Ethnicity and Race

The very notion that some people believe we live in a post-racial society still baffles me. Considering the Esposito article was written almost a decade ago, aligning with the election of President Obama, forces me to think back in time a bit. So even if I think it’s ridiculous, it’s much easier to fool ourselves and believe that a post-racial society exists. I was a little late in watching Ugly Betty but when I did a binge watch occurred as I was immediately hooked. The episode that Esposito chose to unpack is highly memorable and I agree with the reading. But I think the color-blindness is even obvious just in the title sequence: 

The face is fragmented and different colored skins are mixed together. All the while, our Latina protagonist (white-passing) Better, is the character who will convince us and her white cast counterparts that fashion or, “beauty”, is a thing that can be learned and earned. We’re meant to believe that her ugliness is her braces, her hair, her “lack” of fashion, but as Esposito highlights it is her otherness that keeps her from advancing in the industry.  

That said, witch Christine Acham’s article in mind, The Cosby Show which intentionally ignores race provides a better understanding for the immediate desire to forget without forgiving. In contrast the episode of the Black-ish that we saw in class, it’s clear how television can be utilized as a means of communicating to audiences directly. I’ve never seen any other episodes of Black-ish but the way that points of the show utilized a documentary style edit with slow motion and historical footage made me much more aware of my space, place, and time. I wasn’t a passive viewer watching television, I felt like I was being told something and I needed to pay attention. The article by Gray then added to this historical and cultural context. That “highly visible media personalities (…) helped to focus, organize, and translate blackness into commodifiable representations and desires that could be packaged and marketed across the landscape of American popular culture” (68) was the peak point of the article, for me and brings the Esposito article back to mind. How do you commodify something/people, who are “ugly” to society?

Core Post 5: Week 8 (Ethnicity & Race)

While many of the ideas presented in this week’s readings are fairly widespread, reading all three in conjunction left me feeling rather pessimistic. Gray tell us that any programming that is for black audiences is not motivated by any desire to see black stories but purely for profit; Acham’s findings that The Cosby Show, despite whatever Bill Cosby’s intentions, perpetuated racists views of white audiences; and Esposito’s assertion, using Ugly Betty as an example, that the topic of race is still avoided and thus left to fester. 

All in all rather depressing, if not groundbreaking but interesting nonetheless. I saw some parallels in Acham and Esposito’s articles: study of episodes of television that ran concurrently with pivotal moments in history (The Cosby Show and the L.A. Riots / Ugly Betty and Obama’s election) and the use of ideas of class and meritocracy to distract from race. Like Sasha, I found Esposito’s overly thorough look at the myth of post-racial societies/racism/representation/etc to be surprising. In contrast, I found Acham’s claims to be slightly more nuanced in that she considers the different ways that race, class, encoding & decoding, and historical context are considered. The focus on Bill Cosby, a strong supporter of respectability politics, and the ways his attempts to create a family that just happens to be black, even if it wasn’t read that way by viewers, was an interesting point of contention to consider. 

My own personal experience with Ugly Betty is interesting since I used to be a big fan of the show what it aired. As a 14 year-old Asian kid with immigrant parents, I saw myself in Betty and I too believed that if I tried hard enough I could get anywhere I wanted without accepting handouts because of my race and/or gender. And connecting it back to the readings, I also thought it interesting that gender wasn’t brought into any of these conversations about race. When out with two female friends  last night, we decided to recount the most sexist behaviors we’ve experienced but I could only think of racists things that had happened to me. Sure, I get cat-called all the time but I’m more bothered that kids will yell “konnichiwa” at me on the street. 

Salma Hayek, one of Ugly Betty’s executive producers, recently asked Jessica Williams at a Sundance luncheon celebrating women in film, “Who are you when you’re not black and you’re not a woman? Who are you and what have you got to give?” To which, Williams replied “A lot. But some days, I’m just black, and I’m just a woman. Like it’s not my choice. I know who I am.” Though the whole exchange was interesting/cringy (http://remezcla.com/features/culture/salma-hayek-jessica-williams-latinos/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=paid&utm_medium=cpc) I think it is important to know that race and gender (and class) are interconnected. While Betty is Latina, she is also a woman and while Esposito may not consider the role her gender also played in her conflict with white, gay, male Marc, it most definitely did play a role.

As a personal/amusing tidbit, there is a webseries Quiet Tiny Asian (which I was directed to by Kathy). I was laughing but only because it was so sad how accurate it was. Here are my two favorite episodes

Core Post 1: TV and Race (Week 8)

I was most interested with the ideas of meritocracy, the color-blind society and post-racialism that both Esposito and Acham brought up in each of their articles, particularly with regards to South Africa.

Following the events of 1994, in which South Africa held its first democratic election and the institution of apartheid came to an end, post-apartheid South Africa has been romanticized as a post-racial utopia in which the transgressions of the past are forgiven and the entire country can start again. This emphasis on “forgiveness” and “moving on” was demonstrated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in which perpetrators admitted to the gross human rights violations they committed under the apartheid regime, and were subsequently given amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution with the intention of clearing the air and moving on. Unsurprisingly, a study conducted four years after the TRC (that surveyed several hundred victims of human rights abuse) found that the TRC was unsuccessful in achieving reconciliation between black and white communities. A major reason cited for this failure is that “justice is a prerequisite rather than an alternative to it” (Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, 1998); after all, there can be no forgiveness without consequence.

The result of the nation’s hurried attempt to sweep the past under the carpet and swiftly move forward has encouraged a significant number of (white) South Africans to valorize the ideals of post-racialism and meritocracy. These ideals are propagated by South African media, for example, the soap opera Generations (1994 – present) which follows the lives of rich, affluent black business leaders that (presumably) have achieved their success through hard work and a refusal to be held back by their race, class and social status… This representation is, of course, impossible following the end of apartheid because there were literal social and economic limits imposed onto people of color.

The valorization of these aforementioned ideals coupled with an inflated representation of black success in the media has led to outrage over policies such as Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment - besides the fact that 45% of black people in South Africa are unemployed as opposed to 5% of white people. I’m reminded of Bauer’s quote in Acham’s article that regards the ideals and goals that minorities learn from The Cosby Show and (Generations) as more important than equalizing policies.

To prove my point, below is an interaction I engaged in this very afternoon regarding the question “Why are black South Africans so angry?” When somebody suggested that is because of all that was promised and not delivered, here’s what ensued:

Core Post 4: TV + Race (Week 8)

This week’s articles on TV and race each examine the politics of racial representation on network television, particularly in sitcoms. It was interesting to see how these issues have been framed in the past couple decades, as they are now debated in increasingly mainstream contexts where the language of diversity and representation is central to conversations about justice in media industries. I was confused as to why Jennifer Esposito’s article (which was published in 2009) took so many pages to detail why the politics of representation matter, outlining the perils of ‘colorblind’ rhetoric, the ways that racism is embedded in institutions, and how representation both reflects and constitutes audiences’ conceptions of identity. These claims seem to be well-established, rudimentary facts in TV/film/media studies, or at least a shared set of assumptions from which cultural analysis has been proceeding for many decades—not claims that need to be argued in 2009, in a journal called Television & New Media. Am I missing something? Perhaps I am naive and my being surprised is an encouraging reflection of how much these discussions have progressed in the past decade.

Writing on Ugly Betty and The Cosby Show, Esposito and Christine Acham argue respectively that each show missed opportunities to meaningfully critique the realities of race in American society. For Acham, Bill Cosby’s desire to keep racial politics out of his show was impossible from the start—a black show simply could not assume the cultural invisibility that is afforded to whiteness, and should have challenged, not affirmed, the myth that we live in a meritocracy. Similarly, Esposito critiques an episode of Ugly Betty for failing to displace whiteness from a universal subject position that proclaims colorblindness and sees no need for affirmative action. This type of analytical orientation is increasingly common in popular discourse, as progressives demand greater diversity and criticality in film and TV, insisting that representation should reflect realities of identity. Implicit in this demand is an assumption that reflecting reality will affect reality; that social conservatives are deluded by misconceptions which can be overcome by a combination of ideological critique, realism, and empathy, leading to the humanist conclusion: “they’re just like us.” While I do not disagree with this position, I think it would be valuable to reconsider some of the assumptions that lead us to it.

One of the most surprising reiterations of this premise was articulated recently by Reza Aslan, a religious studies scholar who has famously appeared on several news shows to respond to vapid bigotries about the inherent evils of Islam. (Some examples linked here, worth watching if you haven't seen: Fox News, CNN, list goes on..). In January, Aslan announced that he would be producing a sitcom about an Iranian-American family in an effort to counter the negative, indeed violent stereotypes widely perpetuated about Muslims in post-9/11 America. This short video lays out the political logic behind the show’s creation. I find it astonishing that this activist and public intellectual suggests a sitcom to be the most transformative way that he can instill some basic degree of factuality into the public perception of Muslims. (I recognize that Islam is a religion and not a race, but I think it’s fair to claim that the figure of the Muslim terrorist so demonized by contemporary society is a racialized one, and is well suited for analysis according to these categories.) Again, I don’t necessarily think that he’s wrong—but still, how can that be the case? Was it actually, as Aslan suggests, shows like Will & Grace and Modern Family that overwhelmingly shifted public opinion in favor of gay marriage? And can we really equate the status of rich white gay men to that of Muslims contending with the illogic of the War on Terror? If our analytical model instead approaches something like Gray’s—which is more attentive to the market forces producing and reacting to appetites for particular types of representation—the answer may be a little more disheartening.

Core Post 2: India Wilson_TV Audiences

Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching, provided a very intriguing and in depth look at fan culture's roots and production. The article was an enjoyable read with a well-thought out examination of the way in which different groups of people, particularly women in this case, interact with Television Media as fans. After such an interesting look at these worlds and the ways in which they are considered legitimate and illegitimate (both between fans and between fans and the external audiences) The conclusion, refuting Modleski's claim, falls flat for me. 

In the conclusion, Henry Jenkins writes, "Fans are not empowered by mass culture; fans are empowered over mas culture" (491). I personally love much of Jenkins' work on fan culture and subcultures, but this seems to be a somewhat blanket negation of the ways in which popular culture can have subversive elements built into it. For instance, Jenkins writes, "Resistance comes from the uses they make of these popular texts, from what they add to them and what they do with them, not from subversive meanings that are somehow embedded within them" (491). In considering this statement, one might respond that while materials may be produced within a commercial system that often does reflect and replicate popular capitalist mechanisms, there also can be certain things that slip through the cracks and that work towards actively counteracting elements of mass culture. 

In fact, it would be fair to say that much of what Jenkin's points out regarding the specific appeal of Star Trek to large fan worlds actually reinforces Modleski's view. For instance, the ability to raise issues of women's role in the home/professional world and how it influences their relationship. If the show's base material did not in some way counteract mass culture, then why wouldn't every show yield this type of debate and cultural production? Furthermore, I would argue that Jenkins' statement that "Nobody regards these fan activities as a magical cure for social ills of post-industrial capitalism. They are no substitution for meaningful change, but they can be used effectively to build popular support for change" downplays the actual realizable influence of fan-produced texts. This may be in part due to the time of Jenkins' writing. In the internet age, when fan texts can be so much more widely disseminated and engaged with, the effects of these materials seem much more real and concrete, particularly because the fan texts/materials in question now often influence the commercial mechanisms behind television as well as popular discourse in the news etc. 

In conclusion I think it's worth considering that Modelski's view of fans empowered by certain forms of mass culture, like Star Trek, may have more validity than Jenkins sees within it. 

TV+Audiences Core Response

The focus on audience and audience interactivity this week is interesting and got me thinking more on the ways I previously viewed my own audience experience and participation. Ellen Seiter’s call for a diversity of researchers was enlightening to read about it. It’s a valid and important need for qualitative audience research but it also adds a level of complexity within the research of audiences; for both researcher and researchee, the gender/race/class of each can be considered and opens the space to questioning how those identities shape the research.

Henry Jenkin’s highlighted the proliferation of reading as writing for female audiences, more than men. This was the part of fandom that I hadn’t known about before, however, when put into context with the writings of Radway on the romance novel, it makes sense. I’m curious to learn more on the term “fan boy” because of this historical context. I’m not an avid fan-fiction reader but the few that I have come across are always written by females and favor homo-sexual relationships. If we consider Ellen Seiter’s article, here there’s a need for research as to why this gender shit occurred. And who reads these writings? How are males influenced by them if they do read them?

Finally, the Mark Andrejevic article really made me think of new forms of audience interaction. More than on-line spaces for audiences to interact with television networks, I kept thinking of YouTub as a space where a heavy dose of viewer-creator interaction occurs on a daily/weekly/bi-weekly basis. What makes You Tube an interesting case for me is the fact that at the beginning, YouTube “Stars” were single content creators who looked for feedback from the start. It’s a space where anyone can upload their creative content and immediately receive feedback from viewers/audiences/fans who have the ability to freely comment their admiration, hatred, or opinion for new content, and creators benefit  from their interaction. The fan base for YouTube Stars has grown so much that VidCon seems to gaining as much popularity as Comic-Con. Maybe not as much these days, but YouTube was appealing because “everyday people” could become famous because of other “everyday” people who interacted with them on-line.