Reflection based on provided material (deadline today 1.24.2021 before 22:00 Chicago time) Late will not be accepted
The reflection questions can be found on the last slide. Reflection question tips are on the second-to-last slide. Please click through from the beginning
- Choose any contemporary media text (e.g. a film or television show) that is known for its visual diversity. Using the criteria provided by Kristen Warner, discuss whether or not you consider this text an example of “plastic representation.” (If you want to discuss Black is King, here is the place to do so!) (5 points)
2.Nicole Fleetwood contends that “professional sports and their commoditization of the black athletic body […] bring us face-to-face with the psychic and physical violence of the racial state that continually attempts to dominate and manipulate black bodies” (110). Identify and describe a sequence from OJ: Made in America, Part I, that you think illustrates, expands upon, or challenges Fleetwood’s argument. (5 points)
JAY-Z – Moonlight
Oj;Made in America Part1
https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/08439ed8-f9e5-49e3-8215-a33da852c629/o-j-made-in-america/_/country/us/redirected/true
MCS274: Diversity & Inclusion
Weekly Reflection Assignment
Due: Sundays at 11:59PM CST
Weekly reflections are designed to assess your engagement with course material. 2 reflection
questions will be posted at the end of each Thursday tutorial. Each question should be answered
in 2 paragraphs. You may be asked to summarize and critique a reading’s key argument(s), apply
course concepts to the week’s screenings, or describe a media text that you think exemplifies or
challenges the week’s themes. When discussing a course reading, you should include at least one
quotation directly from the text. When discussing a screening or outside media text, point to a
specific scene or storyline that illustrates the point you are making.
Weekly reflections should be submitted to D2L as , x, or files. They should be
double-spaced, in standard 12-point font (e.g. times new roman), and with one inch margins. Be
sure to include a header with your name, the course number, the date, and the assignment title.
Submission folders can be found under “Submissions” and in the module containing each week’s
material.
IN THE TIME OF PLASTIC REPRESENTATION
Kristen J. Warner
On August 4, 2017, Jay Z released Moonlight, an eight-min-
ute music video culled from his album 4:44. Directed by
Alan Yang, cocreator of Netflix’s critically acclaimed series
Master of None (Aziz Ansari, 2015–), Moonlight samples
NBC’s Friends (1994–2004) as its original source material.
A pastiche of the blockbuster sitcom, the video replaces all of
the characters from the original series with their black
Young Hollywood counterparts. While the photography,
costuming, and mise-en-scène of the title credits are shot-
for-shot identical to the original, one change aligns with its
“new” cast: it switches the iconic Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There
For You” (1995) for Whodini’s “Friends” (1994).
ThisMoonlightmoves beyond being a superficial send-up
when the Friends filming halts and the cast walks off set for a
break. Ross Geller’s black counterpart, played by comedian
Jerrod Carmichael, greets fellow comedian Hannibal Buress
and asks his opinion of the project. “Garbage. Terrible man.
Wack as shit. Episodes of Seinfeld but with black people.
Who asked for that?” Carmichael explains that “when they
asked me to do it I was like alright this is something subver-
sive, something that would turn culture on its head.” Buress
lands the fatal blow asserting, “Well you did a good job of
subverting good comedy. You gonna do black Full House
next? Family Ties?” Resuming the Friends filming, Carmi-
chael ultimately slips away from his character, too aware of
his real identity to perform any longer—just in time for his
Rachel and fellow actor Issa Rae to quietly whisk him away
from the series and to an “exit” door of sorts.
This music video asks, even if it does not fully answer,
critical questions about the intersections of representation
and employment for black actors. How do they balance tak-
ing jobs that seem facile all the while attempting to imbue
the parts with depth through subversive performances that
may not be as easily perceived as intended? It is Buress’s
query about “who asked for this?” that strikes me as central,
because his question presumes that there is a desire and an
initiative to remake existing source material with the
least amount of changes to attract different audience
demographics. Swapping in and out racial groups with
little adjustment to the parts themselves retains the orig-
inal work as the primary driver and as a result marks
the changes as superficial. The original work maintains
its universality in this instance by proving that “anyone”
can be a member of the Friends cast. As a consequence,
the performances feel like hollow experiments produced
in a laboratory; they feel plastic.
It stands to reason that Jay Z and Yang’s desire in Moon-
light’s meta moment is to create this response of discomfort,
amid the realization that neither playing nor watching white
characters metaphorically dipped in chocolate on screen can
deliver the progress that was implicitly promised by watchdog
groups like the NAACP who for years have sought to strate-
gically diversify the labor force in meaningful ways. However,
in this moment, when consumers of blackmedia proudly state
that “representation matters,” disavowing (black) Friends-like
texts may be impossible because alternatives are few.
Representational Expectations
This season, “representation matters” is a catchphrase circu-
lating in conversations around diversity in film, television,
and theater. From social media campaigns—such as #repre-
sentationmatters, in which parents attach the hashtag to
inspirational photos taken of their children dressed as fic-
tional (and nonfictional) black heroic characters, posing
them against their onscreen doppelgangers—to Mattel’s of-
fering of a collector’s Barbie of Ava DuVernay—complete
with the mise-en-scene of a director’s chair to establish that
all little black girls need to see DuVernay’s image in tandem
with a chair to believe they could work in film—the weight
of visual identification is being felt. Add to this list the infa-
mous and popularly cited #OscarsSoWhite, initially designed
to poke fun at the lack of diversity among Academy Award
nominees, but now a seeming catch-all for diversity deficits
writ large, the impetus in each hashtag is to remind and ac-
tivate consumers to demand more representative visual im-
agery from the entertainment industries.
32 WINTER 2017
Film Quarterly, Vol. 71, Number 2, pp. 32–37, ISSN 0015-1386, electronic ISSN 1533-8630.
© 2017 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please
direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through
the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.
ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/FQ.2017.71.2.32.
To many men and women of color, as well as many white
women, meaningful diversity occurs when the actual pres-
ence of different-looking bodies appear on screen. For them,
this diversity serves as an indicator of progress as well as an
aspirational frame for younger generations who are told that
the visual signifiers they can identify with carry a great
amount of symbolic weight. As a consequence, the degree of
diversity became synonymous with the quantity of differ-
ence rather than with the dimensionality of those perform-
ances. Moreover, a paradoxical condition emerges whereby
people of color have become more media savvy yet are still,
if not more, reliant on overdetermined and overly reductive
notions of so-called “positive” and “negative” representation.
Such measures yield a set of dueling consequences: first, that
any representation that includes a person of color is automat-
ically a sign of success and progress; second, that such paltry
gains generate an easy workaround for the executive suites
whereby hiring racially diverse actors becomes an easy sub-
stitute for developing new complex characters. The results of
such choices can feel—in an affective sense—artificial, or
more to the point, like plastic.
Black representation, as it’s been understood in a popular
sense, has been dominated by the circulation of mediated im-
agery yielding deleterious effects for the groups depicted.
The fear of the effects of such “poor” representation has re-
sulted in a set of binary, nonscientific, underdeveloped
metrics—positive and negative—that constitute a nebulous
catch-all system wherein the characteristics that define each
pole on the spectrum shift depending on the era and the ex-
pectations of the audience.1 What marks a representation as
“positive” or “negative”? Responses are often aligned with
Jay Z’s Moonlight, an eight-minute music video directed by Alan Yang.
Mattel’s Ava DuVernay Barbie.
FILM QUARTERLY 33
class (good job, education, community minded), behavior
(hypersexual, well-spoken, “woke”), or with characteriza-
tions of character that either successfully assimilate into nor-
mative culture or fail to do so. However, such a scale
oversimplifies the complexities of black identity that require
audiences, pop-culture critics, and scholars to invest in screen
characters through experiencing nuances developed over
time and ironically reinforces the stereotypes that operate as
industry shorthand.
If, then, stereotypes function as a kind of shorthand for
building characters and if the only additive needed to make
the parts “positive” is to provide them a respectable occupa-
tion, then whatever other problematic traits that were ini-
tially associated with that stereotype can pass scrutiny
unchecked. The result of such a calculus is the production of
thinly written characters of color with a mirage of depth
added by audience members and pop-culture critics who
labor to thicken the characterizations in public discourse.2
Discourse, for example, surrounding their importance to
film and television history gives these wavering characteriza-
tions a steady platform to lean against and be perceived as
solid and weighty. Such a style of writing-by-stereotype-
reversal also cannot include the kinds of complex characteri-
zation that would offset colorblind casting, resulting in
another set of pitfalls that reinforce long-held tropes.3 Strat-
egies that attempt to overlap negative images with positive
ones in a quest to present a respectability of social imagery do
not eradicate either.
The fight between these representational strategies is al-
ways at a stalemate, leading to a third strategy with a simpli-
fied mantra: “representation matters.” If this maxim appears
to extract the value-charged attributes of positive and negative
representation in favor of appreciating all characterizations
more equally, upon closer inspection, it actually integrates
those positive/negative binaries into its new grid of character-
izations. Representation “mattering” then becomes a dual and
dueling set of expectations for people of color. In the first in-
stance, every image deemed valuable must be accessible for
identificatory suture. In the second instance, each image must
be counted as a signifier of progress that affirms black impor-
tance and success.
The hunt for representational affirmation can lead to
erroneous interpretations. For example, after the release and
inevitable success of Disney and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The
Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015), viral Internet memes at-
tributed a lion’s share of the film’s popularity to the fact that
a black man and a white woman were cast as leads. While
technically true, the claim obscures the larger fact that the
actual star of this film—and a significant reason why the
producers did not have to pay these largely “unknown” stars
significant salaries—was Star Wars itself, and its status as
Disney’s intellectual property. An expectation of massive
return on investment, given the profitable track record of
the Star Wars brand, is presumably the reason Disney
bought it from George Lucas in the first place. Perhaps it
is precisely because the risks were mitigated to such a
manageable level that the producers could imagine diverse
leads.
Let me be clear: while I do not share the popular expec-
tation for mediated imagery to matter, its overdetermining
of black images as the marker of societal progress or regres-
sionmakes any image acceptable on its face, obliterating con-
text and sidelining any consideration of depth. Thus have
images in the era of representation matters become hol-
lowed, malleable signs with artificial origins. Their artificial-
ity connects to a condition that could be termed “plastic
representation.” Plastic, in the denotative sense of a “syn-
thetic material . . . that can be molded into different
shapes,” supplies a useful starting point for unpacking
just how plastic representation operates as a place of syn-
thetic malleability.4 Plastic is an ever-shifting artificial
Viral internet memes circulated during the initial run of Star
Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015).
34 WINTER 2017
material whose purpose is shaped by its essence. There is
no great depth in plastic, nor is there anything organic.
Plastic Deliveries
My notion of plastic representation is connected to the collo-
quial musical concept of “plastic soul,” originally coined
by black musicians to describe white artists singing soul
music. David Bowie used the concept of plastic soul to self-
deprecatingly describe his approach to rhythm and blues
music. In a 1976 interview, he asserted:
But let’s be honest; my rhythm and blues are thoroughly
plastic. Young Americans, the album “Fame” is from, is, I
would say, the definitive plastic soul record. It’s the
squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age
of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey.”5
Bowie’s plastic soul is an artificial product composed of
malleable fragments of black ethnic music that, when sung
through his voice, feel instantly familiar—but only accord-
ing to his terms and adaptability. In other words, plastic soul
approximates blackness enough to stand in as a superficial
version of the real. In the case of Bowie, his seeming aware-
ness that plastic soul is the gap between the artificial and the
real, highlights the difference between setting out to make
plastic and accepting plastic as the standard. Thus, hiring
Luther Vandross and recording in Philadelphia added a spe-
cific flavor but not enough to overwhelm Bowie’s style.
Bowie’s interest in making an R&B record, then, signaled a
move to locate elements that recreated the sound of soul mu-
sic while still adhering to his own style.
An operational definition of plastic representation can be
understood as a combination of synthetic elements put to-
gether and shaped to look likemeaningful imagery, but which
can only approximate depth and substance because ultimately
it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny. Utilizing this
concept, I locate two types of minority visibility that exist both
in front of and behind the camera: a plastic representation that
approximates a superficial “visual” diversity and another that
supplies a culturally specific contextual version.
What does plastic representation look like in practice?
For brevity, I focus on one of its primary functions. Plastic
representation uses the wonder that comes from seeing char-
acters on screen who serve as visual identifiers for specific
demographics in order to flatten the expectation to desire
anything more. In this instance, then, progress is merely the
increase of black actors on screen in both leading and sup-
porting roles. The problem with such a line of thinking is
that quantifiable difference alone often overdetermines the
benchmarks of progress and obscures the multifaceted chal-
lenges inherent in booking roles as well as securing work on
writing staffs, directing gigs, or even reaching executive
gatekeeper status—thus privileging the visible (actors) over
all other cinematic and televisual functions. Employment,
while a critical factor in the lives of minority creative la-
borers, becomes the only gain when plastic representation
is the failsafe. Of course, skill sets and work experience
matter and are part of what is considered for these jobs in
writing, directing, and in executive suites. However, the
cultural and historical experiences of the minority labor
force should be equally important contributions to how
the work is produced.
When pressured, networks and studios can and do diver-
sify their casts, just as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences will expand their voting body by inviting more
people of color to the membership—until 2020, anyway.
While visual diversity is still not a regular occurrence, it’s not
impossible to achieve. It is always impressive to see that
greater numbers of people of color are finding employment
and inclusive spaces within the film and television industry,
but greater numbers indicate, not necessarily progress, but
rather a simplistic fix to a systemic problem. For this indus-
try, actual progress would involve crafting a more weighted
diversity, one generated by adding dimension and specificity
to roles, and achieved in tandem with diverse bodies shaping
those roles at the level of producing and writing.
When asked to share his feelings on the possibilities of
diversity now that Hamilton, the multiracial, colorblind cast
musical in which he starred, had become a critical and finan-
cial darling for Broadway, Tony-award-winning actor Leslie
Odom, Jr. asserted: “What we really need to pay attention to
David Bowie and Luther Vandross in the recording studio.
Courtesy of NBC Archives.
FILM QUARTERLY 35
is the next two seasons.” Speaking to the ways that plastic re-
presentation can become the default for casting people of
color, Odom continued, “Colorblind casting is great. You
know what’s better than colorblind casting? Roles that are
actually written about you. Roles that are actually written
about your experience.”6Odom posits that colorblind casting
(the practice of writing characters without including race in
the description) is a helpful start but not the realization of
progress. It is an important reminder that the practice, while
certainly beneficial to people of color in terms of gaining em-
ployment, ultimately produces normatively white characters
who happen to be of color. Again, there is a danger of valu-
ing quantity more than dimension, a dynamic that epitomizes
the artificiality of plastic representation.
During the Television Critics Association summer tour of
2016, FX President John Landgraf celebrated his network’s
plan to increase diversity by encouraging their predomi-
nately white showrunners to hire directors of color and
white women.7 Landgraf’s announcement, while signaling
an excellent plan to further racial parity in the television in-
dustry, still echoes the sentiments of the ease of visibility.
Keep in mind that it is less complicated to increase diversity
in director roles than in other areas of production, from
showrunner to writing staff, because directors work on a
freelance basis and can be moved into the labor cycle more
easily. Moreover, his pledge to increase the number of mar-
ginalized directors for FX series is contingent upon his
predominantly white male showrunners agreeing to buy
into the scheme. Thus, part of the selling of this endeavor
must be that the identities and experiences of those hired for
these jobs are not commensurate with the task they’ve been
hired to complete. Put simply, hiring a director who discur-
sively “happens to be black” reduces any anxiety that their
cultural experience will invade or reshape the way they do
their work for a white showrunner. Flattening directors of
color into markers of quantifiable gains may ensure their
employment, but it also renders diversity as an artificial
additive and not a substantive contribution.
Plastic representation operates as a system that reifies black-
ness into an empirical system of “box checking.” It is a mode
of representation that offers the feel of progress but that actu-
ally cedes more ground than it gains for audiences of color.
When audiences, cultural critics, and even industry professio-
nals buy into the subtle but popular belief that social progress
occurs when the focus of representation is placed solely on the
racially visible difference of above-and-below-the-line
talent, it means that for industry gatekeepers and execu-
tives, less time has to be devoted to developing and appre-
ciating the meaningful cultural and historical differences
of those bodies.
My aim here is not to disparage the joyous effect and
identification that arise from seeing a version of one’s self
on screen; to the contrary, I believe the desire should be
expanded, not only to see a version of one’s self on screen but
Jerrod Carmichael and Issa Rae in the music video for Moonlight.
36 WINTER 2017
for that identification to resonate and connect with the histo-
ries and experiences of the culture that the character’s body
inhabits. Pursuing and embodying the cultural specificity of
characters of color is harder work and requires a shift away
from thinking only in positive and negative evaluative terms.
Resonant characters that are complex and nuanced may not
resemble the respectable characters so often proffered as the
social cover for racial integration and as proof that black lives
matter. The true indicator of the progress that is desired lies
in showcasing how all those specifically black lives exist and
thrive as themselves, not as the ones whom they happen to be
cast to represent.
Returning to Jay Z’s Moonlight video, Buress’s question
“who asked for this?” takes on greater depth when inter-
preted through a plastic lens. The demand for visible differ-
ence means that even if no black audience specifically asked
for a black Friends, the legitimacy of the text and the very
clear casting of the black counterparts reinforce for that
audience that some measure of progress, no matter how hol-
low, has been attained.
The pathos of such a victory is that in celebrating the
overdetermining of visual diversity as a substantial gain as
opposed to the overly modest concession it is, any meaning-
ful progress is curbed; instead, the goal posts of expectation
are moved to more comfortable places for those in power
who can make those changes. The consequences of ceding
the ground where black audiences and critics once de-
manded meaningful representation are that, when an inch of
progress is returned, it feels like new. The most tragic conse-
quence of all, however, is that all the images in the world
(so-called positive or not) cannot overwhelm the centuries
of work that has already been done to sear a regime of rac-
ist representation that casts all black difference as savage,
childlike, heathenistic, asexual/hypersexual, atavistic, an-
gry monsters into the cultural imaginary. The rationale
for solely demanding plastic representation is understand-
able as a sanity-preserving tactic that can also build esteem
and confidence, but it is not nearly enough. Meaningful, res-
onant diversity is a more difficult, underdeveloped approach
that requires all stakeholders to think harder about what
on-screen difference looks and feels like. But if representa-
tion truly matters, then it is an approach worthy of pursuit.
Plastic is not enough; demand more.
Notes
1. I have written previously about the pitfalls of the positive/neg-
ative trope. See Kristen Warner, “They Gon’ Think You
Loud Regardless: Ratchetness, Reality Television, and Black
Womanhood,” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media
Studies 30, no. 1 88 (2015): 129-53.
2. I have written previously about the ways black female audien-
ces labor to create a dimensional character with whom they
can identify. See Kristen Warner, “ABC’s Scandal and Black
Women’s Fandom,” in Cupcakes, Pinterest, Ladyporn: Feminized
Popular Culture in the Early 21st Century, ed. Elana Levine
(Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2015).
3. I have written about colorblind casting as an industrial strat-
egy to enable more physical diversity at the level of auditions
and the subsequent consequences of the practice. In my book,
I argue that while the casting practice of not writing race into
the roles for which actors audition is filled with good inten-
tions, the parts are often written normatively, that is hegem-
onically white. As a consequence, when the part is not
adjusted for the person of color who is hired, they become
vulnerable to unintended stereotypes and tropes attached to
the cultural and historical experiences tethered to their bodies.
See: Kristen Warner, The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV
Casting (New York: Routledge, 2015).
4. Dictionary.com, s.v. “plastic,” http://www.dictionary.com/
browse/plastic.
5. Cameron Crowe, “A Candid Conversation with the Actor,
Rock Singer and Sexual Switch-Hitter,” Playboy, September
1976, www.theuncool.com/journalism/david-bowie-playboy-
magazine/.
6. “Tony Actors Roundtable: 7 Broadway Standouts on Diver-
sity and Rude Audiences,” The Hollywood Reporter, June 1,
2016, www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/tonys-actor-round
table-7-broadway-898509.
7. Maureen Ryan, “FX CEO John Landgraf on the ‘Racially
Biased’ System and Taking Major Steps to Change His
Network’s Director Rosters,” Variety, August 9, 2016, http://
variety.com/2016/tv/news/fx-diversity-directors-hiring-ceo-
john-landgraf-interview-1201831409/.
FILM QUARTERLY 37
<<
/ASCII85EncodePages false
/AllowTransparency false
/AutoPositionEPSFiles true
/AutoRotatePages /None
/Binding /Left
/CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%)
/CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
/CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2)
/sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
/CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Error
/CompatibilityLevel 1.4
/CompressObjects /Tags
/CompressPages true
/ConvertImagesToIndexed true
/PassThroughJPEGImages true
/CreateJobTicket false
/DefaultRenderingIntent /Default
/DetectBlends true
/DetectCurves 0.0000
/ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK
/DoThumbnails false
/EmbedAllFonts true
/EmbedOpenType false
/ParseICCProfilesInComments true
/EmbedJobOptions true
/DSCReportingLevel 0
/EmitDSCWarnings false
/EndPage -1
/ImageMemory 1048576
/LockDistillerParams false
/MaxSubsetPct 100
/Optimize true
/OPM 1
/ParseDSCComments true
/ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true
/PreserveCopyPage true
/PreserveDICMYKValues true
/PreserveEPSInfo true
/PreserveFlatness true
/PreserveHalftoneInfo false
/PreserveOPIComments true
/PreserveOverprintSettings true
/StartPage 1
/SubsetFonts true
/TransferFunctionInfo /Apply
/UCRandBGInfo /Preserve
/UsePrologue false
/ColorSettingsFile ()
/AlwaysEmbed [ true
]
/NeverEmbed [ true
]
/AntiAliasColorImages false
/CropColorImages true
/ColorImageMinResolution 300
/ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK
/DownsampleColorImages true
/ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic
/ColorImageResolution 300
/ColorImageDepth -1
/ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1
/ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000
/EncodeColorImages true
/ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode
/AutoFilterColorImages true
/ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG
/ColorACSImageDict <<
/QFactor 0.15
/HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1]
>>
/ColorImageDict <<
/QFactor 0.15
/HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1]
>>
/JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict <<
/TileWidth 256
/TileHeight 256
/Quality 30
>>
/JPEG2000ColorImageDict <<
/TileWidth 256
/TileHeight 256
/Quality 30
>>
/AntiAliasGrayImages false
/CropGrayImages true
/GrayImageMinResolution 300
/GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK
/DownsampleGrayImages true
/GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic
/GrayImageResolution 300
/GrayImageDepth -1
/GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2
/GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000
/EncodeGrayImages true
/GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode
/AutoFilterGrayImages true
/GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG
/GrayACSImageDict <<
/QFactor 0.15
/HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1]
>>
/GrayImageDict <<
/QFactor 0.15
/HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1]
>>
/JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict <<
/TileWidth 256
/TileHeight 256
/Quality 30
>>
/JPEG2000GrayImageDict <<
/TileWidth 256
/TileHeight 256
/Quality 30
>>
/AntiAliasMonoImages false
/CropMonoImages true
/MonoImageMinResolution 1200
/MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK
/DownsampleMonoImages true
/MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic
/MonoImageResolution 1200
/MonoImageDepth -1
/MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000
/EncodeMonoImages true
/MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode
/MonoImageDict <<
/K -1
>>
/AllowPSXObjects false
/CheckCompliance [
/None
]
/PDFX1aCheck false
/PDFX3Check false
/PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false
/PDFXNoTrimBoxError true
/PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [
0.00000
0.00000
0.00000
0.00000
]
/PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true
/PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [
0.00000
0.00000
0.00000
0.00000
]
/PDFXOutputIntentProfile ()
/PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier ()
/PDFXOutputCondition ()
/PDFXRegistryName ()
/PDFXTrapped /False
/CreateJDFFile false
/Description <<
/ARA
/BGR
/CHS
/CHT
/CZE
/DAN
/DEU
/ESP
/ETI
/FRA
/GRE
/HEB
/HRV (Za stvaranje Adobe PDF dokumenata najpogodnijih za visokokvalitetni ispis prije tiskanja koristite ove postavke. Stvoreni PDF dokumenti mogu se otvoriti Acrobat i Adobe Reader 5.0 i kasnijim verzijama.)
/HUN
/ITA
/JPN
/KOR
/LTH
/LVI
/NLD (Gebruik deze instellingen om Adobe PDF-documenten te maken die zijn geoptimaliseerd voor prepress-afdrukken van hoge kwaliteit. De gemaakte PDF-documenten kunnen worden geopend met Acrobat en Adobe Reader 5.0 en hoger.)
/NOR
/POL
/PTB
/RUM
/RUS
/SKY
/SLV
/SUO
/SVE
/TUR
/UKR
/ENU (Use these settings to create Adobe PDF documents best suited for high-quality prepress printing. Created PDF documents can be opened with Acrobat and Adobe Reader 5.0 and later.)
>>
/Namespace [
(Adobe)
(Common)
(1.0)
]
/OtherNamespaces [
<<
/AsReaderSpreads false
/CropImagesToFrames true
/ErrorControl /WarnAndContinue
/FlattenerIgnoreSpreadOverrides false
/IncludeGuidesGrids false
/IncludeNonPrinting false
/IncludeSlug false
/Namespace [
(Adobe)
(InDesign)
(4.0)
]
/OmitPlacedBitmaps false
/OmitPlacedEPS false
/OmitPlacedPDF false
/SimulateOverprint /Legacy
>>
<<
/AddBleedMarks false
/AddColorBars false
/AddCropMarks false
/AddPageInfo false
/AddRegMarks false
/ConvertColors /ConvertToCMYK
/DestinationProfileName ()
/DestinationProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK
/Downsample16BitImages true
/FlattenerPreset <<
/PresetSelector /MediumResolution
>>
/FormElements false
/GenerateStructure false
/IncludeBookmarks false
/IncludeHyperlinks false
/IncludeInteractive false
/IncludeLayers false
/IncludeProfiles false
/MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings
/Namespace [
(Adobe)
(CreativeSuite)
(2.0)
]
/PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK
/PreserveEditing true
/UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged
/UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile
/UseDocumentBleed false
>>
]
>> setdistillerparams
<<
/HWResolution [2400 2400]
/PageSize [612.000 792.000]
>> setpagedevice
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 1/8
Culture Desk
Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic
Splendor in “Black Is King”
By Lauren Michele Jackson
August 3, 2020
Above all, “Black Is King” is a tribute to the manifold ways that a body can be displayed,
from root to toe, dressed up and painted. Photograph by Travis Matthews / Courtesy Parkwood
Entertainment
he story of Disney’s “The Lion King,” about a cub who avenges his uncle’s
regicide, is said to have borrowed its bones from “Hamlet” (though Marlon
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk
https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/lauren-michele-jackson
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/why-marlon-james-decided-to-write-an-african-game-of-thrones
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 2/8
T James would say otherwise). “Black Is King,” the new “visual album” fromBeyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, borrows its bones from “The Lion
King,” and is comparably interested in rehearsing the drama of its source
material—which is to say, not very interested at all. The project is a cinematic
adaptation of “The Lion King: The Gift,” the Beyoncé-produced companion
album to Disney’s 2019 remake of the �lm, in which she voiced the part of Nala
and for which she created an original song. “Black Is King” follows a young child
(Folajomi Akinmurele) whose wayward adventures and visions provoke the
question of what kind of man he will become. Royal titles are treated, with
urgency, as a means of affirming the innate worth of the human spirit, a message
that the �lm aims especially at the many Black peoples who were long denied the
status of human (and, depending on who is asked, still are). Anchored by the
lyrical grandeur of its soundtrack, which includes the fourteen songs co-written
and co-produced by Beyoncé for “The Gift” (“����� ������,” a bonus single on
the deluxe edition of the soundtrack, plays during the credits),“Black Is King”
expertly slides between talk of bloodlines and molded thrones and more modest
—but far from modest—footage of impeccably styled, beautiful Black people in
motion.
This is not Africa. “Black Is King” was �lmed in various natural and man-made
climes found in Ghana, Nigeria, Belgium, the U.S., the U.K., and South Africa,
but it consists mostly of dreamscapes, rhapsodies of high fantasy unfurled in
what may be called, without insult, a loosely twined collection of music videos—
which, in their serial form, more closely resemble the album “Beyoncé,” from
2013,” than “Lemonade,” from 2016. The detour from reality bene�ts “Black Is
King,” which would otherwise have been saddled with all the colonial baggage of
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/why-marlon-james-decided-to-write-an-african-game-of-thrones
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-argument-of-afropessimism
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/beyonces-lemonade
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 3/8
rendering Africa onscreen. For Americans, including those of the darker cast and
caste, Africa tends to be little more than an idea, a formless place in which to
house so much grief and longing. In this context—the context out of which both
versions of “The Lion King” emerge—whatever is called “African” functions as
shorthand, connoting, in a single English word, a literally unimaginable
plenitude of lives and livelihoods. The �rst teaser for “Black Is King,” released in
June, led some observers to doubt how that shorthand might read under
Beyoncé’s direction: there were worries that the �lm would yield yet another
primitivist sketch of so many bustling nations. They weren’t assuaged when
Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, in an Instagram post highlighting the project’s
Ghanaian-American collaborators, Joshua Kissi and Blitz Bazawule, accused
skeptics of “discrediting the work of their own people,” as if recruiting African
talent should preclude post-colonial critique. A clumsy word arose to describe
this in�ated reduction of the continent: “Wakanda�cation,” a reference to the
�ctional civilization brought to Technicolor in Ryan Coogler’s Marvel superhero
�lm “Black Panther.”
In fact, there’s nothing clumsy about “Black Is King”—other than its name,
perhaps. The album’s knowingly ethnic splendor is mesmerizing in its scope; it
does not attempt to provide cultural lessons but, rather, invitations to awesome
delights. Above all, “Black Is King” is a tribute to the manifold ways that a body
can be displayed, from root to toe, dressed up and painted in white, gold,
seafoam, lilac, electric green, and pink; in cowhide, denim and tulle, ink, acrylic,
lace, leopard, and satin, and fringe; cowry shells and goddess braids; bejewelled
everything; good shirts tucked into good chinos; pearl-drenched headdresses,
harnesses, thick gold rings; gowns and bleached tips, evening gloves, track
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCM7Uc1DUaE/?utm_source=ig_embed
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/black-panther-and-the-invention-of-africa
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 4/8
jackets, catsuits, tunics, chunky sneakers, mammoth gele; cornrows, ribbon-
wrapped feet, cargo pants, and trapezoidal shades. Also, the manifold ways in
which a body can move: legwork, footwork, shaku shaku, zanku, twerk, wine,
gbese, thrust, grind, shake—the grounded, weight-changing style of
choreography that Beyoncé has been fond of since working with the
Mozambican trio Tofo Tofo on “Run the World (Girls),” which is prominently
shown here in her duet with the Afrobeats artist and divine dancer Stephen Ojo,
in “�������,” performed with Shatta Wale and Major Lazer. Though Beyoncé,
when she appears onscreen, is usually at its center, “Black Is King” also cedes the
�oor to such charismatic movers as the Afropop artist Yemi Alade, who is
featured on “���’� ������� ��” and “�� �����,” alongside the South African
artists Moonchild Sanelly and Busiswa and also a supreme slate of professional
dancers. There is, in our present moment, a palpable, and reasonable, fatigue
when it comes to the superlative showiness of a certain class of celebrity. Some of
this sticks to Beyoncé, in particular, given the outsized scale at which she has
been working for a while now. But this production—or, rather, the dozens of
credited designers, stylists, artists, tailors, architects, weavers, seamstresses,
builders, braiders, jewellers, and dancers whose crafts are on display in it—
marvels in a way that is difficult to scoff at, especially given that we aren’t likely
to see such feats again soon.
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 5/8
“����� ���� ����,” a tribute to the glittering shades of brownness among Black
people, is set at a débutante ball, featuring Blue Ivy Carter and Kelly
Rowland. Photograph Courtesy Parkwood Entertainment
For all its texture and color, though, “Black Is King” envisions a fairly
conservative idea of Black being, one that is rooted inexorably in the integrity of
Mother and Father, Son and Daughter—this is Disney, after all. The emphasis
on an intact family structure will not come as a surprise to fans (or mere
observers) of Beyoncé’s work, which has long been informed by a sense of her
life’s calling as a matriarch, even when she’s at her baddest. (Speaking of royal
pronouncements, who can forget the feminist media hubbub surrounding the
branding of her �fth touring concert, the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour?) As in
“The Lion King,” the young cub in “Black Is King” suffers the profound loss of a
patriarch; in the end, the breakage is repaired by a restoration of the nuclear
tableau—both “Lion King” �lms and “Black Is King” conclude on the iconic
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 6/8
postnatal image, the next in line held skyward. In between, the album depicts the
magnetic sites of coupling: “����� ���� ����,” a tribute to the glittering shades
of brownness among Black people, is set at a débutante ball, featuring girls in
lush gowns and men in stoles (plus cheery cameos from Kelly Rowland, Naomi
Campbell, Adut Akech, and Lupita Nyong’o). In “���� 4 ���,” our young
prince is molded in Jay-Z’s image, with a young girl playing the princess to
Hov’s Beyoncé.
Connected to this narrative of succession is a notion of roots, though in a sense
more teleological than genealogical. Beyoncé returns, in “Black Is King,” to the
work of the Somali-British poet Warsan Shire, whose words resounded
throughout “Lemonade.” Shire’s selected aphorisms, spoken in a measured
cadence—“You are welcome to come home to yourself. Let Black be
synonymous with glory”—undertake the weight of history, but shakily so. The
time-honored cultural honori�cs of “ancestors” and “elders” begin to become
con�ated; this, along with lyrical entreaties to the motherland, impose a too-
linear account of culture and time, despite the insistence, elsewhere in the �lm—
in its sounds, fashion, settings—that Blackness is anything but straightforward.
And, given the �lm’s brilliant palette, I longed for a bit of the theoretical
sensibility of someone like Terence Nance (who collaborated with Bazawule on
the 2011 short �lm “Native Son”), whose television series “Random Acts of
Flyness,” with its vertiginous storytelling, makes a multidimensional case for a
contemporary Blackness that is not necessarily beholden to the legacy of a pre-
colonial continent—what the scholar Michelle M. Wright calls “epiphenomenal
time.” As far as archetypes go, I prefer the virtuosa to the Earth Mother: give me
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-writing-life-of-a-young-prolific-poet-warsan-shire
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 7/8
Beyoncé in formation, in the pool, behind a mansion, for no reason other than
fabulosity.
When “Lemonade” was released, during the last Presidential election year, it felt
like Beyoncé and pop music could save the world, and knowing, deep down, the
folly of that belief did little to waylay the sentiment. I suspect that viewers of
“Black Is King,” watching the world as it presently turns, will not retain such
illusions. The energy once reserved for plumbing the political depths of Bey’s
speech will, perhaps, be redirected, preoccupied now with the awesome might of
the moving Black image. It is a much more local joy, witnessing something
lovely impress itself onto the senses, but one that rises to the limits of what pop
can do for us now.
Lauren Michele Jackson, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, is
an assistant professor of English at Northwestern University and the
author of “White Negroes.”
More: Beyoncé The Lion King Africa Blackness Music Film Art
https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/lauren-michele-jackson
https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/lauren-michele-jackson
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/beyonce
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/the-lion-king
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/africa
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/blackness
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/music
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/film
https://www.newyorker.com/tag/art
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?xai=AKAOjstnN7wxnnBG9SM3mZmR0HHHZLD6x6CVaZRY2MMHZz3Q12HRJHSS3Br1L29PIpkKBZAao31OjCoaPXm04D7vLhOO3vAnetnoaJo2IGXfmCIYstE6dZ45alwe4ixvlVkdm4frJg5ufIACfEwcqry3TQhfftKUgMKl3hNHt4WjacZ746z0TRUj9Kihc5NRXFDLqEIBx_kHliKxD1SnUiRs26PkQ2K8Nv8TrVlqqzmB_RS34_cWLYQsXW8_HRnZDob9W_eKbu_jOlgKVf4MhTMd5ZBhJyP0jPRCm0jPMNI87rNrTbs&sai=AMfl-YRnQEusVw_YExXO9DZmDMg8L4_d3EqGYWg7plgAXS2A4tf15umqRm4yEcvUMdw2eE6AwYMwDMiFDHYW2-B_CNuaOop0hlDwMugKeiK7vjndQjG_DpbC8hk3IJbt7qhrFwyvx6rODVvy0ORRgCdM5Gc&sig=Cg0ArKJSzKbupbUYA6q5&adurl=https://subscribe.newyorker.com/subscribe/newyorker/136427%3Fsource%3DAMS_NYR_DESKTOP_GLOBAL_CM_FOOTER_0_VERSO_HOLIDAYWEEK_DEC20_ZZ%26pos_name%3DAMS_NYR_DESKTOP_GLOBAL_CM_FOOTER
12/24/2020 Beyoncé’s Knowing Ethnic Splendor in “Black Is King” | The New Yorker
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/beyonces-knowing-ethnic-splendor-in-black-is-king 8/8
https://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pcs/click?xai=AKAOjstnN7wxnnBG9SM3mZmR0HHHZLD6x6CVaZRY2MMHZz3Q12HRJHSS3Br1L29PIpkKBZAao31OjCoaPXm04D7vLhOO3vAnetnoaJo2IGXfmCIYstE6dZ45alwe4ixvlVkdm4frJg5ufIACfEwcqry3TQhfftKUgMKl3hNHt4WjacZ746z0TRUj9Kihc5NRXFDLqEIBx_kHliKxD1SnUiRs26PkQ2K8Nv8TrVlqqzmB_RS34_cWLYQsXW8_HRnZDob9W_eKbu_jOlgKVf4MhTMd5ZBhJyP0jPRCm0jPMNI87rNrTbs&sai=AMfl-YRnQEusVw_YExXO9DZmDMg8L4_d3EqGYWg7plgAXS2A4tf15umqRm4yEcvUMdw2eE6AwYMwDMiFDHYW2-B_CNuaOop0hlDwMugKeiK7vjndQjG_DpbC8hk3IJbt7qhrFwyvx6rODVvy0ORRgCdM5Gc&sig=Cg0ArKJSzKbupbUYA6q5&adurl=https://subscribe.newyorker.com/subscribe/newyorker/136427%3Fsource%3DAMS_NYR_DESKTOP_GLOBAL_CM_FOOTER_0_VERSO_HOLIDAYWEEK_DEC20_ZZ%26pos_name%3DAMS_NYR_DESKTOP_GLOBAL_CM_FOOTER
ppt/theme/theme1.xml
ppt/theme/theme2.xml
ppt/notesMasters/notesMaster1.xml
ppt/notesMasters/_rels/notesMaster1.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide1.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide1.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide2.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide2.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide3.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide3.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide4.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide4.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide5.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide5.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide6.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide6.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide7.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide7.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide8.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide8.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide9.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide9.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide10.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide10.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide11.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide11.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide12.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide12.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide13.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide13.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide14.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide14.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide15.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide15.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide16.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide16.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide17.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide17.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide18.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide18.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide19.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide19.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide20.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide20.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide21.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide21.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide22.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide22.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide23.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide23.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide24.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide24.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide25.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide25.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide26.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide26.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide27.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide27.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide28.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide28.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide29.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide29.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide30.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide30.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide31.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide31.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide32.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide32.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide33.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide33.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide34.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide34.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide35.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide35.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide36.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide36.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide37.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide37.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide38.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide38.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide39.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide39.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide40.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide40.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide41.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide41.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide42.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide42.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide43.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide43.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide44.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide44.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide45.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide45.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide46.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide46.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide47.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide47.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide48.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide48.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide49.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide49.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide50.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide50.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide51.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide51.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide52.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide52.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide53.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide53.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide54.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide54.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide55.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide55.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide56.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide56.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide57.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide57.xml.rels
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide58.xml
ppt/notesSlides/_rels/notesSlide58.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout1.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout1.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout2.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout2.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout3.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout3.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout4.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout4.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout5.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout5.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout6.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout6.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout7.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout7.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout8.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout8.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout9.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout9.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout10.xml
xx% ‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout10.xml.rels
ppt/slideLayouts/slideLayout11.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideLayouts/_rels/slideLayout11.xml.rels
ppt/slideMasters/slideMaster1.xml
‹#›
ppt/slideMasters/_rels/slideMaster1.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide1.xml
ppt/slides/_rels/slide1.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide2.xml
Week 3 Celebrity, Industry, Power
ppt/slides/_rels/slide2.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide3.xml
How might we assess diversity and inclusion efforts as overt racism decreases*?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide3.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide4.xml
How might we assess diversity and inclusion efforts as overt racism decreases * ? *Or does it? Note that there is has been a rise in overt white supremacy (online and in the ‘real world’) in the last few years. Published academic work is only beginning to reckon with this.
ppt/slides/_rels/slide4.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide5.xml
ppt/slides/_rels/slide5.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide6.xml
What does it mean that Michael Jordan was (and remains!) one of the most famous—and most commercially successful—people in America?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide6.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide7.xml
What does it mean that Michael Jordan was (and remains!) one of the most famous—and most commercially successful—people in America?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide7.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide8.xml
What does it mean that Michael Jordan was (and remains!) one of the most famous—and most commercially successful—people in America? b ell hooks: “repudiating identification with a politicized notion of blackness, Jordan […] lends his image to the money-making schemes of the mainstream culture no matter how silly, ridiculous or even monstrous that image is made to appear.” (“Feminism Inside: Toward a Black Body Politic,” 1994)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide8.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide9.xml
hook’s is critical of Jordan’s appearance in “Hare Jordan,” a popular 1993 Nike commercial that served as the inspiration for Space Jam . She laments that his physical and tactical skill are essentially parodied in order to sell sneakers. For hooks, Jordan’s celebrity pushed black athletic stardom into a purely commercial and hegemonic realm. Nicole Fleetwood details this movement in more detail…
ppt/slides/_rels/slide9.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide10.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face.
ppt/slides/_rels/slide10.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide11.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face. Political athletes who, through overt politics and/or circumstance, challenged representational conventions and fostered racial achievement Commercial athletes who celebrate American capitalism and avoid politics in order to build effective brands Jack Johnson -> Paul Robeson -> Jackie Robinson -> Muhammad Ali (+ Smith & Carlos) || Michael Jordan ->
ppt/slides/_rels/slide11.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide12.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face. “The massive campaigns to corprotize, brand, and market superstar athletes as global commodities since the 1980s only highlights the tensions between black athletes and American capitalism. In particular, the growth in the sports industry has lead to hyper-scrutiny of the career profiles and decision making of superstar athletes…” (82) Jack Johnson -> Paul Robeson -> Jackie Robinson -> Muhammad Ali (+ Smith & Carlos) || Michael Jordan ->
ppt/slides/_rels/slide12.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide13.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face While the political/commercial distinction is fairly reductive, it can help us understand why Jordan and the celebrity athletes who’ve followed him are so often subject to criticism: Contemporary sports stardom is structured by the question “ Can—and should—commercial athletes be political? ” Jack Johnson -> Paul Robeson -> Jackie Robinson -> Muhammad Ali (+ Smith & Carlos) || Michael Jordan ->
ppt/slides/_rels/slide13.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide14.xml
Jack Johnson -> Paul Robeson -> Jackie Robinson -> Muhammad Ali (+ Smith & Carlos) || Michael Jordan -> In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face While the political/commercial distinction is fairly reductive, it can help us understand why Jordan and the celebrity athletes who’ve followed him are so often subject to criticism: Contemporary sports stardom is structured by the question “ Can—and should—commercial athletes be political? ”
ppt/slides/_rels/slide14.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide15.xml
Can—and should—commercial athletes be political?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide15.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide16.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face While the political/commercial distinction is fairly reductive, it can help us understand why Jordan and the celebrity athletes who’ve followed him are subject to criticism: Contemporary sports stardom is structured by the questions Can commercial athletes be political? Can—and should—commercial athletes be political?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide16.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide17.xml
By the end of Space Jam …
ppt/slides/_rels/slide17.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide18.xml
Human order is restored. And the (capitalist enterprise of the) NBA rolls on. By the end of Space Jam …
ppt/slides/_rels/slide18.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide19.xml
By the end of Space Jam …
ppt/slides/_rels/slide19.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide20.xml
But! Michael Jordan also embraces his connection with stereotyped blackness and uses it to liberate (rather than punish) the film’s most disenfranchised characters. By the end of Space Jam …
ppt/slides/_rels/slide20.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide21.xml
In “The Black Athlete,” Nicole Fleetwood provides a history of black sports celebrity in order to contextualize Jordan’s impact and understand the immense scrutiny athletes of color continue to face While the political/commercial distinction is fairly reductive, it can help us understand why Jordan and the celebrity athletes who’ve followed him are subject to criticism: Contemporary sports stardom is structured by the questions Can commercial athletes be political? Can—and should—commercial athletes be political? Space Jam does not definitively or coherently answer this question, but it does recognize that Jordan’s celebrity is complex—that it has meaning to both to capitalist enterprise and minority audiences. In Space Jam , Jordan both upholds and challenges structures of power. Perhaps this is why the film is so oddly enduring (Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my love for it?? Whatever the case, it’s definitely a text worth thinking about)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide21.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide22.xml
ppt/slides/_rels/slide22.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide23.xml
Here is a question I lose sleep over: Will Space Jam 2 continue the franchise’s strange interrogation of American animation and professional sports’ representational politics? Will it take seriously the differences between Jordan celebrity and LeBron James’ more politically outspoken and divisive star image?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide23.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide24.xml
Or will it be an example of P lastic representation?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide24.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide25.xml
Plastic representation: “a combination of synthetic elements put together to look like meaningful imagery, but which can only approximate depth and substance because ultimately it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny[…] Plastic representation uses the wonder that comes from seeing characters on screen who serve as visual identifiers for specific demographics in order to flatten the expectation to desire anything more.” (Warner 35)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide25.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide26.xml
ppt/slides/_rels/slide26.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide27.xml
plastic representation: “a combination of synthetic elements put together to look like meaningful imagery, but which can only approximate depth and substance because ultimately it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny […] Plastic representation uses the wonder that comes from seeing characters on screen who serve as visual identifiers for specific demographics in order to flatten the expectation to desire anything more.” (Warner 35)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide27.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide28.xml
Plastic representation: “a combination of synthetic elements put together to look like meaningful imagery, but which can only approximate depth and substance because ultimately it is hollow and cannot survive close scrutiny—it is a disservice to minority media producers and minority audiences. “Plastic is not enough, demand more.” (Warner 37)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide28.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide29.xml
So, with plastic representation in mind, h ow might we assess diversity and inclusion efforts as overt racism decreases*?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide29.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide30.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge On screen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough . D iversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria:
ppt/slides/_rels/slide30.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide31.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization
ppt/slides/_rels/slide31.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide32.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: “Pursuing and embodying the cultural specificity of characters of color is harder work and requires a shift away from thinking only in positive and negative evaluative terms. Resonant characters that are complex and nuanced may not resemble the respectable characters so often proffered as the social cover for racial integration and as proof that black lives matter.” (37)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide32.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide33.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: “Pursuing and embodying the cultural specificity of characters of color is harder work and requires a shift away from thinking only in positive and negative evaluative terms. Resonant characters that are complex and nuanced may not resemble the respectable characters so often proffered as the social co ver for racial integration and as proof that black lives matter.” (37)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide33.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide34.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: against the positive/negative binary
ppt/slides/_rels/slide34.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide35.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: against the positive/negative binary “What marks a representation as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’? Responses are often aligned with class (good job, education, community minded), behavior (hypersexual, well-spoken, “woke”), or with characterizations of character that either successfully assimilate into normative culture or fail to do so. However, such a scale oversimplifies the complexities of black identity that require audiences, pop-culture critics, and scholars to invest in screen characters through experiencing nuances developed over time and ironically reinforces the stereotypes that operate as industry shorthand.”
ppt/slides/_rels/slide35.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide36.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: against the positive/negative binary Will Reeves in Watchmen ; both a literal hero and very much unable to assimilate
ppt/slides/_rels/slide36.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide37.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization: against the positive/negative binary ≠≠≠ But! For Warner, complex characterizations may be found all over the “respectability” spectrum—from quality dramas to reality docu-soaps
ppt/slides/_rels/slide37.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide38.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization
ppt/slides/_rels/slide38.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide39.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization Amount and permanence of minority jobs created—in front of and behind the camera style.visibility
ppt/slides/_rels/slide39.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide40.xml
Kristen Warner’s challenge Onscreen, visually identifiable diversity is not enough. Diversity and inclusion efforts should be evaluated on two major criteria: Depth of onscreen characterization Amount and permanence of minority jobs created—in front of and behind the camera: “actual progress would involve crafting a more weighted diversity, one generated by adding dimension and specificity to roles, and achieved in tandem with diverse bodies shaping those roles at the level of producing and writing.” (35)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide40.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide41.xml
Against plastic representation?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide41.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide42.xml
Against plastic representation? Black is King can be read as an attempt to pull the plastic out of The Lion King through incorporation of more specific African cultural traditions and employment of African and African American artists. I’m not sure what the attachment to The Lion King (and Disney) actually gets us, but there are certainly a lot interesting things going on in the film.
ppt/slides/_rels/slide42.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide43.xml
Against plastic representation? “Hal Foster reminds readers that Picasso regarded the tribal objects he had acquired as ‘witnesses’ rather than as ‘models.’ Foster critiques this positioning of the Other, emphasizing that this recognition was ‘contingent upon instrumentality’: ‘In this way, through affinity and use, the primitive is sent up into the service of the Western tradition…’ (hooks 368)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide43.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide44.xml
Against plastic representation? Black as King takes seriously the relationship between European and African artistic traditions; through its spectacular settings and costumes (among other things), it denounces appropriative logics that would render African art and culture as artifacts of a “primitive” world
ppt/slides/_rels/slide44.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide45.xml
How might we assess diversity and inclusion efforts as overt racism decreases*?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide45.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide46.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation
ppt/slides/_rels/slide46.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide47.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Nicole Fleetwood: “the racial icon—as image, political figure, celebrity, or sports hero—conveys the weight of history and the power of the present moment, in which her or his presence marks the historical moment. To stand apart and to stand for are the jobs of the racial icon.” (10) As her career has progressed, Beyonce has become more and more interested in both wielding and analyzing celebrity power, especially the ways it can impact minority audiences and media producers.
ppt/slides/_rels/slide47.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide48.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Required reading for Wednesday: Introduction and Chapter 4, “The Black Athlete: Racial Precarity and the American Sports Icon” Included in the but not required: Chapter 3, “Giving Face: Diana Ross and the Black Celebrity as Icon”
ppt/slides/_rels/slide48.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide49.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Nicole Fleetwood: “the racial icon—as image, political figure, celebrity, or sports hero—conveys the weight of history and the power of the present moment, in which her or his presence marks the historical moment. To stand apart and to stand for are the jobs of the racial icon.” (10) Super Bowl XLVII (2013)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide49.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide50.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Nicole Fleetwood: “the racial icon—as image, political figure, celebrity, or sports hero—conveys the weight of history and the power of the present moment, in which her or his presence marks the historical moment. To stand apart and to stand for are the jobs of the racial icon.” (10) Super Bowl 50 (2016) Super Bowl XLVII (2013)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide50.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide51.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Nicole Fleetwood: “the racial icon—as image, political figure, celebrity, or sports hero—conveys the weight of history and the power of the present moment, in which her or his presence marks the historical moment. To stand apart and to stand for are the jobs of the racial icon.” (10) Super Bowl 50 (2016) Super Bowl XLVII (2013)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide51.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide52.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Nicole Fleetwood: “the racial icon—as image, political figure, celebrity, or sports hero—conveys the weight of history and the power of the present moment, in which her or his presence marks the historical moment. To stand apart and to stand for are the jobs of the racial icon.” (10) A commercial stage can be a political stage. And, as Warner would say, the story goes beyond simple visibility. Content and reception can tell us a lot about representational and political progress (or lack thereof). Super Bowl 50 (2016) Super Bowl XLVII (2013)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide52.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide53.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation Whether you celebrate or criticize Michael Jordan’s celebrity image (or Space Jam !), it certainly tells a story about the shifting limits and possibilities of black sports stardom in contemporary American culture
ppt/slides/_rels/slide53.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide54.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation
ppt/slides/_rels/slide54.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide55.xml
Celebrity as a method of evaluation OJ: Made in America (ESPN 2016): 5-part documentary series directed by Ezra Edelman The documentary assembles pre-existing footage (including a lot of popular media texts) and talking head interviews in order to chart OJ Simpson’s infamous rise and fall the American public imagination. In doing so, it explores racial inequality, legal prejudice, and how popular representational conventions structure racial and gender hierarchies OJ: Made in America won an Oscar for best documentary feature—but I maintain that it is (and is about) television
ppt/slides/_rels/slide55.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide56.xml
Plastic Representation?
ppt/slides/_rels/slide56.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide57.xml
Weekly Reflection Tips Answer each question separately Ultalize the slides, they contain helpful definitions When questions ask about readings, make sure to include at least one quotation (with page numbers) But don’t let the quotation do all that talking. Explain what is significant about the quotation; the majority of your answer should be in your own words When discussing media texts, be specific! Descriptions of exemplary scenes or sequences will best support your analysis Use examples (both quotes and/or scenes) that go beyond what was covered in lecture. This will emphasize the originality of your ideas and demonstrate thoughtful engagement with course material
ppt/slides/_rels/slide57.xml.rels
ppt/slides/slide58.xml
Reflection questions Choose any contemporary media text (e.g. a film or television show) that is known for its visual diversity. Using the criteria provided by Kristen Warner, discuss whether or not you consider this text an example of “plastic representation.” (If you want to discuss Black is King , here is the place to do so!) (5 points) Nicole Fleetwood contends that “professional sports and their commoditization of the black athletic body […] bring us face-to-face with the psychic and physical violence of the racial state that continually attempts to dominate and manipulate black bodies” (110). Identify and describe a sequence from OJ: Made in America , Part I, that you think illustrates, expands upon, or challenges Fleetwood’s argument. (5 points)
ppt/slides/_rels/slide58.xml.rels
ppt/presProps.xml
ppt/viewProps.xml
ppt/presentation.xml
ppt/_rels/presentation.xml.rels
_rels/.rels
ppt/media/image4
ppt/media/image17
ppt/media/image3
ppt/media/image8
ppt/media/image18
ppt/media/image20
ppt/media/image22
ppt/media/image11.gif
ppt/media/image7
ppt/media/image29
ppt/media/image24.gif
ppt/media/image16
ppt/media/image12
ppt/media/image2
ppt/media/image25
ppt/media/image13
ppt/media/image21
ppt/media/image10
ppt/media/image28
ppt/media/image6
ppt/media/image15
ppt/media/image31
ppt/media/image27
ppt/media/image9
ppt/media/image19
ppt/media/image5
ppt/media/image14
ppt/media/image26.gif
ppt/media/image1
ppt/media/image32
ppt/media/image23
ppt/media/image30.gif
[Content_Types].xml