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| Short answer: It depends. Much longer answer within. by Horrible Gelatinous Blob 03/02/2010, 12:44pm PST | ||||
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| Hooray, racial politics! And before I've had my caffeine, too.
Starting from the ZP review: I'd like to give Yahtzee credit for subtly mocking the whole "I'm not racist because I hate all people who do niggerish things, no matter what color they are" argument, but it's a scientific impossibility for an Australian to be that subtle, even if he was originally born in Britain. It goes to show how black culture isn't really considered to be valid by white people until it's homogenized and smoothed down to be as inoffensive as possible. Until white people co-opt it, it's something to be mocked. Once it's validated by the white establishment, it's okay to enjoy in its diluted, less frightening state. In the case that the recontexualization happens in the opposite direction -- black culture lionizing Italian Mafioso culture (which white culture also does; the only difference is in degrees) -- suddenly the said behaviors are indicative of what's wrong with the entire ethnic group. Conveniently forgotten is where the behaviors were learned from in the first place. I bring this up because if Yahtzee had spent half of the Godfather game complaining that he hates the whole Mafia milieu and that people who dress and act like Joe Pesci in Casino deserve to be made fun of, no matter their skin color, the reaction would be something like, "Yahtzee, if you hate the Italian gangster theme that much, why did you even pick up the game?" Answer: he wouldn't have picked up the game, because it would have been pointless. Yet despite the fact that Yahtzee really, really hates the trappings of 2000s-era West Coast rap, he feels it's perfectly acceptable to play a game built around the biggest 2000s-era West Coast rap star and that his complaints about it are justified. It would rightly be derided and dismissed if applied to any other culture or ethnic group. American blacks are the last group that white people feel secure maintaining their paternalistic attitude towards. Yahtzee's reaction is a natural response to a culture that demands that all minorities be representative of their entire ethnicity. Yeah, he's racist, but not for the reasons he thinks he'll be accused of racism. He doesn't hate the game's atmosphere because it has black people in it, per se, he hates it because it's black. Or to put it another way, he doesn't hate black people, but he really, really hates black culture (or his imagined version of it). More specifically to your question: Minstrelry has become significantly more difficult to identify in the last decade or so, especially as a new generation of black creatives have risen in the wake of black baby boomers' complete and total failure to attain even a small sliver of whiteness, despite their slavish devotion and emulation to all things white. I think that there's a large degree of black culture that makes white people very uncomfortable for a number of reasons, some of which even they don't really comprehend, and that much of this is written off as neo-minstrelism. I don't think 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand qualifies for a number of reasons, including the fact that video game plots are notoriously cheesy and overwrought and that the agency for 50 Cent's image rests solely with him; it was his choice to license his likeness and name for the game and the name in that check's payor field reads "Curtis Jackson," not Interscope Records or Lyor Cohen or some other tall Israeli. A white person calling it minstrelism isn't crossing a line, but it betrays a limited, calcified thought process. There's nothing in Blood on the Sand that indicates Fiddy is representing the entirety of black America, or representing anyone other than himself and the other members of G-Unit. He doesn't have a responsibility to present anything other than what he wants to present, whether that's chasing a diamond skull or the father he's never known. It's moving the goalposts in the worst way: white people define the boundaries and content of the stereotypes. Stay within, you're contributing to "the problem," Stepin Fetchit. Go outside, and it's inauthentic, unbelievable, tokenism, "acting white." It assures white people that they're not missing anything by continuing to deride and ignore what black culture has to offer (at least until it's appropriately bleached). Other thoughts I didn't have the time or effort to weave into this post: |
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