In Williams’s “Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” he talks about alternative and oppositional ways of living, which I have always thought was interesting in comparison to Homi Bhabha’s ideas of ambivalence, hybridization, and agency through replication that he discusses in “Of Mimicry and
Asian Americans, often considered a “model minority” (a term first used in 1966 during the height of the Civil Rights movement) are often depicted favorably in mass culture. An example can be seen on the blog “Things White People Like:”
#11 Asian Girls: 95% of white males have at one point in their lives, experienced yellow fever. Many factors have contributed to this phenomenon such as guilt from head taxes, internment camps, dropping the Nuclear bomb and the Viet Nam War . This exchange works both ways as Asian girls have a tendency to go for white guys. (White girls never go for asian guys. Bruce Lee and Paul Kariya’s dad are the only recorded instances in modern history). Asian girls often to do this to get back at their strict traditional fathers. There is also the option of dating black guys, but they know deep down that this would give their non-english speaking grandmother(s) a heart attack.
White men love Asian women so much that they will go to extremes such as stating that Sandra Oh is sexy, teaching English in Asia, playing in a coed volleyball league, or attending institutions such as UBC or UCLA (please note that both schools’ colors of “blue” and “yellow” are intentional also the “A” in “UCLA” stand for “Asian” while the “B” in “UBC” stands for “Billion” try and figure out what the rest of the letters stand for). Another factor that draws white guys to Asian women is that white women are jealous of them.
Is it even necessary to unpack and discuss logic that airtight? Similar descriptions can be found on urbandictionary.com, and when we talk about the real hybrid of Asian and Caucasian culture, also known as the “hapa” culture, you see an even more fetishized image. The ability of Asian American culture to embody this aspect of the “not quite not white” has made them not only acceptable, but has also made them a type of status object--which, arguably, has challenged and altered the ways in which they interact with their cultural heritage and ideas of nationalism and identity.
But Green talks about the ways in which African American culture has been able to maintain aspects of its individuality even as it encounters and interacts with the dominant culture, and how that interaction has made it possible for them to be history and cultural producers as opposed to just victims. Overall, in looking at the two minority groups, it is interesting to see how each has navigated its own way with and through dominant culture, and to see in what capacity they are now allowed to intermingle and intermix (it wasn’t too long ago that a judge in Louisiana wouldn’t let an African American and white couple marry, stating: “I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves… I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way.) So, overall, I guess my question is: what does all of this mean for the minorities, both model and, well, not?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSure--what happens to minorities' cultural products?
ReplyDeleteFirst I’m struck by your comment, Joy, about how minorities, according to Green, can be “history and cultural producers as opposed to just victims.” Definitely Green makes a case for this during his 1940-1955 period, but as he suggests on pg. 89, things become a lot more depressing in this regard beginning in the mid 50s, when according to Green the black DJ’s style and the black musicians’ genres started “being used” ( a telling phrase) by white radio programmers and white audiences (89).
During the fifties, as many have pointed out, black music started getting a wider/whiter audience, and it was transformed in many different ways to suit wider/whiter tastes. More than a few pop-music scholars have attributed the success of Elvis Presley, for instance, to the fact that his music allowed white teens to listen to black-style music without having to actually buy or listen to black artists. If you look at the album covers of black artists during this era, you’ll notice that quite a few of them feature only cartoons or big text—no pictures of the black artists—in order to sell to white audiences. Did this make those artists victims instead of producers? No. But things were definitely not as rosy as Green suggests they had been earlier.
Much of your post discusses Asians’ racial place in the mainstream. Asians’ pop music also had a troubled history in the US during the 50s-60s. I’m thinking in particular of Kyu Sakamoto, whose 1963 song “Sukiyaki” became a #1 hit here in the USA—it’s still the only Japanese-language song ever to top the American charts. But rather than acceptance, the success of “Sukiyaki” in America suggests our love of novelty in popular culture. If you check Youtube you’ll find a video of Sakamoto being interviewed by Steve Allen on his show, and the patronizing jokes at the expense of the Japanese are just plain nauseating.
Bottom line? It’s hard for a minority cultural producer, whether you’re Willie Dixon or Kyu Sakamoto, to gain success with majority audiences without bringing up questions of victimization, novelty, slumming, etc.
I really dislike discussing racial types, especially because said discussions are often subject to the backwards logic of a small group of people that, to put it nicely, have nothing better to do than to post on urbandictionary.com or create blogs like "What White People Like." With that being said, I think that there are some really interesting points in both Joy's and Kurt's posts that should be addressed and considered more closely.
ReplyDeleteCultural production often has little to nothing to do with those actually producing the culture as it does with the dissemination of that "culture" type. For instance, while music in Chicago during burgeoning Rhythm and Blues Era is an important aspect of cultural expression for the African American's in Chicago, the way it spread to other regions in the country to produce a market, was highly influenced by those controlling the shortband radio stations and record company presses. If there is profit to be made, those with controlling interest in the industry often take advantage of it before the creators stake their claim. <--- something Kurt eluded too, but is also applicable to other 'minority' groups.
I'm not even where to begin to respond the the asian caucasian hybrid culture comment. While the American cultural and popular memory of asians has been formed primarily by Orientalist discourse (I'm sorry to bring that up again). Unfortunately, it hasn't been until recently that the 'powers that be' have starting taking a serious look at the asian demographic in terms of producing culture outside of kitsch.
I think this period in Chicago shifts the 'Othering' of African American's by placing them at the center (as green suggests) as opposed to being on the outside looking in. The period itself is heavily involved in the reorientation of the 'other' from external to the internal, with the rise of Pan-Africanism and the rise of Black Nationalist movements. The African American front, for a large part, embraced the negritude movement. I think it is this lack of solidarity between asian ethnic groups, and their "not quite not white" status, flanked by the "orientalist" discourse and the fact that most of the warfare conducted by the United States during the 20th century was in Asia (Creating absurd and frankly despicable stereotypes) that contributed to the kitsch of the culture they produced. Sheer numbers of population only further complicate the matter.