Producing an Oppositional Gaze

Telling Counter StoriesLester and Carlie

Terse Conclusions - HallHall rejects rigid binaries between high and low culture, black popular culture and the mainstream, noting that culture is a site of contestation, and that black popular culture represents a mixture of African tradition and the selective appropriation of European culture. He also rejects essentialism, the reduction of all facets of black culture into one entity. Rather, race is one facet of identity, and people occupy different positionalities that shape experience and perceptions.Erin Brown-John

Hall discusses the question “What sort of moment is this in which to pose the question of black popular culture?” Hall begins by trying to describe the moment we are living in, arguing that America is ambivalent to high European culture and it’s own internal ethnic hierarchies, that we are living in a culturally globalized world, and that we both acknowledge and aggressive resist difference. Because of the moment we are living in Black popular culture is in a contradictory space; Black popular culture is influenced by more than one cultural tradition. Also many are forced to choose their identity: one is Black or British, not Black and British.Brianna Bergeron

What is this ‘black’ in black popular culture?Stuart Hall

This Moment Has 4 General Coordinates:

• European high culture (high modernism) has been replaced by American mainstream popular culture (postmodernism)

• America is the global centre of cultural production and circulation

• Third world is decolonizing

• Resistance to difference (ie. against multiculturalism and support for racism and ethnic absolutism) has formed in reaction to global postmodernism

Cornel West

•American popular culture has and does contain aspects of black cultural vernacular traditions

•Postmodernism has developed inconsistently, mainly in the previous centres of high modernity

•Postmodernism involves difference, especially ethnic

Qualifications Of This Moment

High, Low and Popular Culture

Classification of what is high and low is not important, it’s that these classifications allow for the “play of power” between the different forms of culture

The content of high and low culture changes depending on the historical moment

As popular culture has become the dominant form of global culture, is has also become a scene for commodification and homogenization

Black Popular Culture...

Is a contradictory space, as all popular cultures are

Incorporates many aspects of different cultures ie. black vernacular tradition and modern culture

Features: expressivity, musicality, orality, and production of counter-narratives

Maintains music as an integral part in its structure and style as the subject matter

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-8866456118271132653&ei=nX2USfuQCKe4qAPziJHXDA&q=Black+Culture+Music&hl=en

This Moment

Essentializes differences by identifying them as biological and genetic when they are really cultural and historical

The multitude of identities we are labelled have begun to dislocate themselves as it is not a case of either/or

Terse Conclusions - Hooks

• As a result of an upbringing saturated with positive imagery of white women and a much more negative representation of the black woman, black females have not developed a taste for the positive, black, feminine role. Alternatively, many black women have come to be deliberately critical of the lack of realistic and relatable black female roles in films – Hooks calls this the oppositional gaze. Sean Kile

• Hooks describes that the ‘gaze’ was a political concept. She describes it as a rebellious desire; a site of resistance for black people. Hooks explains that Black females used the oppositional gaze to be skeptical of representations of Blacks in films. It was a resistance struggle – women were critical of what they saw in films, as they were not accurate portrayals. Amy So

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU0qlOjZp7A

The oppositional gazeBell Hooks

The Gaze

Inherent power in looking

Originally a form of resistance for colonized black people

Spectators ruptured their role by resisting identification with the characters

White WomanhoodBlack females were denied presence and visibility in cinema to reinforce the desirability of white women

When black women were shown, it was to enhance the desirability of white women as the subject of a phallocentric gaze

Black Female Spectators

To enjoy the movie, black women had to forget racism and sexism and submit to the cinema’s ability to seduce and betray and not look “too deep” into the film

These women turned away during the film or refused to watch as a show of resistance

The Oppositional Gaze

The ability to critically analyze cinematic construction, through content, form and language, of white womanhood as an object of phallocentric gaze of desire and possession

Rebuked hegemonic structures of power

For those with the “gaze”, the pleasure of watching film came from interrogating and deconstructing them

Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) has black women as the the main characters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4PEcVK6gbM

Terse Conclusions - Takaki

Through the view of Asian-Americans as the “model minority,” a new myth has been created, which is the success of Asian-Americans of achieving the American dream. In reality, this only applies to a fraction of the Asian population as many encounter obstacles, such as the glass ceiling. This misrepresentation of Asian-Americans has resulted in acts of hate, such as the murder of Vincent Chin, and blame being placed on Asian-Americans for “stealing” jobs. Brittany Palmer

The author describes the stereotype of the Asian-American: they make more money than the average American, that they are smarter and more hardworking, and came to America to live the American Dream. This stereotype is in actuality, untrue as the author shows through statistics. The problems with this stereotype in America are showcased, specifically the feeling that Asians are "taking white students spots" in universities across the country by "raising the grade curve" and the murder of Vincent Chin. Brooke Page

The myth of the “model minority”R. Takaki

What is the myth?

That Asian Americans have achieved great economic success, thereby proving the “American Dream” exists in a declining American economy

They have achieved success through their intelligence and hardwork

But.... this is not true

Racial Discrimination

Asians are stereotyped as nerds, which illustrates jealousy and bitterness among whites towards Asian Americans

Post 1965 immigration is endangering the unity and identity of American people

Political concerns of immigration are represented through the cultural medium of film

Shanghai Kiss

David Ren - Director & Writer

Released in 2007

Won San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Award

Asian American Employment Prospects

Work in the secondary sector of labour with low wages and limited promotional opportunities

Work as professionals or in technical positions in the primary sector, never in management positions - “glass ceiling”

Told they are too passive and not aggressive enough to perform administrative tasks or make decisions

Better Luck Tomorrow

Justin Lin - Director

Released in 2002

Won the Visionary Award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival

Nominated at the Sundance Film Festival (2002)

BLT - continuedFirst independent film to be picked up by MTV Films for distribution

Film was financed with credit cards and with money raised independently by the filmmakers - actors deferred their salaries

Was received with mixed reveiws

Discussion Questions

Do you agree or disagree with Roger Ebert’s stance in regards to a film maker’s responsibility towards representation of his or her

ethnic community?

What has made this counter movement towards greater (and proper)

representation for ethnic minorities possible? Specifically, what has enabled

ethnic minority directors to emerge on the scene? Why now? Why not 20 years

earlier?