ppt race, ethnicity, representation

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RACE, ETHNICITY, REPRESENTATION Dyer (1977) points us to a useful distinction between types and stereotypes. Whitin the west, people of colour have been represented as a series of problems, objects and victims (Gilroy, 1987).

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Page 1: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

RACE, ETHNICITY, REPRESENTATION

Dyer (1977) points us to a useful distinction between types and stereotypes.

Whitin the west, people of colour have been represented as a series of problems, objects and victims (Gilroy, 1987).

Page 2: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Savages and slaves

Hall (1997c) argues that a central component of British imperial representations of black people was the theme of non-Christian savages requiring civilizing by British missionaries and adventurers.

Soap symbolized this racializing of the domestic world and the domestication of the colonial world.

Page 3: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Plantation images

• American plantation images share the British concern with the binary of white civilization and black naturalness and primitivism.

• In America Bogle (1973) argues that five distinct stereotypes which derive from plantation and slave images are to be found in film:

1. Toms (good blacks, submissive, stoic)

2. Coons (slapstick entertainers, gamblers, no-account niggers)

3. The Tragic Mulatto (beautiful, sexy, exotic mixed-race women stained with black blood)

4. Mammies (the big, strong, bossy house servant devoted and subservient to the white family)

5. Bad bucks (big, strong, violent, oversexed male renegades)

Page 4: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

The criminalization of black Britons

• In Britain, Gilroy (1987) has charted the transformations of racism in relation to the law.

• He argues that in the 1950s anxiety about black criminality within the police, judiciary and press was relatively low, concerning only the alleged association of black people with prostitution and gambling.

• The news media report these comments as common-sense concern about rising crime and its association with black youth.

Page 5: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Orientalism

• Said (1978) illuminates this structural and societal characters of racism in his discussion of Orientalism.

• He argues that cultural geographical entities such as the ‘Orient’ are not inert facts of nature, but historically specific, discursive constructions which have a history, tradition, imagery and vocabulary that have given it a particular kind of reality and presence with the West.

Page 6: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Television and the representation of race and ethnicityWhites Only

On one level, people of colour have simplybeen ignored by television. In America, it wasnot until the late 1960s and early 1970s thatwas find any black families in television drama(Cantor and Cantor, 1992).

In 1980s Britain the Commission for RacialEquality noted that while in the USA blackpeople were being seen frequently ontelevision,

Page 7: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Stereotyped Presentations

As media representations of people of colourincreased in volume during the 1980s and1990s, so attention focused on the kind ofrepresentations which are constitutive ofethnicity and race.

In Britain, Empire Road and Desmond’s bothcomedies centred on black family life andtried to be funny without the use of racisthumour.

Page 8: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Signs of Change

Campbell (1995) reports that in forty hours of American local news there was no evidence of intentional, blatant bigotry and few examples of what he calls old-fashioned racism.

Page 9: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Menace to Society

Nevertheless, racism continues to betreated as an issue of personal illiberalityrather than of structured inequality, whileinsufficient attention is given to the specificityof black culture.

Page 10: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Assimilationist Strategies

The Cosby Show’s Huxtable family (along withtalk show hosts such as Oprah Winfrey)represent middle-class achievement and socialmobility.

Gray argues that many individuals trapped inthe underclass have the very same qualitiesbut lack the options and opportunities torealize them (Gray 1996:142).

Page 11: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

The Ambiguities of Representation

• The representation of people of colour inAmerica and Britain is with contradictions.

• As Hall remarks: people who are in any waysignificantly different from the majority themrather than us-are frequently exposed to thisbinary form of representation.

Page 12: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

The New Ghetto Aesthetic

Ambiguities are evident in a series of black made films closely associated with Rap music, including the work of Marion Van Peebles (New Jack City) and John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) Jacquie Jones (1996) describes them as The New Ghetto Aesthetic.

After all, positive images, useful and desirable though they are in the context of stereotypes, do not necessarily undermine or displace the negative.

Page 13: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Eastenders

EastEnders deploys an array blackand Asian characters rarely before seen onBritish television. Rather than representpeople of colour as a problem.

Page 14: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

I’ll Fly Away

The debate about I’ll Fly Away centred onthe representation of the central charactersLily Harper, including her relationship to othercharacters and to the politics of the civil rightmovement.

Page 15: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

The Question of Positive Images

• The incontestable abundance of culturalstereotypes has led many of those who sufferat their hands to seek more positiverepresentations of people of colour and arange of other abjected groups.

• The demand for positive images of peopleof colour is heart a desire to show that blackpeople are as good or as human as whitepeople (West, 1993).

Page 16: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Postcolonial Literature

Television remains the centralrepresentational form of western culture andis therefore a core concern of cultural studies.However, there is also a significant strand ofwork which explore issues of race, ethnicityand nation within literature. This includes thecurrent interest in postcolonial literatureexemplified by Ashcroft et al (1989) in TheEmpire Writes Back.

Page 17: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Models of Postcolonial Literature

Ashcroft et al (1989) highlight twoimportant models of postcolonial literature,the national model and the black writingmodel.

Page 18: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Domination and Subordination

Issues of domination and subordinationsurface most directly terms of colonial militarycontrol, genocide and economic underdevelopment. In more cultural terms,questions arise about denigration andsubordination of native culture by colonistpower. This includes the very language ofEnglish literature.

Page 19: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Hybridization and Creolization

The theoretical critique of essentialismcombined with the physical meeting andmixing of peoples throws the whole notion ofa national or ethnic literature into doubt.Consequently, the hybridization andcreolization of language, literature, andcultural identities is a common theme ofpostcolonial literature and theory marking acertain meeting of minds withpostmodernism.

Page 20: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Postmodern Rushdie

The work of Salman Rushdie (e.g.Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses andThe Moor’s Last Sigh) raises questions ofhybridity and cultural representation throughcharacters who cross or blur culturalboundaries.

Page 21: Ppt race, ethnicity, representation

Summary

It has been argued that ethnicity, race andnationality are discursive performativeconstructions which do not refer to alreadyexistent things. That is, they are contingentcultural categories rather than universalbiological facts. Ethnicity as a concept refers tothe formation and maintenance of culturalboundaries and has the advantage of stressinghistory, culture and language. Race is aproblematic idea because of its association withbiological discourses of intrinsic and inevitablesuperiority and subordinate.