Listening to “White Privilege II” (Macklemore)

But the one thing the American dream fails to mention
Is I was many steps ahead to begin with
My skin matches the hero, likeness, the image
America feels safe with my music in their systems
And it’s suited me perfect, the role, I’ve fulfilled it
And if I’m the hero, you know who gets cast as the villain
White supremacy isn’t just a white dude in Idaho
White supremacy protects the privilege I hold
White supremacy is the soil, the foundation, the cement and the flag that flies outside of my home
White supremacy is our country’s lineage, designed for us to be indifferent
My success is the product of the same system that let off Darren Wilson – guilty
We want to dress like, walk like, talk like, dance like, yet we just stand by
We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?

By now, you’ve probably heard the controversial track that Macklemore dropped a day or so ago: “White Privilege II.” The meandering 9-minute song addresses (among other things) white appropriation of black culture, his own burgeoning involvement with Black Lives Matter, his feelings about his role in culture, and what awareness looks like.

Image from flickr

Is it an earth-shattering piece of artwork that will change the shape and trajectory of hip-hop? Surely not. But that’s never been Macklemore’s schtick—he’s the posterboy of palatable rap, toe-ing the line of wholesome while borrowing the voice, the look, and the affect of blackness. And he knows this.

The response to this song has been…varied, to say the least. Some commentators argued that Macklemore was “exploiting social issues for relevance,” while others pointed out that no matter what, he continues to benefit (and benefit greatly) from the very white privilege he begins to indict in the track. (Buzzfeed has collected some of the responses on Twitter if you’re interested in more specific examples.) Others called him the human embodiment of a liberal arts college, which I take to mean: self-satisfied in his own “woke-ness” but ultimately out of touch?

The thing to understand about this song, though, is that it was created for a very specific audience, and as such, can serve a useful and similarly specific purpose. This song is not for people of color who are aware of the massive amounts of work to be done in order to move toward racial justice and systemic change in this country. They don’t need to listen to this song in order to know. It is not for those whose activism places them at the center of this fight. As Macklemore’s collaborators Hollis Wong-Wear and Jamila Woods note, this song was written for the white audience that has lifted Macklemore to acclaim and success (whether you think he deserves it or not), and if this song has the power to change even one opinion or begin a single process of introspection in that white audience, then it has done its job.

Macklemore, The Heist Tour | Image via wikimedia commons

In fact, the white privilege Macklemore is rightly criticized for benefiting from makes him the perfect voice to amplify this issue, because his white privilege broadens the reach of his message. The same white privilege that made “Thrift Shop” so “safe” for a white audience can carry these thoughts about power and privilege to new ears. To paraphrase Audre Lorde: the burden of educating the privileged too often falls upon the oppressed, draining their energy away from more productive avenues. Why heap scorn on Macklemore’s head for attempting to do what activist people of color have been asking white people to do for so long? Of course, his song is a drop in the bucket. Of course, his lyrics are not perfect in their self-awareness. But to fault him for even trying is surely counterproductive.

Yes, Macklemore continues to benefit from a system in which white artists have been accustomed to taking as they please from black culture, and reaping the benefits. He names this in his song’s brief lineage of exploitative white artists: Miley Cyrus, Elvis, Iggy Azalea. There is no way for him to exist without reaping the benefits of his white privilege. As we know, white privilege is all-encompassing, and white supremacy is embedded in every facet of our society. The song’s inherent flaws come from its place atop this system, but that also gives it the potential for opening dialogue.

What is the alternative that critics of this song ask for? That the beginning steps toward activism and awareness belong exclusively to people of color or white allies who have somehow never benefited from white privilege? That is an impossible thing to ask, since such allies doesn’t exist. Instead, we should take this song for what it is: an attempt to bring even a small ray of awareness to Macklemore’s core audience. We should all remember that activism and the fight for racial justice is an ongoing process of education for everyone. This song can spur dialogue, which in itself will never be enough. But it is something.

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Lyrics of “White Privilege II” from genius.com

[Verse 1]
Pulled into the parking lot, parked it
Zipped up my parka, joined the procession of marchers
In my head like, “Is this awkward?
Should I even be here marching?”
Thinking if they can’t, how can I breathe?
Thinking that they chant, what do I sing?
I want to take a stance cause we are not free
And then I thought about it, we are not “we”
Am I in the outside looking in, or am I in the inside looking out?
Is it my place to give my two cents?
Or should I stand on the side and shut my mouth
“No justice, no peace,” okay, I’m saying that
They’re chanting out, “Black Lives Matter,” but I don’t say it back
Is it okay for me to say? I don’t know, so I watch and stand
In front of a line of police that look the same as me
Only separated by a badge, a baton, a can of Mace, a mask
A shield, a gun with gloves and hands that gives an alibi
In case somebody dies behind a bullet that flies out of the 9
Takes another child’s life on sight

[Hook (x3)]
Blood in the streets, no justice, no peace
No racist beliefs, no rest ’til we’re free
There’s blood in the streets, no justice, no peace
No racist beliefs, no rest ’til we’re free

[Interlude 1]

[Macklemore, speaking over voices]
Oh, what are you doing Ben? What are you doing here? Ben, think about it

[Various indistinct male voices]
Probably shouldn’t be here, you have white supremacy, don’t fuckin’ come here. You don’t give a shit about us. “Black Lives Matter”, say it. Wow, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter. You should not have done that. Why the fuck would you do that? You always react.Just let it go, man. White racist. It’s the Grammys

[Verse 2]
You’ve exploited and stolen the music, the moment
The magic, the passion, the fashion, you toy with
The culture was never yours to make better
You’re Miley, you’re Elvis, you’re Iggy Azalea
Fake and so plastic, you’ve heisted the magic
You’ve taken the drums and the accent you rapped in
You’re branded hip-hop, it’s so fascist and backwards
That Grandmaster Flash’d go slap it, you bastard
All the money that you made
All the watered down pop-bullshit version of the culture, pal
Go buy a big-ass lawn, go with your big-ass house
Get a big-ass fence, keep people out
It’s all stubborn, anyway, can’t you see that now?
There’s no way for you to even that out
You can join the march, protest, scream and shout
Get on Twitter, hashtag and seem like you’re down
But they see through it all, people believe you now?
You said publicly, “Rest in peace, Mike Brown”
You speak about equality, but do you really mean it?
Are you marching for freedom, or when it’s convenient?
Want people to like you, want to be accepted
That’s probably why you are out here protesting
Don’t think for a second you don’t have incentive
Is this about you, well, then what’s your intention?
What’s the intention? What’s the intention?

[Interlude 2: Protesters (x13)]
Hands up? Don’t shoot

[Verse 3]
Pssst, I totally get it, you’re by yourself
And the last thing you want to do is take a picture
But seriously, my little girl loves you
She’s always singing, “I’m gonna pop some tags”
I’m not kidding, my oldest, you even got him to go thrifting
And “One Love,” oh my God, that song, brilliant
Their aunt is gay, when that song came out
My son told his whole class he was actually proud
That’s so cool, look what you’re accomplishing
Even the old mom like me likes it, cause it’s positive
You’re the only hip-hop that I let my kids listen to
Cause you get it, all that negative stuff it isn’t cool
Yeah?
Yeah, like, all the guns and the drugs
The bitches and the hoes and the gangs and the thugs
Even the protest outside, so sad, and so dumb
If a cop pulls you over, it’s your fault if you run
Huh?

[Interlude 3: Various male and female voices]
So, they feel that the police are discriminating against the – the black people? I have an advantage? Why? Cause I’m white? [Laughs]. What? [Laughs]. No. See, more people nowadays are just pussies. Like, this is the generation to be offended by everything. Black Lives Matter thing is a reason to take arms up over perceived slights. I’m not prejudiced, I just–.99% of the time, across this country, the police are doing their job properly

[Verse 4]
Damn, a lot of opinions, a lot of confusion, a lot of resentment
Some of us scared, some of us defensive
And most of us aren’t even paying attention
It seems like we’re more concerned with being called racist
Than we actually are with racism
I’ve heard that silences are action and God knows that I’ve been passive
What if I actually read a article, actually had a dialogue
Actually looked at myself, actually got involved?
If I’m aware of my privilege and do nothing at all, I don’t know
Hip-hop has always been political, yes
It’s the reason why this music connects
So what the fuck has happened to my voice if I stay silent when black people are dying
Then I’m trying to be politically correct?
I can book a whole tour, sell out the tickets
Rap entrepreneur, built his own business
If I’m only in this for my own self-interest, not the culture that gave me a voice to begin with
Then this isn’t authentic, it is just a gimmick
The DIY underdog, so independent
But the one thing the American dream fails to mention
Is I was many steps ahead to begin with
My skin matches the hero, likeness, the image
America feels safe with my music in their systems
And it’s suited me perfect, the role, I’ve fulfilled it
And if I’m the hero, you know who gets cast as the villain
White supremacy isn’t just a white dude in Idaho
White supremacy protects the privilege I hold
White supremacy is the soil, the foundation, the cement and the flag that flies outside of my home
White supremacy is our country’s lineage, designed for us to be indifferent
My success is the product of the same system that let off Darren Wilson – guilty
We want to dress like, walk like, talk like, dance like, yet we just stand by
We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?
We want to dress like, walk like, talk like, dance like, yet we just stand by
We take all we want from black culture, but will we show up for black lives?

[Interlude 4: Various male and female voices]
Black Lives Matter, to use an analogy, is like if, if there was a subdivision and a house was on fire. The fire department wouldn’t show up and start putting water on all the houses because all houses matter. They would show up and they would turn their water on the house that was burning because that’s the house that needs the help the most. My generation’s taken on the torch of a very age-old fight for black liberation,but also liberation for everyone. Injustice anywhere is still injustice everywhere. The best thing white people can do is talk to each other, having those very difficult, very painful conversations with your parents, with your family members. I think one of the critical questions for white people in this society is, “What are you willing to risk? What are you willing to sacrifice to create a more just society?”

[Outro: Jamila Woods]
Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury
Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury
Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury
Your silence is a luxury, hip-hop is not a luxury
What I got for me, it is for me
What we made, we made to set us free
What I got for me, it is for me
What we made, we made to set us free
What I got for me, it is for me
What we made, we made to set us free

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What is Gender? A Look at “The Danish Girl” and “Macbeth”

Written by I.C.

Two of this winter’s most absorbing movies emphasize the centrality of gender identity in thought-provoking ways.  The topic is more obviously central to The Danish Girl, the story of Lili Elbe (formerly Einar Wegener), the first known person to undergo sex reassignment surgery, and her wife, Gerda Wegener.  Both were painters in 1920s Copenhagen.  Oscar buzz for Eddie Redmayne as Lili was a given, due to the challenging nature of the role and his Best Actor win last year for another radical physical transformation in the Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything. And he is indeed up for Best Actor for The Danish Girl.  Einar first tries on women’s clothing in order to help Gerda finish a painting when the model is unavailable.  But the act of donning female attire brings to life something latent within him, and Lili is born. Lili navigates the world at first awkwardly, then with increasing grace and confidence.  Even as those who knew Einar remain baffled, and doctors throw out diagnoses ranging from homosexuality to schizophrenia, Lili becomes increasingly certain that she has found her true identity, and is willing to endure anything to have an exterior that matches who she feels she is.

Image via Twitter @danishgirlmov

As good as Redmayne is in the role, critics have also been at least as impressed by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as Gerda.  2015 was Vikander’s year.  I loved her performances in the 2012 Danish film A Royal Affair and in a small part in that year’s Anna Karenina; in 2015 she gave me chills with her haunting performance as a conscious robot in Ex Machina and broke my heart as WWI-era pacifist and feminist Vera Brittain in Testament of Youth.  In The Danish Girl her radiant performance, for which she has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, turns the movie into not only the story of Lili but the story of an extraordinary marriage.  Gerda begins as a free-thinking, somewhat bohemian painter, married to a fellow painter whose work gets more acclaim.  As Einar becomes Lili, Gerda loses a husband but gains a muse: her paintings of Lili become hits in the art world.  Her simultaneous confusion, frustration, and devotion to the person she loves are beautifully portrayed.  When Einar tells a doctor that he believes he is a woman inside, and Gerda says, “And I believe it too,” it’s a powerful moment of alliance.

The film also subtly suggests that the Wegener’s love was never confined by conventional gender roles in any case: while Einar was sexually attracted to Gerda, Gerda was always the bold one, and when they first met she took the romantic initiative with the shy Einar. In portraying their relationship, the film carefully balances a recognition of sexual fluidity and the constructed or performative nature of gender with an emphasis on the individual right to claim what one feels to be one’s essential gender identity.

***

On the surface, The Danish Girl, a tasteful biopic, would seem to have little in common with a visually arresting and brutal Shakespeare adaptation.  Yet they address similar issues.  In the first scene in which Lady Macbeth appears in Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, she is praying to the powers of darkness for exactly the thing that causes Lili so much pain: a disjunction in gender between her body and spirit.  She wishes for a man’s spirit in her woman’s body, as her battle-hardened culture has led her to equate masculinity with the ruthlessness she deems necessary to achieve her ambitions:

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse….

Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! (Act I, scene v).

 

She is soon taunting her husband with lack of manliness for his qualms about murdering King Duncan; at this point, he has a much more morally grounded view of masculinity, saying: “I dare do all that may become a man; /Who dares do more is none” (Act I, scene vii).  In other words, to do something so evil as murdering his king would be “unbecoming” to a man, and in fact make him less of one.  He recognizes a masculine ideal in Banquo, who “hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour/ To act in safety” (Act III scene i).

But his wife continues to insist that manliness involves hard-heartedness and violence without remorse; she says:

When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. …
(Act I, scene vii).

She is unprepared, however, for how fully her husband will ultimately embrace this toxic view of masculinity. As Macbeth’s mind crumbles under the effects of post-traumatic stress, his moral sense also crumbles, and he takes his wife’s idea of the conflation of masculinity with violence further than she ever did.  If before King Duncan’s murder she fears her husband is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness” (Act I, scene v) to perform the deed, in later scenes she is dismayed by his ruthlessness. As Michael O’Sullivan’s review in the Washington Post points out, this film’s Macbeth is “far madder than his wife… whose descent into derangement is one of the most tired tropes of the theater.”  Michael Fassbender brilliantly portrays Macbeth’s unraveling, as his moral uncertainty gives way to anguish, and then to ferocity.

As for Lady Macbeth’s own mental deterioration, some might argue that it is due to her inability to shed her womanliness as she had hoped to do. With a silent but crucial opening scene, the movie finds a way to reconcile the text’s emphasis on Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s childlessness with Lady Macbeth’s statement that “I have given suck, and know/How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me” (Act I, scene vii), and in another pivotal scene, she takes the death of another woman’s children very hard.  It seems to me, however, that it is her humanity rather than her womanhood that she’s unable to shed, and that she is increasingly distressed at her husband’s loss of his.

Image via Twitter @macbeth_movie

The emphasis on Macbeth’s increasing inhumanity also makes this film feel more nuanced in its portrayal of his wife, who in this film is no mere scheming temptress.  Marion Cotillard’s subtle performance also helps; I have yet to see this actress in anything in which she is less than sublime, and her work here is no exception.  Her rendition of the “Out, damned spot” speech is spellbinding.  There’s no wringing of her hands in that scene—the camera focuses on her face, and she is seated, quite still, with her hands kept deliberately out of the frame.  Her eyes are fixed on something the viewer only sees as she finishes speaking.  This scene erases any doubt that she is as tragic a figure as her husband, and her tragedy is in large part her embrace of traditionally “masculine” values that have ultimately proved dehumanizing.

Both of these films grapple with questions of gender and identity in a way that feels new and significant.  More generally, they deal with what it means to be an authentic, integrated human being, at home in one’s body (as Lili seeks to be) and in one’s mind (as the Macbeths, after their initial crime, can never be again).

Alien Others and Selves

Via @5thWaveMovie

by E.L.

There is an episode of The Twilight Zone in which a normal American neighborhood is thrown into violent chaos by the appearance of a strange object in the sky. The fear that alien invaders might be masquerading as a human family causes neighbors to turn with suspicion on those they’ve known all their lives.

Like so many Twilight Zone episodes, the true monster here is Man. The lesson is that the enemy’s best weapon is the seed of paranoid doubt we harbor against those closest to us. It is a not-so-subtle commentary on McCarthyism’s hysterical campaign to root out the communist threat by encouraging citizens to denounce their friends and allies.

The communist, like the aliens in The Twilight Zone, is so dangerous precisely because its otherness cannot be easily recognized. Soviet sympathizers can look exactly like everybody else, and the possibility of their presence among us is so terrifying because it challenges our confidence in our own capacity for self-recognition. The identity of friends, spouses, teachers, and politicians cannot be trusted precisely because they look just like us. Familiarity itself becomes suspect as the mask of a dangerous otherness.

What We Mean When We Talk About Choice

Let me tell you something. My feminism doesn’t much care about Beyoncé. My heart may beat to the beat of “Partition,” but debates about the potential feminism of Yoncé’s lyrics, ass, or marriage leave me cold. Bey’s choice to make her body and sexuality central to her persona is held up against the fact that such displays are always filtered through white supremacist patriarchy. We can only ever think of her as fully in control of her performance, image and body, or totally and abjectly victim of a system that uses women’s bodies against each other. Her self-determination is always besieged by the fear that she might have been working for the male gaze all along. But no, we shudder, the male gaze is foiled and frustrated just so long as we can convince ourselves that this was Bey’s choice.

 

Choice, we pant fiercely. Choice will keep Beyoncé safe — choice will save us all.

‘Master of None’ Succeeds In Its Sincerity (ft. Interviews with Actors Diane Mizota and Aaron Takahashi)

By Belinda Cai

New Netflix series “Master of None” from Aziz Ansari. “Master of None” Twitter.

Whether you think it’s hilarious or just miss Tom Haverford, there’s no denying that Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” is important. I haven’t been able to peruse social media without seeing swathes of people and media outlets posting about the show since its release on Netflix a little over a week ago. Among them was actress Diane Mizota, one of my Facebook friends and someone I interviewed for my grad school capstone project about Asian-Americans in Hollywood. She claimed she couldn’t get enough of the show and especially liked the second episode that addressed immigrant parents.

“As I Lay Crying:” A Podcast Introduction

This week, we are happy to introduce one of our writers’ upcoming projects. “As I Lay Crying” tells stories and explores issues related to a very universal, yet specific, phenomenon.

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We do it in our cars, bedrooms, maybe at work, alone or with loved ones, and perhaps in front of strangers: crying, that is. It’s innate in all of us. It may seem like a remarkably basic concept, but it has plenty of hidden depth. We frequently cried as babies and children, as a biological way to convey our needs, i.e. hunger. But it gets more complicated as adults.

Why do we cry? And when is it “appropriate?” When does it show weakness? Strength? Those questions sparked the idea for my podcast, “As I Lay Crying,” which will explore the various biological and sociocultural facets of crying. More importantly, it will tell stories of hardships and joys, and what it means to be human — all through the universal peg of crying.

I recently held a podcast discussion during which fifteen people opened up about reasons they’ve cried. In this “safe space,” almost everyone shared relatable and poignant experiences that resonated with the entire group. Topics like familial issues, relationship woes, and struggles with identity and body image were mentioned. There was visceral empathy and sympathy throughout. Most of it came from the women in the group.

On Trans Ally-ship and the Ethics of Visibility: a conversation

Tyler is a lot of things: brilliant set designer and master carpenter, comrade-in-arms in various D&D campaigns, athlete and mentor-coach-athlete for the Special Olympics, dedicated employee and fiercely loyal friend. But last weekend, we sat down to talk specifically about allyship, his journey as a transman, and his role as an outspoken advocate for LGBTQA people everywhere.

Among the things to admire about Tyler is his iron-clad belief that his openness about his experience as a transman will make future transgender people’s lives a little easier. Two noble beliefs lie at the root of his advocacy strategies: 1) that when given the chance through education and dialogue, people are capable of being kind to and accepting of another and 2) that his willingness to discuss parts of his life outside of the realm of polite conversation will have real, tangible, positive consequences in the world. Tyler carefully considers the ethical dimensions of his decisions about his “outness” as he debates whether or not it’s “right” for him to stealth when he knows that his ability to pass as a man makes him less visible, which he recognizes is an option many transgender people, especially transwomen, don’t have.

Our conversation spanned a variety of topics but continually came back to the central theme of education and communication as ways, not to erase difference, but to render it at once more visible and more celebrated on all levels.

On ally-ship and appropriate questions:

KS: So let’s cut to the chase: what’s an ally to you?

TR: I think for me allyship is about not judging and encouraging others not to judge. You don’t have to agree, you don’t have to have been there, just live and let live.

KS: Recently Kurt [my husband] read an article slamming Amy Schumer for an apparently insensitive interview with a transwoman. One summary cited her asking about physical anatomy which the author considered a rude question. But, as you know, cis people have questions about trans people that are not politically correct. Do you think there is any space for those questions in conversation?

TR: I hadn’t heard of that! Well, I would say that if you’re doing an interview with Amy Schumer you should probably know what you’re getting into [i.e., she’d probably ask overly personal questions of anyone]. I just wish that as a society we were more transparent to differences in general [and that it was okay] to ask about cultures, preferences, and misunderstandings without the perception of being racist and sexist. Like, I wish I could walk up to a Muslim and be like “So, Ramadan. Can you explain your holiday a little bit?” without it seeming like a rude question. Being afraid of offending someone and being easily offended closes the door to conversations. Openness leads to being accepted. [Tyler’s Note: After having watched the interview, I think that Schumer does show some of the kind of blind stumbling that a lot of cis people feel when trying to relate to trans people. What it comes down to however, is again, that need to educate. Bailey does just that a number of times. What bothers me more is the author’s problem with the way Bailey is presented, but nothing is mentioned about portrayal of transmen in similar situations. Take this January 2015 interview of Buck Angel, for example. He was asked similar “inappropriate” questions… how does he pee, about his sex life, sexual orientation. Where’s the frustration? Is it because transmen can choose to stealth much easier than transwomen? Is the assumption that all trans people are searching for invisibility or assimilation? Is it because it’s not offensive to ask men about their genitalia? They’re the questions that everyone want to know the answers to, and we’re only doing ourselves favors by being willing to talk.]

KS: How about questions surrounding a transgender person’s past? Off-limits?

TR: So that’s a really personal thing that’s different for every transperson. I will be able to “stealth”, which eventually hides my past [living as a woman]. But you have the opportunity to talk about your past [which can then open up more important conversations]. We can stealth if we want to, but that’s a decision. A lot of trans people don’t like talking about it…what they looked like, their birth name. It can trigger a lot of dysphoria. Simply put, it can make them feel really uncomfortable in their own skin again.

On gyms, bathrooms, and stealthing.

KS: What is “stealthing?”

TR: Stealthing is what some people call passing, but to take it one step further, it’s also the idea of not being out about being trans. Not necessarily closeted, but about not telling people.

KS: Are there places you want to do that more than others?

TR: The gym. I almost blew that the other day by dropping my ID on the floor. But I also recognize we live in a really liberal area and so it would probably be okay. But there was a transgender 17 year old killed in Alabama last week. Florida is considering legislation that makes it illegal to use bathrooms other than the one that corresponds with your birth-assigned gender.

KS: But how do they actually enforce that without violating your privacy?

TR: The short answer is they can’t.  I guess they could check your ID, but that won’t even work in all cases…my ID will reflect my new name and gender in a week. But it often constitutes illegal search and seizure like when Arizona was stopping anyone who looked hispanic to ask for papers. That begs the question….what does “transgender” look like? Being in a bathroom is not a crime until you start to do something creepy. You shouldn’t be able to legislate who can and cannot use a bathroom based on genitalia. On any given Saturday, I’m more likely to see naked coeds running down this street [we’re sitting at one of our old undergrad haunts] than I am in a men’s bathroom or locker room .

KS: Yeah, for some reason we seem to think bathrooms are sexualized spaces.

TR: Yeah, just like breastfeeding a baby is not a sexual act…breastfeeding a 30 year old man, different story. People just want to use the bathroom—not ogle other people.

KS: Though, didn’t you say you got hit on at the gym the other week?

TR: More gay guys hit on me now. This one guy was doing bicep curls in the mirror while looking intensely at me [Tyler demonstrates this amusingly]. I think gay men are the all-knowers of the male body. They both have a male body and are attracted to a male body, so if I can pass for them, I’m doing well.

MJ: Does being hit on make you feeling weird?

TR: I milk it.

~~~

On supporting a person as they begin their transition:

KS: So starting from the beginning of the process…

TR: Yes, generally speaking, discussing [a person’s] reasons for transitioning are conversations to be held with close friends and therapists—it’s not an ally’s job. [The other thing to consider] is that if a transperson is coming out to you, it may be sudden for you, but it’s not sudden to them. I remember talking to you for the first time that time we were driving to [one of our college friend’s] house and almost died in the storm.

KS: Yeah, and that was what, [does a bunch of math revolving around which one of our friends has lived in which city for how long] a good two years before you started transitioning?

TR: Yeah, people do not throw themselves out against social norms willy-nilly. For example, for my dad [my transition] seems really sudden, but it’s actually not.

KS: Do you think it’s weird that society kind of expects you to “come out” even though it’s really no one’s business?

TR: Society wants to know when you’re “normal,” and right now cis-hetero behavior is the norm and they want to know when and why you’re doing other things. But I didn’t officially come out everywhere, like work for example. I told a manager and a few close coworkers, but everyone still “knows” (and is remarkably supportive). People will surprise you sometimes. I’m just like “I’m going to talk about my fiance like you talk about yours and the gender doesn’t matter”.

KS: Does coming out “officially” offer you anything [advantages]?

TR: My biggest hang up about it is that people feel like it’s their business [when it’s definitely not]. But I also know that it’s a chance to explain and open up a conversation which will hopefully help future generations avoid the struggles I go through. Also, for trans people, at least at the beginning of the process, it’s how you get called by your chosen name and pronouns. Now I can introduce myself to someone as Tyler and they never bat an eye, but I had to come out so that people knew I wanted to be called Tyler and he.

KS: Like, maybe someday there will be a point where trans people don’t have to come out?

TR: Yeah someday… but we can’t even get racism right [i.e. there’s still institutionalized racism]. There will always be somebody who will be a dick about it.

KS: Ugggh, so true.

~~~

Things allies can do to support transgender people:

KS: Okay, so what’s one really important thing that trans allies can do to support transgender people?

TR: With trans people allies need to be good about sticking to pronouns, to try to reinforce and be consistent. At the Special Olympics [Tyler and his fiancee are both volunteers], all of our team had a lot of issues with pronouns (probably also related to their own cognitive issues, to be fair.) Our regional team coordinator told the team (who had known me pre-transition) about what to call me and which pronouns to use. One of our players responded “So she’s transgender, so what?” and then did not get names or pronouns right the entire season [laughs]. Yeah, they messed up pronouns and messed up names—but they were really trying, and [regional coordinator and Tyler’s fiancee] were really consistent to try to reinforce it. But my players were higher functioning so they had some fear that I was going to get mad if they messed up my name. Melissa [Tyler’s fiancee] assured them that,  No I would not be mad about that.

KS: What should you do if you don’t know about someone’s pronouns?

TR: Ask! What are your preferred pronouns? One of the reasons I chose a really non-neutral name like Tyler when I could have been Chris is because I don’t want there to be the potential for ambiguity. Some people do. Also, the kind of things people will do when your name doesn’t match your voice [Tyler works at a place that requires him to answer the phone using his legal name which is in process of being changed, so luckily this is a temporary issue!] I answer [in my now deep voice] Christina and people say back Kevin, Tristan, Ricky, “you mean Christian,” or sometimes just “bud.” There’s one guy who will treat me completely differently when I answer and he catches that my name is Christina—he’s a lot more formal and his pleasantries are different. But if he doesn’t catch my name he just talks to me about sports and guy stuff and is less formal. And he wishes me happy father’s day. [A guy walks by with a fantastically well groomed beard]. Wait, I want my beard to look like that guy’s beard. Classy beard.

KS: That’s a great beard. [discussion of Tyler’s impending beard, transitioning into a conversation of Halloween costumes for this year].

~~~

KS: What’s one issue that affects the trans community that cis people may not consider?

TR: [immediately] Healthcare. If you [indicating K.S.] bust your femoral artery, you’re probably going to expect to drop trou when you go to the doctor’s. Everyone in the operating room will cut off your clothes, expecting a vagina, and then seeing a vagina continue on with care. But for transpeople, [there’s a fear] that the doctor will be concerned about what’s between your legs [and whether or not it matches the expectation] rather than your femoral artery bleeding out. Like, I know of someone who identifies outside of the binary who had heart attack-like symptoms but delayed seeking care because they were worried about how they would be treated in the hospital [they were treated well]. Someone else I know who prefers male pronouns and is on the male end of androgynous went to the hospital and had no problems whatsoever after discussing his preferred name and pronouns.

KS: But stories about positive health care experiences aren’t the ones that are coming out in the trans community?

TR: No, people are just hearing about being denied care. Like, as a transgender person, or as a homosexual, or even as Puerto Rican, I understand that I can be denied service at certain places. But then I can choose not to buy the goods and services of those places and hopefully all of my friends will also refuse to go to those places. Those business have the right to not cater my wedding, but I have the right to lambast them. Medical professionals should not have the right to deny me care under their oath, and most understand that. I worry a little that we’re telling businesses that they can’t refuse our business through legislation.

KS: Because if we can legislate “morality” in one direction, we could also legislate it in another direction?

TR: Let’s be realistic: at some point I need to go back to my orthopedist. I haven’t been to him since I started testosterone, and he seems like a cool guy, but it is a concern that he won’t treat you again because of your change. We are lucky enough to live in a liberal area and I feel like if I had a medical emergency in Alabama, Texas….I’d probably venture somewhere above the mason-dixon [line] to get care because of concerns about quality.

The ethics of visibility (or how transgender people can be their own allies):

KS: You’ve told me that you’ve written about Caitlyn Jenner… [see Tyler’s post here]

TR: Caitlyn has done nothing to help other trans people. She was like “This is my Vanity Fair Cover. Deuces.” Aydian Dowling could have gone totally stealth and no one would have to know, but look what he’s done to stand up, draw us some positive attention and try to get things done for us.

KS: So do you think that celebrities who are transgender people have an ethical obligation to be advocates for the trans community?

TR: Caitlin has an ethical obligation to be aware of the way that her image affects other people. By putting themselves out there as celebrities, they accept a social responsibility. By putting herself out there, she’s got a social obligation not to make the rest of the community look worse. She makes it seem like [being transgender] is all about the attention and she has not addressed any [issue affecting the trans community] since her coming out. She makes it seem like it’s all about the attention: “hey everybody look at me,” [perpetuating the myth] that we all just want to be looked at. Also, she perpetuates an image of a transwoman that’s stealth, whereas transwomen have a lot more of a problem passing.

KS: So part of the problem is that she has not addressed the fact that her privilege, like her ability to get surgery to “feminize” her face is what allows her to stealth?

TR: And then it’s like “I guess if transwomen look like that it’s okay.”

KS: And the media just runs with that. Off topic, but apparently Rachel Dolezal came out as bisexual—which is fine—but it doesn’t excuse her from wearing tanning-salon blackface.

TR: What’s really interesting about that case is that people think about that in the same terms as trans people. If people can identify as a different gender than what they were born with, then people can identify with a different race than what they were born with. But to some extent, the LGBTQA and ally community has kind of brought that on itself by also refusing to recognize nuance and difference when they say things like “50 years ago it was illegal for a black man to marry a white man” as an argument for gay marriage. [Dolezal’s situation] raises a lot of interesting questions about feeling “what isn’t right.” I feel like I can’t say that she is wrong to feel like that [i.e. that she is actually black], but I can see where a lot of people are upset about that. We need to look as society at how we treat people different than us, instead of trying to say who can or cannot be different. Because, “Don’t shoot I identify white” isn’t going to work.

~~~

TR: I haven’t made a decision whether or not I want to be out for the rest of my life or eventually go completely stealth. I will be more privileged and less visible [as a transman] as I continue to transition.

KS: Have you noticed any differences in the way you are treated yet?

TR: I’m gaining white male privilege: People stop talking when I talk, expect me to pick up checks, hold doors. I’m trying really hard to not take advantage of this, especially because many transgender people, especially transwomen who tend to be more visible experience the opposite, a denial of privileges once had.

KS: Oh my gosh, you can now be accused of mansplaining!

TR: What’s mansplaining?

KS: Remember that time when [name omitted] corrected me about my views on high heels?

TR: Oh yeah. As a transguy I have experiences with women things. But if I were to be a stealth transguy—[my opinions/advice] will still be my experience, but it will come off to some people as if I were mansplaining.

~~~

TR: What it boils down to is…stop judging. Stop judging transpeople, or feminists, or gay people, or even white middle class dudes. Just stop. Different does not equal wrong. Right now, I’m really caught up in the moral element of stealthing—is it fair for me to go back and forth between being out and being stealth. For example, there are some situations [like an upcoming wedding that we are going to]. It’s probably the best option and there will only be a couple people [at the event] who knew me before. Maybe that’s a bad example—weddings are a special circumstance and it’s rude to draw attention away from the couple, but I’m still thinking it through. Like, is it ethical for me to stealth when I know that others can’t?

~~~

Tyler can be found blogging at https://chivalrysundead.wordpress.com/.

Politics of Style: Subculture and Circulation

The Ramones do subcultural style circa 1976

Last time on Politics of Style, we discussed how personal style intersects with a whole host of problems related to personal choice and political action.  What does it mean for self-fashioning to be political, and what are the limits of collective political action in the arena of style?

Subcultural style offers an interesting way to think through these questions precisely because of its relationship to both elements in this problem: the group and the individual. We are concerned here with how individuals perform identities that diverge from the mainstream by identifying with particularly visible divergent groups. Subcultural style reveals not only how personal expression in the arena of fashion can (and sometimes cannot) be a deeply political act, but also how politics is enfolded and resisted in choices about self-expression.

Subculture, loosely defined, is a social and cultural formation of individuals that find themselves at ideological odds with the mainstream. We should keep an eye on the two terms we are working with here, subculture and mainstream, because they are so unstable and tend to mean different things in different contexts. Dick Hebdige, one of the first scholars to theorize subculture, suggests that subculture is fundamentally concerned with setting itself up against what it views as an oppressive mainstream. Subculture, for Hebdige, is “a form of resistance in which experienced contradictions and objections to [the] ruling ideology are obliquely represented in style.” Style, in other words, offers a space in which people can register opposition to the status quo as a form of political performance that reaches beyond a traditional political sphere concerned with voting, policy-making, filibustering, etc.

Instead, the political potential of subcultural style resides in its capacity to challenge standard or “normal” ways of living and looking—it is usually a provocation of normativity rather than a codified political position.

Think, as only a few of many possible examples, of biker gangs, punks, or the emo scene. Each of these subcultures represent a group of individuals who self-consciously style themselves in social, aesthetic and sometimes political formations that resist normative modes of being. Subcultures are rarely exclusively concerned with politics—though some like punks or Riot Grrrls have deep ties to political movements such as anarchism or feminism—but often pose political provocations that challenge “business as usual.”

When we talk about the politics of subcultural style, therefore, we would do well to think of it in terms of a provocation of normativity rather than as a political performance aimed at policy reform.

I went to college at a university with a particularly preppy and greek undergrad culture. They were known for their sundresses, cowboy boots and Southern charm. This was a culture with which I did not identify much, yet it made finding friends pretty easy. Wearing black jeans and Doc Martens was a simple way to signal that my cultural sympathies lay beyond frat row, and for a lot of my undergrad career, finding my people included scanning the crowd for those who weren’t wearing the standard prep uniform. By Hebdige’s definition, this is subcultural practice within the context of my university. In this case, the mainstream was the visible prep culture and the subculture were the hipsters who self-consciously deviated from it.

And yet, this might reveal a major flaw in how we talk about subculture and politics. There are limits to the political efficacy of style as provocation. My crew were not anarchists or even punks—most of us would have more or less identified as mildly disaffected kids from the middle-class—and our style had less to do with political expression than with a certain distaste for the aesthetics of Southern Charm. There are, of course, deeply embedded gender, race and class politics in the Southern Charm aesthetic, but I am not sure that the resistance signaled by hipster style offered a properly political response. While we were interested in signaling our dis-identification with the preppy culture of the university, that dis-identification did not, in many instances, translate into political action.

It is imperative, therefore, to think about what is actually political about provocation. This is one of the central questions of this series.

For a historical example of the interaction between subcultural style and politics, look to the zoot suit. Today, the zoot suit is probably associated most visibly with black entertainers. It reached the height of its popularity in the 1940s when it was worn primarily by black and latino men as part of black nightlife. Figures such as jazz singer Cab Calloway and Mexican film actor Tin-Tan made the zoot suit famous beyond the nightclub subculture in New York and California. Most white Americans would have known the zoot suit from touring jazz bands or films featuring big band leaders.

Above: Cab  Calloway in his zoot suit performs Geechy Joe in Stormy Weather (1943)

The zoot suit is all about excess — the pants are high-waisted and wide, the coats are commonly knee-length, the lapels and shoulders are aggressively large, and a fedora and long chain often accompany the look. The excessiveness of the suit is what makes it so iconic and so troubling to the mainstream. The amount of fabric it takes to create the elaborate draping effects of the suit made them a luxury during a time in which luxury was frowned upon by normative—that is, white middle-class—America. To own and wear a zoot suit during World War II was seen as spitting in the face of the Americans who lived on ration books and recycled their out of style clothing to save resources.

This kind of material excess alongside its association with black and brown people made the zoot suit a highly visible icon of racial and cultural difference that ignited a lot of simmering resentment from white Americans. This resentment eventually spilled over into outright violence during the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles in 1943. A series of altercations between Anglo-American servicemen and latino youths in zoot suits escalated into days-long riots during which white servicemen sought out and attacked young latino men wearing the suits.

White sailors during the Zoot Suit Riots, 1943

The zoot suit, an emblem of a larger subculture of black and latino youths, became the scapegoat of the Anglo-American aggression against the subculture itself. Because the zoot suit lay so far outside of mainstream American style, it was read to represent a larger trend in which resistance to austerity during the war also represented resistance to the nation itself and therefore the political imperatives of the war.

It is interesting to think of this crisis not only in terms of nationalism or racism, but also in terms of subculture and mainstream. While the zoot suit is big and excessive, the military uniform worn by the servicemen is close-fitting and more or less lacking in expensive frills. But to read the zoot suit against the military uniform is not to read a subculture against a mainstream, but rather as an altercation between two subcultures. The military is a specific social and cultural formation that has its own rules and norms—discipline, honor, and courage, for example—distinct from civilian culture, just as zoot suiters had a set of norms distinct from middle-class white American culture. Both subcultures are set up against a different “mainstream,” yet the military gets to “speak for” or represent the mainstream as a kind of police force. My point here is that rather than thinking of the American servicemen as a disciplinary mainstream, it might be more interesting to think of them (and their style) as a celebrated subculture against which the zoot suiters were seen as deviant.

The politics of the zoot suit are revealed, therefore, both in the way that it comes to represent a racial and national group at ideological odds with white middle-class America, but also in the ways that it allows another subculture—the military—to think of itself as the defender of a normative mainstream through violent conflict.

While the zoot suit remained more or less subcultural—it was never picked up by the (white) mainstream as anything other than a nostalgic emblem of a depoliticized jazz age—other forms of subcultural style circulate more widely and suggest a more complex relationship between subculture and mainstream than we usually suppose.

One of the most iconic subculture styles to permeate contemporary fashion is associated with punk. Punk culture was one of the first objects of study for scholars of subculture in 1970s and 80s Britain. At that time, punk meant a very specific group of working-class youth associated with anti-establishment expression, particularly in music. Since then, punk style has become far more visible and accessible to those outside of punk culture. We see elements of punk style everywhere from Urban Outfitters to Coachella.

Bob Mazzer captures punks in the London Underground during the 1970s

As we said in our last installment, the politics of personal style are complicated by the ways in which fashion is intersected by capitalism. Although the punk subculture is usually understood to be anti-establishment and anti-capitalist, its style and its music are commodities that are consumed by many people outside the subculture itself. Doc Martens boots, one of most iconic facets of punk style, has recently become a mainstream fashion trend, and the Dr. Martens website dedicates an entire page to celebrating the subcultural history of its product even as it also attempts to sell its boots to an ever-growing consumership. The subcultural ties of the boots actually function as an attraction to non-punk consumers interested in emblems of anti-establishment authenticity.

Docs, as I mentioned above, allowed my friends and me to identify against the hyper-visible preppiness of my undergrad college campus. Their association with punk culture allowed us to perform resistance and non-comformity because they function as a general sort of symbol for edginess and counter-cultural posturing even as they are increasingly worn by “mainstream” consumers.

I definitely do not mean to suggest that the use of subcultural style by consumers outside the subculture is some sort of adulteration of a pure authenticity. Fashion proves that originality and authenticity can never be accurately pinned down—every stylistic performance incorporates and alludes to other styles and other performances. Coco Chanel’s iconic tweeds, for example, refer to the textiles worn by poor fishermen in coastal French fishing villages during the early 20^th century though they now almost exclusively signify high fashion. My point instead is that the “mainstreaming” of subcultural styles muddies the uses of style as political resistance.

And while I am very interested in the way subcultural groups can make cultural expression a political provocation using style, I am also sensitive to the limits imposed by thinking of politics exclusively in terms of style, performance or fashion.

This is, perhaps, something to think about. Stay tuned.

On Weight and the Pathologization of the Black Feminine

After walking home from the bus stop, I threw my backpack on the kitchen floor, reached towards whatever was left in the pantry, and sat, for hours, in front of a large television screen as I did every day. Prioritizing Sister Sister and That’s So Raven re-runs over homework was obviously the responsible thing to do.

What I didn’t realize in elementary school was that each marathon I was invited to sit through threatened to color my world with a white-dominated standard of beauty and value.. Each episode of Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, and The Suite Life reinforced the notion that eurocentrism was ultimately the standard by which beauty needed to measured and upheld. As time went on, I began sitting in front of the television less because I no longer saw people on the screen that looked like me. In their attempt to offset backlash, some networks hired one or two token non-white cast members. Seeing them became an occasion for me to think about how harmful inclusive exclusion is. It was never enough.

As I got older, I no longer searched for remotes with the same urgency and interest as I used to. When Precious was released in 2009, it became clearer to me that my disinterest in pop culture was, in fact, a disinterest in the anti-Blackness that undergirded every facet of mainstream media. But Precious was presumably supposed to provide nuance in an industry and world that was built on the subjugation and attempted erasure of Black women.

“My name is Claireece Precious Jones. I want to be on the cover of a magazine.”

Gabourey Sidibe as Precious (2009)

The school bell sounded as the trailer began for the film. As Claireece walked out of stairwell she was stared at and pushed by other students. Not unlike the majority-white audience who purchased tickets to see the film, the students in the backdrop of the opening scene of the trailer had a desire to see and lay claim to a Black body that did not belong to them. The space that Claireece occupies is one that is imbued with violence and in the opening scene of the trailer Claireece makes it clear to the audience that the violence that the Black Feminine experiences does not render the Black Feminine nameless, silent, or invisible.

Claireece creates an alternative mode of life and sociality for herself by imagining herself on the cover of magazines. In the opening scene of the trailer, Claireece insistently acknowledges her own humanity while others fail to. She imagines a world in which she has full control over when and how she is seen. After several outfit changes, Claireece returns to a world that not only pathologizes her Blackness but also problematizes her weight. And after purchasing movie tickets to see the film, I realized that my presumption about the film was the furthest thing from true. I had anticipated seeing a move that sufficiently represented the nuances of Black sociality but instead, the movie seemed to trouble the binary of spectator and performance.

Every seat in the movie theatre was occupied. I sat behind rows of blonde and brunette white people who seemed all too eager to see Precious and my initial confusion turned into discomfort because I no longer felt safe. Although I was too young to articulate the convoluted feeling I had about sitting next to, behind, and in front of white people to see this film, I was certain that something was not right.

Precious was a box office success grossing over $63 million, receiving six nominations at the 82^nd Academy Awards, and overwhelmingly good reviews from critics. The problem is that movies that cast non-white or, more specifically, Black actresses gross $63 million and receive numerous nominations at the Academy Awards insofar as they dehumanize Black women. Black women are consistently nominated for playing nannies, slaves, the sexually exploited…the critical acclaim of their movies is definitely tied to the excess of their on-screen suffering. That is to say that the hyper-investment and interest of Precious is a means by which the general public can continue to work in service of white standards of beauty and human value by reifying the notion that Black women are subjects that the world can dehumanize, commodify, and lay claim to as it wills.

Black women are told that we do not belong on the cover of magazines, let alone the concluding pages that are marked by advertisements. We are told that we taint spaces that are reserved for white women and when self-aggrandizing liberals decide to cast Black women in their films they tell us that we will be cast insofar as we assent to the violence that the role is imbued with. In this case in particular, Gabourey Sidibe is navigating an inclusive exclusion that welcomes her into a labor market that needs her and yet disavows her humanity because she is a plus size Black woman.

This type of inclusive exclusion is a guise that coerces people into believing that fat people and Black people are no longer being dehumanized by mainstream media. Yet their presence depends on their acquiescence to dictated, controlled space. Most of these women in popular culture are being told how and where to exist. When someone is both fat and Black, this becomes even more convoluted because every facet of their identity is denigrated according to white mainstream standards. . Nearly every film, advertisement, sitcom, magazine spread and commercial tells fat Black women that they are subhuman because they do not evoke the right kind of desire, and that they only deserve to occupy cultural space when they suffer.

The oppression of fat Black women through certain types of representation is something that deserves greater attention than it receives. What is often forgotten is the fact that there is nothing pathological about fat Black women. What is often forgotten is the fact that fat Black women exist. And this is the problem. Fat Black women not only exist, but do in revolutionary ways, and deserve to be the arbiters of their own lives, their own performances, and their own representation. That means that we do not have a right to determine for ourselves when it is and is not convenient for us to see and subjectivize fat Black women. In other words, the fat Black woman (the doubly pathologized body) should not just be valorized when an Oscar is on the line.

Gabourey Sidibe for French Elle

After purchasing movie tickets to see Precious I situated myself in a sea of white people and I felt suffocated by their desire to cathartically look at suffering Black bodies. Theorizing the relation between performer and spectator becomes even more crucial in these circumstances. The violence that was coupled with the collective gaze of the audience hinges on the type of violence Black women experienced in the 19^th century when they were forced to be subjects of medical experimentation, sideshows, and museum exhibitions because the white onlookers in the movie theatre viewed Black bodies as propertied subjects to be possessed.

I was reminded of this when a few weeks ago, I attended The Vagina Monologues and witnessed a performer disavow the gaze of an audience that was eager to see and contain her. The performer, a plus size Black woman, was the arbiter of a story that fell on and through ears unwilling to listen to what her performance was imbued with—resistance .  The audience was made profoundly uncomfortable by the fact that the performer demanded to be humanized, but they were even more uncomfortable by the fact that the performer humanized herself and reconfigured what is thought to be a binary opposition between performer and spectator. Before one of the students in the audience began to capture the performance, the Black woman—in anticipation of this violence—unapologetically  embraced the space she occupied as well as her Blackness by centering herself on the stage and shouting.

Despite our intentions, we often find ourselves working in service of white supremacy when we assume the powerful position of the onlooker or arbiter of a performance. When plus size Black women move in violent spaces such as the one the performer moved through, they can choose to negate the ways in which people attempt to see them. So an attempt to capture plus size Black women without their knowledge or consent is an attempt to disregard the work that they do to create alternative modes of existing.

There is also a disjuncture between when, where, and how plus size white women and Black women are seen and “accepted”. While celebrities such as Adele, Rebel Wilson, Jennifer Coolidge, and Melissa McCarthy are subject to denigration and ridicule because of their size, Black women like Amber Riley, Monique, Jill Scott, and Rachel Jeantel have to resist a world that not only fails to see them but condemns their existence when it does. For instance, when Rachel Jeantel, 19-year old prosecution witness, recounted her final phone call with Trayvon Martin before George Zimmerman murdered him, the general public was eager to compare her to an animal because of her skin color, weight and speech. Because Rachel did not articulate herself the way everyone wanted her to, the general public delegitimized her testimony and dehumanized her by gleefully shaming her.

MZ 007

Women like Rachel Jeantel, Gabourey Sidibe, Amber Riley, Monique, Jill Scott and Mz 007 give us an occasion to deconstruct normative modes of existing and thinking about subjectivity. Despite the fact that mainstream media tries to control and regulate Black women whose bodies are “unconventional”, these women are among many who remind us what it is to live in, through, and beyond a world that tells us at every waking moment that plus size Black women do not deserve to exist.

Why Oscar Snubs Matter

On February 23, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doled out its coveted statuettes to filmmakers in celebration of their achievements in the cinematic arts. But this year, the Oscars’ golden glow was tarnished by what many internet commentators have labeled a racist snub: the exclusion of Selma’s director Ava DuVernay and leading actor David Oyelowo from this year’s Academy Award ballot. Racism is a weighty accusation that is perhaps not entirely deserved. However, the fact that of no person of color was nominated in any of the acting categories this year does give one pause. A look at Academy history furthers suspicion: only about 4% of the acting awards have gone to people of color, according to an LA Times study in 2012.

Photo courtesy Time Magazine / Paramount Pictures

Both the New York Times’ David Carr and Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson do not believe that Selma’s exclusion was fueled by overt racism. Writing for Variety, Mr. Levinson argues that though America is still a “racist country,” as a whole, things are getting better and that the controversy surrounding Ms. DuVernay and Mr. Oyelowo has been blown out of proportion. In his article, he offers three reasons why the Selma snub was likely not due to racial bias: 1. The academy does not have a track record of picking the best nominees, 2. White people get overlooked for Oscars too (example: Clint Eastwood didn’t get nominated for American Sniper) and 3. Since 12 Years a Slave won so many accolades last year, the academy cannot be racist this year.

Mr. Levinson concludes by arguing that “Race issues in America are significant and need to be addressed. The lack of diversity in Hollywood is valid, but change begins with education, not the Oscar ballots…Without that support, too many lost voices can’t join tomorrow’s screenwriters, or directors, or actors, or production designers, or cinematographers, or editors.” Though I appreciate Mr. Levinson’s call for social change, ending on this note subtly excuses the academy from having any responsibility in developing new artistic voices (or recognizing the diversity of existing ones). He essentially claims that if other societal systems were better combating racism, then there would be greater diversity in the industry (and the unstated implication: more black people may be more able to win Oscars). This argument feels like a cop-out, because it pushes responsibility onto other societal institutions, even though the academy purports to represent an industry that is hugely influential in shaping the cultural landscape.

The New York Times’ David Carr also believes that the Selma snub was not an “overt racist conspiracy,” but his assessment of the situation strikes me as much more nuanced than Mr. Levinson’s. Mr. Carr argues that

“…in general the Academy and the industry it mirrors manage diversity the same way that corporate America does, by ticking off boxes. That means that after Kathryn Bigelow won as best director in 2010 for ‘The Hurt Locker’—the only female director to have won in the award’s 87 years—there was no reason to even nominate her again from the extraordinary ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ The ‘woman thing’ had been checked off already. And it also means that though ’12 Years a Slave’ won best picture, its director, Steve McQueen, did not receive similar acclaim because that win took care of ‘the black thing.'”

Oscar observer Sasha Stone (quoted in Mr. Carr’s article) reports that “The Academy’s vote for ‘12 Years a Slave’ was like pulling teeth…To this day, I don’t think many members even saw it and now that it won, the academy has snapped back, like a rubber band, to what they know, to films that are made in their own image.’ If this is true, then we should not be surprised to see a lack of diversity in the Oscar nominees this year: the Academy is about 93% white, 76% male and an average of 63 years old.

One complicating factor seems to be that the Academy’s membership is also the reflection of the demographic breakdown of the film industry; therefore Oscar snubs may be related to the complex relationship between institutional politics, economics and racial/gender bias. An undercover report by the L.A Times in 2012 revealed that

Independent studies of some film crafts show that the academy’s demographics mirror the industry’s. Women make up 19% of the academy’s screenwriting branch, and a 2011 analysis by the Writers Guild of America, West found that women accounted for 17% of film writers employment. The academy’s producers branch is about 18% female, and the directors branch is 9% female, figures comparable to those in a study by San Diego State University’s Martha Lauzen. She examined the 250 top-grossing movies of 2011 and found that women accounted for 25% of all of the films’ producers, and 5% of all their directors.

Of course there are notable exceptions to these statistics. The current academy president, Cheryl Boothe Isaacs, is a black woman. When she was serving on the academy’s board of governors in 2012, she was one of 6 women and the only person of color.

Some argue that the Academy Awards are not obligated to reflect cultural diversity and they are not intended to make a political statement. Carr states that the awards “convey recognition at the highest level of a craft”, and are meant to recognize extraordinary careers in the motion picture industry.

In the L.A. Times report, Frank Pierson, former director of the academy and Oscar winner, is quoted as saying “I don’t see any reason why the academy should represent the entire American population. That’s what the People’s Choice Awards are for…We represent the professional filmmakers, and if that doesn’t reflect the general population, so be it.”

Though I understand Mr. Pierson and others’ desires to judge works of art for their aesthetic qualities and craftsmanship without considering politics or demographics, I am not convinced that the academy engages in that kind of objective judgment. Much of the commentary and journalism on the Academy Awards confirms that Oscar decisions have a political component.  Although I agree with Mr. Levinson that institutional racism and sexism undoubtedly affect who has access to the resources to make a movie “worthy” of Oscar status, I see the academy—which has been “limiting membership growth for the last decade” according to the L.A. Times—as one of the institutions contributing to these inequities.

Because the Academy Awards are such a highly public spectacle, the Oscars make a political statement by choosing a “canon” of sanctioned artists. My concern is that at the core of these Oscar nomination controversies is the academy’s resistance towards developing a film canon that includes narratives that do not center on the white, middle-class, middle-aged male experience.

Photo from ABC

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I can’t remember when I personally stopped trusting the academy to award Oscars to the most deserving films or artists each year.  It was sometime between my birth and the moment that I realized the academy was not going to award The Lord of the Rings trilogy much of anything until the final installment came out…and then it gave The Return of the King basically every award a self-respecting fantasy movie could hope to receive from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. This struck me as false and political.

But despite my mistrust, I (like many skeptic film buffs) watch the awards every year and behave like a devoted sports fan, constantly yelling at the TV when the refs make a bad call as winners are announced. I feel vindicated when the academy and I agree on who should win Best Director and then immediately feel betrayed when it gives the award to someone I deemed undeserving, or it fails to nominate a film or artist I believe should be recognized—this betrayal happens almost every year, in one category or another. For me, it’s the nomination that matters—not the eventual winner. The exclusion of deserving candidates from the final voting ballots (see N.B.) does, in part, diminish the prestige of the Academy Awards. The high status that accompanies the taking home a golden statuette depends almost entirely on people believing that an Oscar actually represents the highest level of craftsmanship and artistry in film.

Even if an Academy Award is a false signifier, the heavy media coverage, star-studded red carpet specials, and historical prestige make the Academy Awards relevant because they have the power to compel people to watch certain movies, to engage with certain narratives. And nominations—and exclusions—make political statements about the voices that are valued in this community of filmmakers. And, in the words of Uncle Ben/Voltaire: with great power comes great responsibility.

Yes, the Oscars are over for this year and the time to speculate on who should have won is certainly up. However, it is never too late to insist that our cultural institutions recognize artists who create films that document experiences divergent from those of the academy’s largest demographic

N.B. on academy voting: According to the academy’s website, films are nominated by “the members of the corresponding branch—actors nominate actors, film editors nominate film editors, etc.” After films are nominated, the respective divisions vote on the nominees to determine the final ballot (which is the ballot that is presented as a given year’s class of nominees). All academy members—regardless of their division—are allowed to vote on the final ballot and the winners are revealed on live TV. This suggests to me that individual divisions—and individual members—have a lot of agency when selecting both nominees, and award recipients.