Idenitity and Eracial: Representing the Other in a Screened World Kalia Brooks IDSVA
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Maine State Library Maine State Documents Academic Research and Dissertations Maine State Documents 11-2016 Idenitity and eRacial: Representing the Other in a Screened World Kalia Brooks IDSVA Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalmaine.com/academic Recommended Citation Brooks, Kalia, "Idenitity and eRacial: Representing the Other in a Screened World" (2016). Academic Research and Dissertations. 19. http://digitalmaine.com/academic/19 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Maine State Documents at Maine State Documents. It has been accepted for inclusion in Academic Research and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Maine State Documents. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IDENTITY AND ERACIAL: REPRESENTING THE OTHER IN A SCREENED WORLD Kalia Brooks Submitted to the faculty of The Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy November, 2016 i Accepted by the faculty of the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________________ Ellen Grabiner, Ph.D. Doctoral Committee ________________________________________ George Smith, Ph.D. _______________________________________ Simonetta Moro, Ph.D. November 21, 2016 ii © 2016 Kalia Brooks ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii This dissertation is dedicated to all my future selves… iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my director, Ellen Grabiner, and committee, George Smith and Simonetta Moro, and the IDSVA community for their support of this study. I would also like to thank the following: Clarence Brooks, Yvonne Brooks, Deborah Willis, Leslie Willis Lowry, Ruth Willis, Johny Nelson, Mecca Brooks, Medea Brooks, Hank Willis Thomas, Masani Mars, David C. Driskell, and Amy Curtis. v ABSTRACT Kalia Brooks IDENTITY AND ERACIAL: REPRESENTING THE OTHER IN A SCREENED WORLD The research that I am about to embark on focuses on the shift in expressions of gendered race in a screened world. This study is primarily centered on this mode of representation as it has been transformed through the evolution of image technology in film, television, and cyberspace. These three media platforms, in particular, are greatly influential on our cultural understanding of self-image, and the image of others. I will look closely at how depictions of gendered race have been authored in each medium, and the mental impact of these images on our individual and collective consciousness. I will argue that race, although not an invention of mass media, derived its meaning in large part from the mythology of images. And mass media, film and TV most specifically, used images of race to invent narratives about collective identification. There is an inherent connection between the images we see and how we identify or are identified, and the screen has been highly successful at mediating this delicate relationship to both detrimental and productive ends. I will be examining gendered race, as a performance of the double. The double is a mental function and an appearance. The appearance of the racial double, in its earliest form in Hollywood film and television, was a corrosive image. This was the case for the predominate image of blacks, which pointed back to the black body and reified the experience of racism and oppression within American culture. This is the image of the racial double that I reference throughout as the unproductive other because it is meant to draw sharp, impassable lines vi between white and black, or more theoretically the self and other. This traditional way of image-identification comes from a colonial structure of white/European supremacy, from which the subjugated position of the racial other was founded. In this dissertation I make the claim for a productive other. This form of doubling acknowledges but is liberated from the old practices of racial individuation. The new form of the productive other accepts images as pure copies, without origin, that do not point back to a single, organic source. It is an appearance that embodies transcendence, and is constantly seeking to be in connection with others. I refer to the process of embodied transcendence as eRacial, and it is the method by which we obtain a new, tertiary experience with image-identification in cyberspace. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….. vi 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….1 2. Chapter 1: Gaze As a Site of Resistance………………………………………25 3. Chapter 2: The Processes of Othering…………………………………………52 4. Chapter 3: The Cinematic Structure of the Racial Double……………………85 5. Chapter 4: Broadcast Television and the Reality Principle of the Other…….. 117 6. Chapter 5: eRacial: The Appearance of the Other in Cyberspace…………… 147 7. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….... 180 Endnotes……………………………………………………………………………… 194 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….. 206 viii INTRODUCTION The research that I am about to embark on focuses on the shift in expressions of gendered race in a screened world.1 This study is primarily centered on this mode of representation as it has been transformed through the evolution of image technology in film, television, and cyberspace. These three media platforms, in particular, are greatly influential on our cultural understanding of self-image, and the image of others. I will look closely at how depictions of gendered race have been authored in each medium, and the mental impact of these images on our individual and collective consciousness. I will argue that race, although not an invention of mass media, derived its meaning in large part from the mythology of images. And mass media, film and TV most specifically, used images of race to invent narratives about collective identification. There is an inherent connection between the images we see and how we identify or are identified, and the screen has been highly successful at mediating this delicate relationship to both detrimental and productive ends. I will be examining gendered race, as a performance of the double. The double is a mental function and an appearance. It signifies the psychological equation of the self + the other - as well as the social condition of race consciousness. The appearance of the racial double, in its earliest form in Hollywood film and television, was a corrosive image. It was designed to misrepresent, stigmatize and belittle. This was the case for the predominate image of blacks, which pointed back to the black body and reified the experience of racism and oppression within American culture. This is the image of the racial double that I reference throughout as the unproductive other because it is meant to draw sharp, impassable lines between white and black, or more theoretically the self and 1 other. This traditional way of image-identification comes from a colonial structure of white/European supremacy, from which the subjugated position of the racial other was founded. In this dissertation I make the claim for a productive other. This form of doubling acknowledges but is liberated from the old practices of racial individuation. The new form of the productive other accepts images as pure copies, without an original, that do not point back to a single, organic source. It is an appearance that embodies transcendence, and is constantly seeking to be in connection with others.2 I refer to the process of embodied transcendence as eRacial, and it is the method by which we obtain a new, tertiary experience with image-identification in cyberspace. The tertiary experience breaks out of old pathological binaries, recognizes the image as myth and therefore carries the potential for radical identification. It is important to investigate the impact the Internet is having on the relationship between the image and identity because Internet use has grown exponentially around the world since 1995. In 2015, there were more than 3 billion users, which represented 40 percent of the world population that had an Internet connection. That is an impressive figure considering that twenty years ago in 1995 it was less than 1 percent. The number of Internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. The first billion was reached in 2005, the second billion in 2010, and the third billion in 2014.3 By region, Asia represents 48.5 percent of users worldwide. The Americas (North and South) follow with 21.8 percent, Europe follows closely with 19 percent, Africa has a little less than 10 percent and the Middle East and Oceania have less than 5 percent.4 Although Asia has the 2 largest amount of Internet users in the world, Internet usage has only penetrated about 38 percent of the region’s population. The highest penetration rate by population is North America with 87 percent, followed by Europe with 73 percent, and Oceania and Australia with 72 percent. Africa, even though it represents about 9 percent of Internet users by region, has the fastest Internet growth rate in the world increasing almost 7,000 percent between 2000-2015.5 These numbers make it clear that the Internet is one of the most powerful media platforms in the world, connecting almost half of the world’s population at a rate that expands rapidly each year. Cyberspace is changing the mass media landscape. It is even affecting traditional television viewing. The statics I will provide on the current state of viewing in households with TV are based in the United States as an example of how the Internet is influencing TV viewing habits. According to Nielsen’s most recent “Total Audience Report” 18 to 24 year-olds watched an average of 76 hours and 55 minutes of television per month between April and June (Q2) of 2016.6 These numbers were less than the 85 hours and 34 minutes per month during Q2 in 2015, “representing a drop close to 10 hours per month.”7 Moreover, there was an 11-hour decline seen between January and March (Q1) in 2016.