdom." Morgan Freeman's portrayals of God in the Evan all mighty and Bruce all mighty films and as Nelson Mandella in Invictus immediately surface as modern examples of these characters.

This character, the "magical negro," was recently bought to my attention in an episode of the popular comedy How I met your mother. In this episode we meet "Stan" the African American security gaurd. He emegres in the show firstly in intimidating fashion to tell the two white protaganists to be quiet at the bar before standing up and revealing his physical prowess. The audience is cued to react fearfully, as the two white characters do. This initil fear is instantly undercut as he joins the conversation and reveals himself to be a very sensitive and eloquent "love guru" who brings the two characters to near tears with his use of language in suggesting text messages to seduce a woman. The pair are now full of admiration for Stan to the point where he becomes almost a messiah figure for them to idolise and aspire to.

This character, the "magical negro," intersested me in three ways.Firstly, the history and underlying discources and understandings that led to the emergence of this character. Secondly its role as a "positive image" and finally its modern day meaning. Ferguson (1998, p. 45-45) makes the point that African representations as "Savage" stem from the long historical, European traditon of categorising and representing people from the "forrest" or jungle as savage. I would also argue that these people have also been seen as more "natural," that is with a more intimate understanding of nature. They also appear more spiritual, though their spirituality is reduced to superstition traditionally. In the context of affirmative action, positive images and a changing social conscience in the 1960 and 70s I wonder if this tradition of represenation changed to rather celebrate this spirituality, wisdom and proximity to nature. Consequently the "magical negro" character emerged to offset, and save to a degree, white characters who were spiritually detached.

As a "positive image" the implications of such portrayal must be adressed. Given the vast majority of African-American people and film characters exist in an urban context the stereotype is certainly a long way divorced from its historical origins. It supportsand maintains a very simplistic and somewhat overly romantic view of African-Americans as in a privelleged position and with willingness to support in relation to the "white" characters and people. In this way the "magical negro" is similar to the empowered "black buddy" in the likes of Stir Crazy and Beverly Hills Cop I (Artz, 1998, p. 67-77) and more recently in The man starring Samuel L Jackson and Eugene Levy. On the positive it does offer a variety to the portrayal of African-Americans and suggests balancing of power relations through upsetting the status quo of the privelleged white, with greater "natural intellegence."

Its uses in contemporary media, specifically in the aforementioned episode of How I met your Mother suggest the sterotype's uses may be changing however. So over-emphasised and emphatic was the respone of the two white protaganists and how perfectly Stan met the streotype in this episode suggests that the stereotype in itself formed the basis of the joke. Maybe I'm giving the show too much credit and maybe it was the situation as opposed to the stereotype that was the source of the humour. My reading however was the the stereotype, and in essence the ridiculousness of positive images in themslves was the joke.

Staurt Hall asks three questions of positive image: do they ignore harsh realities and questions? use difference to sell a product? eg: comedy or make a genuine political statement?
How I met your Mother seeminlgy used difference and audience preconceptions (fear and the magical negro sterotype) to sell a product however, possibly inadvertenly, it made a point of the inherent limitations of positive images in trivialising reality as well as being wholly unbelievable, irrelevant or innaccurate.

News Portrayals of Middle Eastern Women

An interview with Edward Said in last week’s lecture on Orientalism drew attention to the way news footage consistently shows people from the Middle East as either fanatics or villains. Sue helped frame this idea, pointing out the way media so often portrays “Muslim hoards” and almost never individuals. Said argued these images are in furtherance of a Western ideology which posits Middle Eastern men as threatening and dangerous. What this framework does is make “Islam...a useful foreign demon to turn attention away from the inequities and problems in our own society.”

At first I questioned this argument because only days before I had watched a news story focussed on an Iranian woman, Ameneh Bahrami. Bahrami had been blinded in an acid attack seven years earlier by a man whose proposal she had refused. In accordance with Islamic law he had been sentenced to being blinded by Bahrami. She refused to do this, her dignified explanation inter-cut with footage of her attacker weeping and begging incoherently for leniency.

I initially regarded this as an exception to Said’s argument, noting a number of Middle Eastern women whose stories have appeared in a sympathetic light in news media over the last few years. Examples of these include:

· Iman al-Obeidi, a woman who hysterically related her account of being raped by Quaddafi’s troops to foreign journalists before she was physically removed from the premises.

· Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning as punishment for adultery. Her lover received no sentence.

· And “Neda”, the young Iranian woman whose death during a protest in Tehran was filmed and broadcast over the internet, turning her into a symbol for Iranian demonstrations against disputed president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

These women appear to represent personal stories from the Middle East, yet despite focussing on an individual, they in fact reinforce Said’s critique and contribute to a very one-sided portrayal of the Islamic world. What these women stories illustrate is the tyranny and heartlessness of Arabic men. We are only privileged to the individuality of Middle Eastern women because they are shown as victims, oppressed and terrorised by their own society.

To show men in these societies as victims would undermine the stereotype of the dangerous Islamic male, the threat to Western society. The fact these men can be so cruel to “their own” reinforces Western fears over “what are they capable of doing to ‘us’-the ‘enemy’?” By showing women victims, men are automatically the perpetrators: violent, cruel, unforgiving and dangerous. These reports evidence a disregard for Western values of forgiveness, chivalry, equal rights, rationalism etc...Just as Said suggests.

This ability to define others is, according to Said, linked with the power to dominate them. In this sense it is political power, and the power of the West is increased as it defines itself in opposition to the image of the Middle Eastern ‘devil’ it has created. So Western media is suggesting the Other is uncivilised/cruel while ‘we’ have learned to turn the other cheek and forgive, ‘we’ have given women rights,’ we’ condemn rape, ‘we’ allow protest and free speech and so on. This opposition encourages faith in the righteousness of Western culture and encourages citizens to conform to it unquestioningly.

As Said pointed out, this turns our attention away from the failings of ‘our’ justice system, the huge inequalities between men and women which still exist in the West, frightening rape statistics in the Western world, the more subtle ways protest and free speech are dampened in ‘our’ society. It detracts negative attention from, and so encourages conformity with, ‘our’ society.

Eurocentrism

”The “Other” and “othering” highlights the fact that that which falls into the category of the ‘other’ has historically been seen as deviant, unnatural and strange because it exists outside the boundaries of what is considered ‘Normal’.”

This point made in Thursday’s (4th Aug) lecture made me think about another paper I am taking about Asian film. So far the paper has been very interesting and thought provoking. Every week during our tutorials we are required to fill out a “Viewing guide” consisting of roughly 15 questions, most of which concern the plot and the characters (the rest focus of setting and camera techniques). Although this may be helpful to some students, the way these questions are couched brings the above quote to mind.

We have been analyzing three classic Asian films. How we go about this, however, is to put them into laymen’s terms to make sure everyone can understand. More specifically we spend most of the session dwelling on who the characters are and what they do during the film. I’m not sure if this is because almost all of the students apart from myself in the class are majoring in Asian and not Film, studies, but they way in which the obvious details of each film are carefully explained, intimates that the course assumes that we may be finding the reading and viewing of these films difficult. Not because many of the students may be new to film studies, nor because they are old black and white films, but because these films are ‘”different from Hollywood”; different from what we are used to seeing. Although the approach may be totally valid in order to educate us most efficiently, it carries with it a severe feeling of Euro-centrism.

So far, rather than learning about different Asian cultures and histories through these films, we have only imposed our Western ideologies onto these artworks in order to make sense of them. If something appears ‘odd’ in the text, it is simply classed as ‘interesting’, while suggesting ‘abnormal.’ I must note here that during the course, the terms ‘oriental’ and ‘other’ have never been explicitly used. I’m sure that if another student were to note these observations, we could both agree that this mode of teaching is completely unintentional and that unfortunately cultural perspective is something that is very difficult to step outside of. Nevertheless we need to be aware of its constraining nature.