This is a photo of Sara Baartman, also colloquially known as the Hottentot Venus. In 19th Century Europe, she was exhibited as a "freak show" where white Europeans marveled at the (alleged) size and shape of her buttocks. So what does the Hottentot Venus have to do with Nicki Minaj? The commonality is that Minaj embodied the past stereotype of the Hottenton Venus of the 21st Century on last week's Saturday Night Live.
I read this article on TheRoot by Michael Arceneaux (which is one of my favorite website) and was disturbed. As many people know, much of my scholarly work centers on the limited representations and constructions of black gay men on television. But this article bugged me, not because the author is wrong, but because he selectively chose which information to include and which to delete.
His gripe is that there is a revolution happening on television in terms of gay characters appearance and acceptance on TV but that black gay men have not been/are not a part of that revolution. And he rightly points out that these representations are disproportionately white. No arguments so far. Where he goes off the rails (for me) is in his selection of Antoine Dodson (of "Hide Yo Kids" fame) and Lawrence Washington (from The Real Housewives of Atlanta). While perhaps his selection of these two celetoids (to borrow a phrase from the brilliant Chris Rojek who defines it roughly as a person who acquires short, intense bursts of media attention) speaks to their omnipresence in media he is remiss in recognizing that the Entertainment Weekly article DID mention Calvin from Greek who is an out black gay man, former president of his fraternity, has an interest in sports and has been written such that he has relationships (albeit with white men) that include kissing and sometimes the implication that there was same sex sexual intercourse.
Also conveniently missing from this analysis is the gang from Noah's Arc. Are they not gay representations (or at least not the "right" gay representations)? Are the only "approved" (by whom?) ways that black gay men on television can be represented is as ultra masculine like Keith Charles on Six Feet Under? What about Carter Heywood from Spin City? Why is he missing from this analysis? He is certainly the father of the movement whereby gay black men on TV began subscribing to what Evelyn Higginbotham calls a politics of respectability.
We have to get beyond this notion of positive and negative when it comes to representations of black gay men in media. These terms are entirely subjective. Whose positive? Who's negative? I often say to a friend of mine that nuance is dead and this article speaks to that notion loud and clear. If we subscribe to Charles Cooley's notion that TV is a place we turn to in order to see ourselves reflected, then for someone, these representation are grounded in their truth. Do some of these representations rely on stereotypes? Of course they do, but stereotypes are grounded in a truth, perhaps not yours or mine, but someone's truth. It's extraordinarily facile to dismiss black gay characters because they fail to conform to the ways in which we construct what black gayness (or gayness, generally for that matter) is or is not.
I can't argue that we still need to search for the black gay men on TV, but the notion that all we have to pick from are the caricatures of gayness that harken back to the days of Men On... from In Living Color is a bit disingenuous. We still have a long way to go, (the same is true for many televisual groups including lesbians, who are as invisible on TV as black gay men), but we have more choices than Arceneaux asserts.
My first piece for PopMatters was published while I was on vacation, so I'm a little remiss in publishing it here. It takes a look at Kurt Hummel and the construction of gay men on television. Enjoy!
I have (as is usual) been consuming a lot of media recently. What is interesting is the amount of that media that works to heteronormalize gay relationships. I've been catching up on Modern Family (a show I have really grown to enjoy and am teetering on the brink of calling myself a fan) and well, the gay relationship between and Cam and Mitchell is not so modern. And it has nothing to do with the idea that they have not kissed, although there is a Facebook group of more than 13,000 people who want that to happen. No, it has more to do with the way in which the producers of Modern Family have constructed this couple along "traditional" tropes of the family.
It's always been my contention that female sexuality is far more fluid that male sexuality. We've graduated from the days where lesbians were portrayed as psycho killers and have moved on to an era where the idea of lesbianism is primarily presented for the titillation of heterosexual men. So, is it any wonder that we are bombarded with images of faux lesbianism in media? From Chaka Khan and Patti LaBelle on the BET Awards to Miley Cyrus, female celebrities seem to be embracing their inner Lady G.O.G.A. (that's "girl on girl action" for the uninitiated.)
I have been a slacker and haven't posted the interviews I've done over the past few weeks with media outlets. I was interviewed for a story for Forbes.com about the changing role of fathers on television. I was also interviewed for a story for Christian Science Monitor about celebrity and youth cultures.
I will tell anyone who listens that I detest CNN (and all the other 24 hour news networks including CNBC, MSNBC and FOX News) because I believe they do a disservice to Americans seeking unbiased news coverage. But my recent giant glass of ice cold Haterade is lifted to CNN not necessarily for being biased, but for simply being dumb. Now, I am never one to deny someone a check, so hats off to Soledad O'Brien for getting hers, but really CNN? You have the nerve to call a series Gay in America and then treat us (and I use the word VERY loosely) to a documentary on one gay couple's (anticlimactic) journey to having a baby.
This is a great article from The New Yorker about the increasing number of gay (or at least gay-ish) young men in media and an attempt to figure out what it means culturally. I think it just means that tween girls tend to like fey-ish young men rather than that there is necessarily a greater acceptance of gay folk on television. But what is still troubling is that the identification of gay and gay-ish young men (or the "mark of gayness") still traffics heavily in stereotypes of what it means (or doesn't mean) to be gay. Gay young men on television are still overwhelmingly showtune-loving, high-kicking and twirling representations (full disclosure: I was one of these young men) but isn't it time for a broader range of representations? Certainly shows like Greek and Will & Grace (as problematic as the show is) have broadened the range of gay men seen on television, but these are adult men.
I am a believer that television is a socialization tool and while we're televisually celebrating letting our freak flags fly, we're also limiting the construct of what young male gayness is and can be.
I watched a documentary on LOGO called The Butch Factor on logo which purported to examine ideas (and ideals) about masculinity among gay men. What struck me when watching was that the documentary presented a monolithic idea of masculinity, or to speak in the film's terms, butchness. The masculine men played sports, participated in rodeos and were police officers while the less butch (read: feminine) representations were of men who had more artsy professions.
I am usually not a fan of Donna Brazil, but she has spoken the truth. Brazil says that if she could get rid of one thing in the world, that'd be pundits. Amen! She says:
If a single move could restore civility to politics, that is it. Get rid of the left-vs.-right commentators who are just out scoring points for their team. This sort of opinion-mongering is not only boring and predictable, it is destructive of the truth. If your only credentials are "GOP shill" or "Democratic hack," you've no business cluttering up the airwaves or the op-ed pages. My momma always told me that if you don't know what you're talking about, it's best to keep your mouth shut. That's good advice.
Whom do we put in their place? I say replace the pundits with people who have genuine expertise -- whether from their academic work, professional life or personal experience -- on the key issues of the day. Instead of partisan talking heads or mad hatters from the "tea party" preaching their views on, say, health care and taxes, let's hear from doctors and insurance professionals, or the number-crunchers from the Congressional Budget Office. They're much better equipped to help viewers, listeners and readers wade through the facts, arguments and data.
We'd have a much more informed public if we could just get rid of this one thing. But we won't. And the reason we won't is because many will make the argument that regular folk and those with actual knowledge (not to infer that ALL of the pundits who are "approved" by producers don't have knowledge) don't make for "good TV."
I mean, really? Did we really need someone to tell us that the "news" we receive isn't neutral? Despite the claims of shows and networks to have "No Bias, No Bull" and be "Fair and Balanced" the opposite is true. This goes for both right and left media. As Pierre Bourdieu tells us in his fantastic book On Television
"It explains why real information, analysis, in-depth interviews, expert discussions, and serious documentaries lose out to pure entertainment and, in particular, mindless talk show chatter between 'approved' and interchangeable speakers."
This is another fantastic editorial about the argument that we "haven't got time to cook." When in fact, we do have time to cook, we just chose to use that time doing other things that are "more important" to us. The same can be true for those of us (myself included) who don't work out (or at least don't do so regularly). Certainly part of the problem is that the media helps to validate us by constantly telling us that we don't have time to cook and food companies use a products "convenience" as a way to market products to us that help to make not making time to cook much easier for us.
The question about the sacredness of the Prophet Muhammad in media is a fascinating one. That is in no way a slam to Muhammad, but rather, it is interesting given the lack of scrutiny that has been given to other things on South Park including God and the Devil. I don't know the answer, but this New York Times editorial is certainly worth reading. It questions why the Prophet Muhammad is off limits (and many would argue that he should be) but God or the Devil or even Barbara Streisand and Tom Cruise, are/have been skewered by South Park.
Sitting in traffic on I-35 today, I came to a conclusion. As I sat in traffic for miles only to find out that traffic slowed down only for people to look at the flashing lights on the side of the road. And as I saw no one, myself included, stop to help, I wondered why can't people just mind their own business?
Erykah Badu has never been one to suppress her artistic side. And she is making news for being "artistic" in her new music video for the lead single from her new CD The New Amerykah Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh. In the video for Window Seat, Badu strips naked while walking through downtown Dallas to the site where JFK was assassinated before herself being assassinated and bleeding the word "group think" then in a voiceover says:
"They who play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they don't understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel more comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. They are us. This is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual."
We live in a world that is often black and white with no shades of gray. You're either for health care reform or against it. You either support war or you're unpatriotic. We are constantly asked to choose sides in our culture. But never is choosing sides more absurd than when it comes to celebrities. I was reminded of this penchant for the news media to choose sides and then in their reporting make us chose a side as well when I (begrudgingly) watched CNN last week. The "impartial, just delivering the news" anchor Kyra Phillips decided to call Jesse James, Sandra Bullock's husband, a jerk in the course of delivering the news that Sandra Bullock had moved out of the family home in Los Angeles. Kyra Phillips was definitely on Team Sandy.
It's not just limited to coverage of marital/relationship discord (although there are many examples like Team Jen or Team Angie) but also reared its head when we were to chose between Team Coco (Conan O'Brien) or Team Jay (Leno). What's puzzling is that we make these decisions in a knowledge vacuum. As Chris Rojek says in his brilliant book Celebrity "one peculiar tension in celebrity culture is that the arousal of strong emotion [for celebrities] is attained despite the absence of direct personal reciprocity." In other words, we refer to celebrities by first name or by nicknames yet we have so little knowledge about them that would offer us the license to refer to them on friendly terms. For example, Mariah Carey is Mimi, Jennifer Aniston is Jen and Sandra Bullock is Sandy (maybe it's a female thing?). In addition, we have unimonikered people in our culture who go by their first name only: Beyonce, Madonna and for some (or most) gay men when you hear Liza, Bette, Diana, Tina, or Barbara, there can be no doubt about the person being discussed.
There have been some pretty nasty things written about Tiger Woods in light of his extramarital affairs (as well as Jesse James and many other celebrities who have admitted to having sexual relationships with people with whom they are not attached). But the fact remains that we know nothing about them. Perhaps Tiger Woods and his wife had an agreement that sexual monogamy is not an important aspect of their marriage (like Mo'Nique and her husband) and the media's focus on the relationship is really about Elin being embarrassed that the sexual dalliances of her husband have come to light. Maybe Sandra Bullock isn't really America's Sweetheart and is a bear to live with who refused to have sex with her husband. I doubt this is the case with either Tiger Woods or Sandra Bullock, but it illuminates that we just don't have enough information to be able to make the call about who wins when Team Sandy is going head to head with Team Jesse, or Team Tiger vs. Team Elin.
This binary also speaks to the way in which our culture has socially constructed marriage and monogamy. Culturally, we give Mo'Nique the collective "side eye" when she says that one of the partner's "infidelity" is not necessarily a reason to dissolve the relationship -- particularly if we believe that about 50 percent of marriages in the US end in divorce. Who said marriage (or serious relationships for that matter) had to be based on monogamy? We have culturally tied something carnal (sex) to something emotional (love) when the two are not really related. Maybe it is for the best that we live in monogamous relationships, but it's our modern creation and it hasn't been around "forever." And even in the Mo'Nique monogamy situation, we're asked to be on Team Monogamy or Team Open Marriage. Stories on the Internet urge us to make a choice with titles like Are Open Relationships Better?, Is Mo'Nique's Open Relationship Sexist? and Do Open Relationships Equal Insecurity? As Matt Bianco asks us, whose side are you on?
My head is still reeling from watching C-SPAN for most of the day yesterday and watching the "debate" unfold about health care reform. What I think became abundantly clear over the weekend (and arguably through the whole debate process) is not just a difference in ideology, largely going along party lines, and not just the suspicion that we have elected a bunch of 3 year olds to represent us (could they have been less mature) or that our political process is really a time drainer (did it really take all day to get to the vote when largely no one was moved to change their vote by debates, but rather by deals).
Rather, a real socio-economic ideological rift was exposed. I believe health care reform isn't really about access to health care as much it's about the classic American battle between the haves and the have nots. Those who have, want to keep things they way they are because "they work hard for their money and don't want to give it away to those lazy ne'er do wells who only want government handouts." Those who have not, just want access to healthcare for themselves and their family members.
This was crystallized this morning when I went on Facebook and a "friend" invoke the old Reagan line about "the welfare queen" and how she lives on the southside of Chicago (which implies that she's black) and gets $150,000 per year from the government through handouts and use of her four assumed names. Sure, there may be "welfare queens" who do abuse the system and I in no way condone their behavior, but there are also hardworking people who simply cannot afford health care coverage. There are also hardworking people with life threatening diseases who are either uninsurable or are forced to keep jobs for fear of not being able to get coverage from a new employer.
For those who opposed (and still oppose) healthcare reform, I'd be interested to see how they feel about "socialized" medicine and government handouts if they lose their jobs. Or when (and if) they reach age 65 and want to take advantage of "socialized" medicine in the form of Medicare and/or Medicaid.
Perhaps I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but I don't mind paying a little more in taxes to ensure that all American citizens have access to adequate health care. The racial and sexuality-based epithets that were thrown around over the weekend illuminated how important and necessary this reform really is. If it wasn't people would not have been so passionate about it. It wouldn't have been so divisive. This legislation has a 50/50 chance of failing. But if it fails, at least we know that we tried to fix a broken system.
"This... is American Caterwauling" should be the way Ryan Seacrest introduces American Idol.
What's become clear to me is that I watch American Idol for vastly different reasons than the producers of the show intend (in a nod to Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding). I like the show and watch, but it's not because I am looking for the next great artist, but because it is so ingrained in our pop culture sensibility that to not watch is to cut yourself off from the "water cooler sessions" the following morning. With the exception of Kelly Clarkson, Fantasia Barrino (which I bought and promptly sold at a used music store), Jennifer Hudson and Allison Iraheta, I've not purchased music from any other American Idol winner/finalist. The singers I like (and whose CDs I have purchased) all have one thing in common: they are belters.
I'll tackle the last point first. I like a good belter as much as the next gay, but American Idol has suffered from the desire to applaud singers who employ what I call vocal pyrotechnics. (I know, the argument could be made that Jennifer Hudson was given the boot relatively early, but Fantasia, another belter, went on to win the competition in one of the most mismatched American Idol finals in history). When a singer can hit a "glory note" that is reason for us to applaud him or her -- foregoing any sense of nuance related to singing. When someone sits and sings a slow song, it's deemed "sleepy" by the judges. But when someone like Season 9 contestant Siobhan Magnus hits notes, we stand up, cheer and take notice.
I admit, Siobhan delivered a WTF moment for me last night and we collectively forgot about most of the contestants who came before (or after) her because we have been trained to focus on things like, "wow, did you hear that note?" "he has a great falsetto," etc. rather than that was a really solid vocal. It seems that we want/expect "good singing" to be loud and long. In other words, can you hit a note and then make it last until we think you are within seconds of passing out from air deprivation? The thing most of us remember from Mariah Carey's early career is her ability to hit the "dog whistle" note, not that she is really a great singer and interpreter of music.
I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about the notion of undergraduate education is a bit of a racket. The reason I believe this to be so is largely because we award degrees to students for completing a degree but we rarely have any deep understanding of the subject matter of our major. Most people don't necessarily use their degree to work in the field in which they are allegedly supposed to be "masters." Rather, I believe undergraduate education is designed to essentially reward those who can afford (or are willing to take on the debt) to attend college to get a degree in something. For instance, my second career was in public relations and those working in the field had degrees in English, Journalism, Business and other degrees that did not necessarily prepare them for a career in PR.
That haven't been said, undergraduate education is still important. And that was underscored in an episode of the new NBC show Parenthood in its second episode. In it, Sarah, played by Lauren Graham, is out of work and looking for a job. Through nepotism, she gets an interview with a company who ultimately chooses not to hire her because she doesn't have a college degree. (Skip ahead to 21:45 for the interview and 28:40 for the post-interview/decision call).
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So it begs the question, what's so special about a college degree? My opinion is that it is a way to weed out less desireables. In every way, Sarah on Parenthood seemed to be qualified -- except that she doesn't have a college degree. That college degree kept her out of the club, even though she had the experience doing what she was being hired to do. The deficiency? She didn't have the stamp of approval from an institution of higher learning to show that she had paid a lot of money (or gone into a lot of debt) and "paid her dues" in order to gain admittance into "the club."
I believe that the educational system is rife with classism. But what TV shows like Parenthood teach us is that if we want to get ahead, we have to play the game. Afterall, the income disparity between American workers and CEOs, while down, was still 317 to 1 in 2009. And there are few CEOs that don't have college degrees.
