A CRITICAL POSTMODERN RESPONSE TO MULTICULTURALISM IN POPULAR CULTURE by SEAN BRAYTON B.A., The University of Lethbridge, 2002 M.A., The University of Alberta, 2004 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Human Kinetics) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2008 © Sean Brayton, 2008 Abstract My dissertation is motivated by two general problems within contemporary North American racial politics. First, the increasing ideological impetus of a “post-racist” society contradicts a spate of events that are symptomatic and constitutive of racial and ethnic essentialisms. Second, the logic of multiculturalism and antiracism has often been expressed in a language of race and identity rooted in a rigid system of immutable differences (Hall, 1997; Ang, 2001). The challenge is to deconstruct race and ethnicity in a language that is critical of new racisms as well as the ways in which racial and ethnic difference is seized and diffused by market multiculturalism. While some theorists have used elements of postmodern theory to develop a “resistance multiculturalism” sensitive to shifting social meanings and floating racial signifiers (see McLaren, 1994), they have rarely explored the political possibilities of “ludic postmodernism” (parody, pastiche, irony) as a critical response to multicultural ideologies. If part of postmodernism as an intellectual movement includes self-reflexivity, self-parody, and the rejection of a foundational “truth,” for example, the various racial and ethnic categories reified under multiculturalism are perhaps open to revision and contestation (Hutcheon, 1989). To develop this particular postmodern critique of multiculturalism, I draw on three case studies concerned with identity and representation in North American popular media. The first case considers vocal impersonation as a disruption to the visual primacy of race by examining the stand-up comedy films of Dave Chappelle, Russell Peters, and Margaret Cho. The second case turns to the postmodern bodies of cyborgs and humanoid robots in the science fiction film I, Robot (2004) as a racial metaphor at the crossroads of whiteness, inhumanity, and redemption. The final case discusses the politics of irony in relation to ethnolinguistic identity and debates surrounding sports mascots. Each case study recycles racial and ethnic stereotypes for a variety of political purposes, drawing out the connections and tensions between postmodernism and multiculturalism. A postmodern critique of multiculturalism may offer antiracist politics an understanding of race and ethnicity rooted in a strategic indeterminacy, which allows for multidimensional political coalitions directed against wider socioeconomic inequalities. ii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ ii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ iii Preface ............................................................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... vii Co-Authorship Statement .............................................................................................................. viii Introduction: Building a Postmodern Critique of Multiculturalism ................................................ 1 Sketches of Postmodernism and Multiculturalism ..................................................................... 4 Notes on a Contextual Cultural Studies ..................................................................................... 12 A Critical Postmodern Response to Multiculturalism: A User’s Guide ...................................... 13 Limitations ................................................................................................................................. 16 Notes ......................................................................................................................................... 18 References ................................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter Two: Race Comedy and the “Misembodied” Voice ......................................................... 23 Seeing Race ................................................................................................................................ 24 Hearing Race .............................................................................................................................. 25 The “Misembodied” Voice ........................................................................................................ 27 Black Skin, White Voices: The Stand-Up and Sketch Comedy of Dave Chappelle ................. 29 Anglo-Indian Turrets Syndrome: The Stand-Up Comedy of Russell Peters ........................... 32 Not “Asian” Enough? The Stand-Up Comedy of Margaret Cho ............................................ 35 Political Comedy and Political Economy ................................................................................... 38 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 40 Notes ......................................................................................................................................... 44 References ................................................................................................................................. 45 iii Chapter Three: Humanoid Slave Narratives and the Post-White Imaginary in Alex Proyas’ I,Robot ....................................................................................................................................................... 51 I, Robot and White Disavowal ................................................................................................... 52 White Terror .......................................................................................................................... 54 White Slavery ......................................................................................................................... 56 Sonny and the “Post-white” (Male) Subject .............................................................................. 58 Conclusion: The Myth of a “Post-White” Identity ..................................................................... 62 Notes ......................................................................................................................................... 65 References ................................................................................................................................. 66 Chapter Four: Canadian “Biculturalism” and the Politics of Irony in Sport ................................... 68 Questions of “Kebek” ................................................................................................................ 69 “Double vision” .......................................................................................................................... 71 Finding Dunky Online ................................................................................................................ 73 Dunky the Frog, or Irony as the Complicit Critique ................................................................... 75 Dunky the Frog and “Bicultural” Mythologies ....................................................................... 77 Mascots and Political Satire .................................................................................................. 80 Recognition, Representation, and Reading the Jumping Frog .................................................. 81 Postmodern Irony and Ideology Critique .............................................................................. 83 Dunky the Frog as Cultural Commodity................................................................................. 84 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 86 Notes ......................................................................................................................................... 88 References ................................................................................................................................. 89 Conclusion: Reflections on Multiculturalism and Postmodernity ................................................. 95 Answers of the Provisional Kind ................................................................................................ 95 Confessions of the Situated Self ................................................................................................ 99 Theoretical Contributions ........................................................................................................ 101 iv Notes on Future Directions ..................................................................................................... 104 References ............................................................................................................................... 107 v Preface My dissertation