Denver -- Death almost doesn't exist. It is not the death itself, but the symbolism of the person leaving (meaning they've stopped loving/being able to love her) that matters. For Denver, who has grown up through adolescence with a sibling who is literally a ghost, "leaving" is worse than death. Her worst experiences have been learning that her brothers are absent and that Baby Suggs is "gone" (145). To her, Paul D taking her mother away would be worse than killing her mother. She requires proximity, a display of love. Without it, she doesn't exist. She labels death a "skipped meal compared to" the feeling that she is "dissolving into nothing" because she "has no world" if she has to "put up with another leaving, another trick" (145).
Beloved -- Beloved's view of death matches Denver's. Beloved is incapable of seeing death as finality (she came back to life!), but the fact that murder symbolizes a pushing away out of life, out of proximity, is what matters. Even though she knows she is literally "beloved," and so the love is not the issue (her mother killed her out of love, not out of hate, and it seems she recognizes this), perhaps she (and Denver?) might almost be more content with slave life with her mother's full attention and proximity than freedom without it. (The issue is that neither of them understand that slavery means no control over this proximity, over this ability to communicate and love.)
Sethe -- Death is safety, because it is a state past exploitation. She is content (well...what is the right word...forced? willing? determined?) to try to kill her offspring ("the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful" (192)) to put them somewhere "where they'd be safe" (193) because she "couldn't let...any of em live under schoolteacher" (192). But, at the same time, she is unsurprised that the past (represented by Beloved's ghost) can come back to haunt, that Beloved could have come back from the dead. If she truly believes that her children would be safer in death than in life, but she believes that communication between the living and the dead is possible, what is there to keep her from thinking that her children might be equally injured in death than in life? (see Schoolteacher: further discussion)
Schoolteacher -- Death is unprofitable, so it should be avoided at all costs. Since it is impossible to exploit someone in death, people are something "you were paid to bring back alive" (174).
As we said in class today, Sethe understands this perspective, which strangely legitimizes the murder. If Sethe is willing to trade even mortal injury for exploitation, she apparently values her children's ability for self-respect above their well-being. Is she successful in allowing them to maintain self-respect? To be unexploited? She certainly thinks "it worked" (194). But her children (except Beloved), and seemingly everyone else, value the community's respect as well as their own self-respect...which is the source of some of the mother/daughter tension between Denver and Sethe. So, in a sense, this scene is so tough because Sethe exploits her own children, but for their own sake, so that they will not be exploited in a way she doesn't want them to be.
Baby Suggs -- Death is a hateful manifestation of the suffering of slave life that she has resigned herself to and come to expect after having a seventh child taken away from her (163). As a slave mother, she did not expect that her family members (especially Halle) would stay alive: "she had been prepared for [the news of Halle's death] better than she had for his life" (163). Of all the characters, she is perhaps the most veteraned at death (if that's possible), having had to deal with many in her life. So when she encounters Sethe's situation, she reacts with a how-can-I-salvage-this-situation attitude rather than an oh-my-goodness-this-is-horrendous one. At the same time, I believe she cracks under the pressure of this situation because she never expected that someone would willingly inflict death on someone else they loved. Previously, it was only something to be avoided, because it was part of the injustice inflicted by an unjust system, just like taking children away from their mother.
Stamp Paid -- Death is something to be saved from. He thinks he "saved" Denver from death, so therefore death is bad and should never be desired (208). In this way, his viewpoint is like that of the slave catchers. But, through working toward an understanding of postmortem Baby Suggs, he is also the first outside of 124 who begins to try to understand Sethe's perspective that death might be a better option than life in some cases, even if he's not willing to understand that perspective (212).
Paul D -- Death is something that can be obtained by completely ridding oneself of life. Paul D tries to beat the life out of Life, so that he can live in chain-gang Georgia without having to suffer the "flirt" of Life. However, his idea of death also incorporates safety ("only when [Life] was dead would they be safe" (128)), but he is referring to mental, not physical, safety (from "caring and looking forward, remembering and looking back" (128)). Like Sethe, Paul D believes that death is something that doesn't have to last forever. To him, life can come back, after it has "rolled over dead" (129) if enough hope is present.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
All the Lonely People vs. Run, Mourner, Run
Since we're reading The Symposium in Philosophy, which is all about love, I've been thinking a lot recently about definitions of love. So it's interesting that my daily considerations of a new definition of love in Philosophy so nicely coincided with two different (but both relatable/realistic) depictions of love in these two short stories. I thought I'd try to break down the psychology of each in the context/language that we might use in Philosophy class. For some reason, the definition that Phaedrus presents of love in the context of two unequals, the lover and the beloved, works really well to understand what's going on in each of these short stories.
Traditionally, the "lover" instigates the relationship with the "beloved," who is the person with less power and acts in response to the lover's attentions. The lover should the older of the two, with more experience, and wants to teach the beloved something about how to be virtuous and how to love...because love is about striving to improve another person for their own good (thus the lover must be more experienced than the beloved so that this can be possible). And in Greek society, male-male relationships in this way were quite common: at least among the upper classes, these lover-beloved relationships formed schooling for youths after the equivalent of elementary school.
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McPherson: All the Lonely People
Dennis holds an image of love as a relationship between two unequals. But he turns this idea somewhat on its head: he imagines that those being sought after (which he terms "the hunted," and would potentially parallel "the beloved") as the more powerful in the relationship than those he terms "hunters," who seemingly spend all their time sniveling after the attentions of the hunted. (As an aside, McPherson's terminology also turns biology on its head :D). Dennis wants to be one of the hunted. But perhaps Dennis' definition only concerns sex.
Taking a step back, we see that Dennis sees others suffering and has the uncommunicated capacity to feel pity (or disgust) for other people's social positions in society (like Alfred, Gloria, and even Gerald, perhaps) much more than many of the other people in the short story seem to. If Dennis had the hope that he could try to improve these people's virtue or cared for these people, he would have all the qualities necessary to be a fantastic lover, once he had gotten a little older.
Dennis's problem with himself is that, though he seems to have the capacity for love on a nonsexual level, he doesn't recognize this nonsexual capacity for love as a legitimate means for love. He wants himself to fill the role of the beloved, and initially refuses the attentions of those who hunt him. He is looking to be hunted by a different kind of hunter.
So perhaps this is the a coming of age story, in which Gerald fills the role of Dennis's potential role model, and in which Dennis begins to question his choice of role model. Perhaps Dennis is realizing that love is much more than sex; that, perhaps, love can be something other than sex, or that the true definition of love doesn't have to have anything to do with traditional, societal definitions of love. In fact, according to Plato, it shouldn't: the masses let their apetites and emotions rule over reason. This would make for a very loose reading of the closing line, "I began to wonder about the way I am." But then again, Dennis never says much about what he thinks about himself...he only says what he thinks about others...and it is from this that we gain knowledge about what he thinks about himself...and here he is questioning that...and I am reading into the heavy implications that Dennis's closing questioning has something to do with his sexuality.
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Kenan: Run, Mourner, Run
Dean is clearly in the position of the beloved, a gay man like Dennis (well--Dennis is beginning to consider a possibility). But unlike Dennis, he is willing to accept the affections showered upon him by male lovers. In fact, he goes overboard: he plays their affections to his advantage. He is corrupted by being a beloved. Perhaps it is not his fault: the issue could be that he has never experienced a lover that really loved him in the sense that they wanted to help him improve as a person, and instead he has only encountered people who want sex. Or, perhaps, Dennis doesn't have the innate capacity for improvement.
So he has the opposite problem of Dennis. Dean has a plethora of sex, but what he really needs (wants?) is a relationship that provides him with something more than sex. In this context, it makes sense that he takes Terrell's offer to blackmail Raymond. Terrell speaks as a lover to Dean as the beloved, and Dean does not refuse the offer, because Terrell is doing something that can allow Dean to improve as an individual (well....okay....Dean's judgment is a little off on this one.....).
With this view of events, Dean's problem is that the very person he's blackmailing is the first person who loves him as a person. Dean says, "Don't nobody give a shit about me. My mama, maybe." And Ray responds, "Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that." It is immediately after recalling this encounter that Dean wonders, for the first time, if he had "thought of...how he was to betray this mesmerizing man." Once the events actually take place, Dean realizes his mistake: the beloved can never be more powerful than the lover, because it is the lover who is in charge of the affections to which the beloved responds.
Dean becomes engaged, perhaps overengaged, in self-reflection. If we set the short stories side by side, Dean's thoughts are taking place at the time equivalent to what might be Dennis's thoughts about a week after his story is complete. As Dean thinks through, he is interestingly contemplating what he might have done as a person, what personal defects (never sexual) might have prevented him from gaining the fulfillment of a permanent lover who wants something more than sex. Like Dennis, perhaps, he has now recognized in the present (perhaps after his experience with Raymond?) that what goes into love is much more than sex.
Unfortunately, Dean's story closes with little hope. Dean doesn't seem to have too many qualities of a lover -- and he can't really develop them, because he has never been the beloved of a long-term lover who wants to improve him as an individual. Likewise, it's going to be pretty difficult for him to gain a lover. And while he might be the beloved of his mother, he is unable to pay back her affections...and he doesn't do the little she asks of him (to come inside for dinner), because he's lost in thought about the past. In many ways, this is the most depressing of the novels we have read thus far -- there is literally no way that Dean can improve his situation.
Traditionally, the "lover" instigates the relationship with the "beloved," who is the person with less power and acts in response to the lover's attentions. The lover should the older of the two, with more experience, and wants to teach the beloved something about how to be virtuous and how to love...because love is about striving to improve another person for their own good (thus the lover must be more experienced than the beloved so that this can be possible). And in Greek society, male-male relationships in this way were quite common: at least among the upper classes, these lover-beloved relationships formed schooling for youths after the equivalent of elementary school.
--------------------------------------------------
McPherson: All the Lonely People
Dennis holds an image of love as a relationship between two unequals. But he turns this idea somewhat on its head: he imagines that those being sought after (which he terms "the hunted," and would potentially parallel "the beloved") as the more powerful in the relationship than those he terms "hunters," who seemingly spend all their time sniveling after the attentions of the hunted. (As an aside, McPherson's terminology also turns biology on its head :D). Dennis wants to be one of the hunted. But perhaps Dennis' definition only concerns sex.
Taking a step back, we see that Dennis sees others suffering and has the uncommunicated capacity to feel pity (or disgust) for other people's social positions in society (like Alfred, Gloria, and even Gerald, perhaps) much more than many of the other people in the short story seem to. If Dennis had the hope that he could try to improve these people's virtue or cared for these people, he would have all the qualities necessary to be a fantastic lover, once he had gotten a little older.
Dennis's problem with himself is that, though he seems to have the capacity for love on a nonsexual level, he doesn't recognize this nonsexual capacity for love as a legitimate means for love. He wants himself to fill the role of the beloved, and initially refuses the attentions of those who hunt him. He is looking to be hunted by a different kind of hunter.
So perhaps this is the a coming of age story, in which Gerald fills the role of Dennis's potential role model, and in which Dennis begins to question his choice of role model. Perhaps Dennis is realizing that love is much more than sex; that, perhaps, love can be something other than sex, or that the true definition of love doesn't have to have anything to do with traditional, societal definitions of love. In fact, according to Plato, it shouldn't: the masses let their apetites and emotions rule over reason. This would make for a very loose reading of the closing line, "I began to wonder about the way I am." But then again, Dennis never says much about what he thinks about himself...he only says what he thinks about others...and it is from this that we gain knowledge about what he thinks about himself...and here he is questioning that...and I am reading into the heavy implications that Dennis's closing questioning has something to do with his sexuality.
--------------------------------------------------
Kenan: Run, Mourner, Run
Dean is clearly in the position of the beloved, a gay man like Dennis (well--Dennis is beginning to consider a possibility). But unlike Dennis, he is willing to accept the affections showered upon him by male lovers. In fact, he goes overboard: he plays their affections to his advantage. He is corrupted by being a beloved. Perhaps it is not his fault: the issue could be that he has never experienced a lover that really loved him in the sense that they wanted to help him improve as a person, and instead he has only encountered people who want sex. Or, perhaps, Dennis doesn't have the innate capacity for improvement.
So he has the opposite problem of Dennis. Dean has a plethora of sex, but what he really needs (wants?) is a relationship that provides him with something more than sex. In this context, it makes sense that he takes Terrell's offer to blackmail Raymond. Terrell speaks as a lover to Dean as the beloved, and Dean does not refuse the offer, because Terrell is doing something that can allow Dean to improve as an individual (well....okay....Dean's judgment is a little off on this one.....).
With this view of events, Dean's problem is that the very person he's blackmailing is the first person who loves him as a person. Dean says, "Don't nobody give a shit about me. My mama, maybe." And Ray responds, "Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that." It is immediately after recalling this encounter that Dean wonders, for the first time, if he had "thought of...how he was to betray this mesmerizing man." Once the events actually take place, Dean realizes his mistake: the beloved can never be more powerful than the lover, because it is the lover who is in charge of the affections to which the beloved responds.
Dean becomes engaged, perhaps overengaged, in self-reflection. If we set the short stories side by side, Dean's thoughts are taking place at the time equivalent to what might be Dennis's thoughts about a week after his story is complete. As Dean thinks through, he is interestingly contemplating what he might have done as a person, what personal defects (never sexual) might have prevented him from gaining the fulfillment of a permanent lover who wants something more than sex. Like Dennis, perhaps, he has now recognized in the present (perhaps after his experience with Raymond?) that what goes into love is much more than sex.
Unfortunately, Dean's story closes with little hope. Dean doesn't seem to have too many qualities of a lover -- and he can't really develop them, because he has never been the beloved of a long-term lover who wants to improve him as an individual. Likewise, it's going to be pretty difficult for him to gain a lover. And while he might be the beloved of his mother, he is unable to pay back her affections...and he doesn't do the little she asks of him (to come inside for dinner), because he's lost in thought about the past. In many ways, this is the most depressing of the novels we have read thus far -- there is literally no way that Dean can improve his situation.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Modern Graffiti Market
I found a site (http://www.graffitiartnewyork.com/) and thought I'd look up what our graffiti friends from PBS's Style Wars (1983) are up to in their late-middle age...
This is TAKI 183's only work up on the website (I enlarged a lot in hopes of reading some of the smaller text). Most artists linked only two or three.
Whereas TAKI 183's here looks like it is tagging-focused, SEEN seems as if he is trying to have his work appear as a close-up of a more traditionally-artistic, complicated, bright, complex signature that he might have once painted on a train (also for $350):
Both artists' work are less than 2ft by 2ft in size....what??!!! That's out of character. Additionally, SEEN's picture used "marker," which I would guess does not allow for much color layering. TAKI 183 used "silkscreen print"...which seems a little to complicated or fancy for what I'd expect. But who am I to judge? Why must we box graffiti artists into the exact type of work they've completed before? Can't their work evolve as the culture evolves, just like any other art? What exactly do we define as "graffiti-art," anyway? Doesn't that imply that it must be somehow trying to defy some institution/law?
Both SEEN and TAKI 183 do sort of defy standards by listing the colors of the work as his title, for ex., "red and black." And TAKI 183 titles his "Taki183"...a self-portrait?
Also interesting is that SEEN opened a tattoo parlor (Tattoo Seen) that became one of the most successful in NY, and that he now has an exhibit on display in Paris.
Haha but look what I found?
It also looks like many of these guys ended up at the same high school: High School of Art & Design. And yet it was the ones who majored in art and conformed a little more to the "norms" or art are the ones whose works are being sold for higher prices. This one is selling for $5000, by an artist who had a solo show at an art gallery in the Bronx by 1982.
This is TAKI 183's only work up on the website (I enlarged a lot in hopes of reading some of the smaller text). Most artists linked only two or three.
 |
| A modern work by TAKI 183 (made in 2010), selling for $350. Highly ironic that the piece is "signed on reverse," as if that it is the signature that really counts for something. |
Whereas TAKI 183's here looks like it is tagging-focused, SEEN seems as if he is trying to have his work appear as a close-up of a more traditionally-artistic, complicated, bright, complex signature that he might have once painted on a train (also for $350):
 |
Both SEEN and TAKI 183 do sort of defy standards by listing the colors of the work as his title, for ex., "red and black." And TAKI 183 titles his "Taki183"...a self-portrait?
Also interesting is that SEEN opened a tattoo parlor (Tattoo Seen) that became one of the most successful in NY, and that he now has an exhibit on display in Paris.
Haha but look what I found?
 |
| BLADE specifically lists in his "materials" for this that he made it on an "NYC Subway Map" :) Can you see the lines behind the signature? |
It also looks like many of these guys ended up at the same high school: High School of Art & Design. And yet it was the ones who majored in art and conformed a little more to the "norms" or art are the ones whose works are being sold for higher prices. This one is selling for $5000, by an artist who had a solo show at an art gallery in the Bronx by 1982.
 |
| Crafted in 2010 by DAZE, this is on canvas, with perhaps a more standard title: "Nightshade." Not to say that DAZE is trying at all to fit any expectations or not fit them but for some reason his works just strike me as a bit more mainstream. (Wait...which are graffiti artists trying to do now? Do they have to by definition redefine expectations to continue being "graffiti" artists? But how is the same genre if they change styles too much?!!) P.S. I feel like Howie with such a long caption. |
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Illuminating the Blue Spotlight
The spotlight that randomly appears to track Gunnar the night of Yoshiko's "first craving" is perhaps one of the most unlikely aspects of Beatty's novel. Even Gunnar acknowledges how bizarre it is by introducing himself to the 7-Eleven clerk like an alien, "with a robotic 'Take me to your leader' " (216). Interestingly, the spotlight begins to attract attention and allow for Friday-night parties, instead of scaring everyone away. Even more strange is that "drug dealers have their say" and "hoodlums...bare their souls [with] black gunny-sacks stretched over the heads of the wanted ones to prevent the police from using an overhead skycam to identify them" (221) at these gatherings. The people probably know that the police could easily capture and arrest these people, but for some reason they keep their distance and never intervene.
What is going on here? Beatty could literally be implying that Gunnar's and Yoshiko's lives are now "spotlighted" in the national eye, no matter what they are doing. In fact, they advertise and consciously gather an audience for what might otherwise be a very private, family-level experience: giving birth to a baby. Perhaps they imagine their whole community as family, and that everyone should come to celebrate the life of the community.....but then how does this mesh with Gunnar's active work to convince the world to end the life of this entire community? Perhaps the end is less fatalistic than one's emotions might imply. Objectively, Gunnar and Yoshiko have finally found meaning in their lives, as evidenced by their willingness to die...so, paradoxically, they can now celebrate the life of their child. To each his own...I guess....but their conviction that Gunnar feels he must die in order to fully live will never cease to be heart-wrenching.
In any case, back to the spotlight. I wondered -- why "blue-white"? Why not, say, green? Or red? Or...only white? Blue was probably not Beatty's random choice. As I considered Beatty's reasoning, I remembered that the first color that defined Gunnar's Elementary School view of the world was blue. Specifically, the profanities, fantasies, municipal bus, toilet-paper grenades, and the ocean were blue. Interestingly, Gunnar connects the blue spotlight that showed up at the end of the book when he was buying a blue slushie for Yoshiko's craving to his description of Gunnar's Elementary School definition of blue. The Elementary School Gunnar had a "Slurpee blue" tongue (34). And Eileen, who was Gunnar's only other love in life besides Yoshiko (and, apparently, first-base baseball player Stan "the Man" Musial (33)), had "light-saber blue eyes" that "cut through [him] like lighthouse beacons lancing in the midnight" (34).
So the spotlight in the end of the book that illuminate's Yoshiko's midnight birth is the blue of Eileen's laser-lighthouse eyes. In both cases, Gunnar is being watched. As Eileen watches him, he hopes that she approves of what he does, because he has a crush on her, and she is probably judging him. But as the police watch him, they seem to care less what he does. When Gunnar is first spotlighted, he waits for the "standard drill" of the police, but recieves "nothing" in the way of response at all (216). As Gunnar grows more comfortable with the light's presence, he really could care less whether or not the police approves of what he does. And neither does he try to hide away from the light. Yoshiko describes it as "cool" (217), and both embrace (or ignore? or take advantage of?) its presence from that point onward.
Perhaps Gunnar is trying to convince the LAPD, or anyone, for that matter, to disapprove of what he does, like Monsieur de la Croix in Bamboozled. After Naomi's birth, when the LAPD warns that the child should have "a respect for authority," unlike Gunnar, his response is to hold up the afterbirth in defiance and state, "Thus behold the only thing mightier than yourself" (219). But after initial trepidation for the light and Gunnar's defiant stance toward the LAPD and the world in general, everyone seems accepts everything Gunnar says and does, just like they did with his poetry.
A more sinister reading of the spotlight could view it as more of a cage than an acceptance and illumination. "If [he] moved two feet to the left, the spotlight moved two feet to the left," keeping him "at its center" (216). Interestingly, in Gunnar's Elementary School "abstract impressionism coloring books," he spends his time "trying [his] hardest not to stay inside the lines" (34). So if coloring outside the lines is Gunnar's goal in life, perhaps his goal in writing poetry, then it is interesting that at the end of his life he is kept contained in the center of the beam of light. In expanding this idea, we realize that as Gunnar's published outside-the-lines poetry becomes bestselling, what Gunnar does and says actually becomes the mainstream understanding. He no longer even has the option of doing anything outside the lines. Even if he is asking to plunge outside of history, he no longer can. He is spotlighted, and his advertised plunge has gained awareness....so it becomes important to the world.
With this in mind, let us consider the fact that the beam of light is not only blue, but also white. In Gunnar's Elementary School color definition, he defines white as "the expulsion of colors encombered by self-awareness and pigment" (35). So we obtain the final aspect of the significance of the blue-white beam that the LAPD shines on Gunnar at night as his life draws to a close. Along with the inside-the-lines existence that the light forces Gunnar to live, it also asks him to recognize his life as important and having worldwide significance. There is no way around self-awareness when you are literally spotlighted. So Gunnar's actions and experiences become all the more poignant for readers, because they understand that the whole world will see what Gunnar says and does. But Gunnar thumbs his nose at the idea that the presence of the spotlight could affect how he views himself. By the end of the book, Gunnar seems almost as existentialist as Meursault. But unlike Mersault, he should recognize that the LAPD is right: his life is clearly significant to billions, and his existentialist attitude is being broadcast on national television. Along with his stable and apparently happy family life, this should, by modern logic, absolutely cancel out Gunnar's paradoxical belief that all that matters about his life is that it ends. But it doesn't.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Gunnar's Rap
If Ellison's novel reflects jazz tropes and Hurston's novel reflects blues tropes, then Beatty's novel reflects hip hop tropes, and explores the various stereotypes regarding hip hop artists in modern culture.
First, Gunnar has always used on-the-spot poetic or wordplay comments. He does this both just for fun, but also often to expose social ironies, insights, or criticisms. In Santa Monica, his seemingly MC-echoed comebacks got him the reputation of a "funny, cool, black guy." Everyone assumes this, not only within his school, but outside of it (the doctor immediately calls him this). Perhaps, during this period, Gunnar is seen as conforming to some of the more "Golden-Age" hip-hop styles, with its experimentalism and social commentary.
When he moves to the ghetto, the connection to hip hop culture becomes increasingly clear. He takes a poetry class and does graffiti art...by spray-painting his poem to a wall. He gradually begins doing more poetic work on-the-spot, starting with a poem he "composed" for Pumpkin's funeral then and there, which "signed [his] unofficial ascension to poete maudit for the Gun Totin' Hooligans and by extension the neighborhood."
But though he is living where the "Gangsta Rap"-type forms, and he has exposure to them in the streets, he is distanced from them. When the Stoic Undertakers are filming a music video in front of Gunnar's house, the producer is very specific. He refuses Gunnar as an extra because he is "too studious," and the producer wants" menacing or despondent," not "bookworm junior high larvae" (76). But perhaps this is Gunnar's problem in moving from Santa Monica to the ghetto. He had never been exposed to this idea of what people should be, before. In his previous socialization, popular emphasis was more on humorous funk styles, whereas now he is expected to learn how to act as though people expect him to be menacing or despondent (whether or not, inwardly, people actually are).
Another aspect of hip hop that Gunnar does not yet "fit" is the dance aspect. He claims he "couldn't dance and was deathly afraid of women" (121). But Psycho Loco will probably fix that. And this is the issue -- are the people in his new environment also forcing him into some image of what he should be? I think this is clear evidence that that is so. It is impossible for him to be part of either the Santa Monica or the ghetto social scene without somehow fitting some sort of image, or practicing some sort of behaviors. So this is the irony -- if rap is an experimental form, how can Gunnar continue to be a rap artist and yet still experiment? Perhaps Beatty is saying something about rap music, in general. Not only are the producers the ones who control the tone of the music and how it is presented to the public, but the culture of the people who write the lyrics dictates much of what they can and cannot say. Gunnar describes his poete maudit job as "immortaliz[ing] the rulers and say[ing] enough scholarly bullshit to keep from getting my head chopped off" (105). And after the producer says "cut," Beatty describes the "sybaritic rappers and hired concubines" who are "leaning into the camera with gnarled intimidating scowls" as experiencing an effect exactly mirroring that of the minstrelsy dynamic. The "curled lips snapped back into watermelon grins like fleshy rubber bands" and the previously-menacing despondents ask, "How was that, massa? Menacing enough fo' ya?" (77).
First, Gunnar has always used on-the-spot poetic or wordplay comments. He does this both just for fun, but also often to expose social ironies, insights, or criticisms. In Santa Monica, his seemingly MC-echoed comebacks got him the reputation of a "funny, cool, black guy." Everyone assumes this, not only within his school, but outside of it (the doctor immediately calls him this). Perhaps, during this period, Gunnar is seen as conforming to some of the more "Golden-Age" hip-hop styles, with its experimentalism and social commentary.
When he moves to the ghetto, the connection to hip hop culture becomes increasingly clear. He takes a poetry class and does graffiti art...by spray-painting his poem to a wall. He gradually begins doing more poetic work on-the-spot, starting with a poem he "composed" for Pumpkin's funeral then and there, which "signed [his] unofficial ascension to poete maudit for the Gun Totin' Hooligans and by extension the neighborhood."
But though he is living where the "Gangsta Rap"-type forms, and he has exposure to them in the streets, he is distanced from them. When the Stoic Undertakers are filming a music video in front of Gunnar's house, the producer is very specific. He refuses Gunnar as an extra because he is "too studious," and the producer wants" menacing or despondent," not "bookworm junior high larvae" (76). But perhaps this is Gunnar's problem in moving from Santa Monica to the ghetto. He had never been exposed to this idea of what people should be, before. In his previous socialization, popular emphasis was more on humorous funk styles, whereas now he is expected to learn how to act as though people expect him to be menacing or despondent (whether or not, inwardly, people actually are).
Another aspect of hip hop that Gunnar does not yet "fit" is the dance aspect. He claims he "couldn't dance and was deathly afraid of women" (121). But Psycho Loco will probably fix that. And this is the issue -- are the people in his new environment also forcing him into some image of what he should be? I think this is clear evidence that that is so. It is impossible for him to be part of either the Santa Monica or the ghetto social scene without somehow fitting some sort of image, or practicing some sort of behaviors. So this is the irony -- if rap is an experimental form, how can Gunnar continue to be a rap artist and yet still experiment? Perhaps Beatty is saying something about rap music, in general. Not only are the producers the ones who control the tone of the music and how it is presented to the public, but the culture of the people who write the lyrics dictates much of what they can and cannot say. Gunnar describes his poete maudit job as "immortaliz[ing] the rulers and say[ing] enough scholarly bullshit to keep from getting my head chopped off" (105). And after the producer says "cut," Beatty describes the "sybaritic rappers and hired concubines" who are "leaning into the camera with gnarled intimidating scowls" as experiencing an effect exactly mirroring that of the minstrelsy dynamic. The "curled lips snapped back into watermelon grins like fleshy rubber bands" and the previously-menacing despondents ask, "How was that, massa? Menacing enough fo' ya?" (77).
What Tea Cake has against Miss Turner's brother
Tea Cake describes Miss Turner as a woman who "live offa our money and don't lak black folks, huh?" (148). This view of Miss Turner is a more extreme version of the attitude that the people in Eatonville held for Joe. Joe came to Eatonville with the idea of ruling over everyone else, to make the town more improved than it would be without his presence. His first reaction to the town is: "God, they call this a town? Why 'taint nothing but a raw place in de woods" (34). And though his first words to the townspeople are that he "means to put man hands tuh de plow heah, and strain every nerve to make dis our town de metropolis uh de state" (42). He clarifies this by making it clear that he will do this by making everyone do what he thinks is best for the town, and not what anyone else thinks is best or wants to do. So he continues his initial speech by "So maybe Ah better tell yuh in case you don't know dat if we expect tuh move on, us got tuh incorporate lak every other town" (43). Essentially from that point onward, Joe speaks as if he knows more than everyone else about running the town or how things should be done (esp. to Janie).
So when Janie and Tea Cake encounter Miss Turner, who holds a similar attitude toward the people of the muck that Joe held toward the people of Eatonville, no wonder Tea Cake is so afraid of Miss Turner's brother. Without this parallel between Miss Turner and Joe, it would be unclear why Tea Cake is afraid of Janie's potential interest in Miss Turner's brother until he dies. Tea Cake knows that Janie comes from high standing, and is initially afraid of fully exposing her to his low-class-ness, as evidenced by the scene where he explains how he spent Janie's $200. Though Janie continually reassures him that this is not a problem for her, there is no evidence that Tea Cake is ever completely convinced. So when Miss Turner comes along, and all she can talk about is how good Janie is compared to Tea Cake, how Janie should be in a more high-class situation, how she absolutely dissapproves of the rest of the town, and how her own brother is a good candidate given all of these reasons, no wonder Tea Cake becomes so worried and obsessed. Tea Cake himself has believed (or still believes?) the same things about Janie. Luckily, since Joe's death, Janie she is not affected by what anyone else thinks she should or should not do. But, again, Tea Cake can't know this. He sees Miss Turner's brother as a potential Joe-the-second, and thus a potential rival who could potentially take Janie away from him, without ever having met the brother or knowing that Joe successfully took Janie away from her previous husband.
So when Janie and Tea Cake encounter Miss Turner, who holds a similar attitude toward the people of the muck that Joe held toward the people of Eatonville, no wonder Tea Cake is so afraid of Miss Turner's brother. Without this parallel between Miss Turner and Joe, it would be unclear why Tea Cake is afraid of Janie's potential interest in Miss Turner's brother until he dies. Tea Cake knows that Janie comes from high standing, and is initially afraid of fully exposing her to his low-class-ness, as evidenced by the scene where he explains how he spent Janie's $200. Though Janie continually reassures him that this is not a problem for her, there is no evidence that Tea Cake is ever completely convinced. So when Miss Turner comes along, and all she can talk about is how good Janie is compared to Tea Cake, how Janie should be in a more high-class situation, how she absolutely dissapproves of the rest of the town, and how her own brother is a good candidate given all of these reasons, no wonder Tea Cake becomes so worried and obsessed. Tea Cake himself has believed (or still believes?) the same things about Janie. Luckily, since Joe's death, Janie she is not affected by what anyone else thinks she should or should not do. But, again, Tea Cake can't know this. He sees Miss Turner's brother as a potential Joe-the-second, and thus a potential rival who could potentially take Janie away from him, without ever having met the brother or knowing that Joe successfully took Janie away from her previous husband.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
The Talk of the Town
When Janie moves from Joe Starks to Tea Cake, Hurston (in my reading) makes clear the following changes (perhaps debatable) in Janie's situation. All of them can be thought of as side-effects of the major change that occurred: Janie's stepping down from living as though placed on a pedestal and showered with love from afar onto level ground (Joe was "pouring honor all over her; building a high chair for her to sit in and overlook the world" (62)), where she can shower love as well as be showered with it. The changes, in this order, are effects of one another:
- African American upper-crust --> African American average plebian
- wealth --> poverty
- love through material wealth --> love through emotional/physical wealth
- closed communication --> open communication
- percieved loneliness --> social connections, both within and outside marriage
- marrige subordinacy --> marriage equality
- Janie with necessity to ask permission to do what desires (no free will) --> Janie with free will
Additionally interesting is that Starks judges other people in community (such as "pushin' and shovin' wid they no-manners selves...in all dat mess uh commonness" (60)), whereas Tea Cake never (so far) judges other people in the community as bad or good. Janie never seems to judge in either scenario.
However, there is a parallel between Janie's situations with Joe Starks and with Tea Cake that is a bit surprising in the latter case. In both situations, Janie is portrayed as a central character in the public eye of the town, even though she doesn't seem to realize it much. With Joe Starks, this is fairly self-explanatory, since Jody himself is the town's mayor. Thus, necessarily the porch must develop opinions about Joe and his actions, and Janie is included with Joe in the porch's idea of those in charge. With Tea Cake, this centrality seems to be of less importance, likely because Tea Cake views himself as a part, not a guardian, of the people. However, almost at the beginning of Hurston's depiction of Janie's life as a mucker in the 'glades, she states: "Tea Cake's house was a magnet, the unauthorized center of the 'job'" (132) because "the house was full of people every night" (133). Again, the people are flocking to Janie's porch.
This, interestingly, is the complete opposite experience of both Bigger and the invisible man. Perhaps this difference is significant in showing the difference between the actions/experiences of some of the characters in these books? Is it even possible to show a character who is one of the powerful and influential members of the African American community if one is trying to write a protest novel (Wright), or trying to encompass the whole African American experience, since this is not possible by showing only the upper crust? Or is it actually the case that Janie is unlike Bigger and the invisible man in that she is the talk of the town? Perhaps all three are, at some point, but it manifests itself differently in each. Probably, the best any reader can do is to guess the author's intentions here by reading their own writings on these works.
- African American upper-crust --> African American average plebian
- wealth --> poverty
- love through material wealth --> love through emotional/physical wealth
- closed communication --> open communication
- percieved loneliness --> social connections, both within and outside marriage
- marrige subordinacy --> marriage equality
- Janie with necessity to ask permission to do what desires (no free will) --> Janie with free will
Additionally interesting is that Starks judges other people in community (such as "pushin' and shovin' wid they no-manners selves...in all dat mess uh commonness" (60)), whereas Tea Cake never (so far) judges other people in the community as bad or good. Janie never seems to judge in either scenario.
However, there is a parallel between Janie's situations with Joe Starks and with Tea Cake that is a bit surprising in the latter case. In both situations, Janie is portrayed as a central character in the public eye of the town, even though she doesn't seem to realize it much. With Joe Starks, this is fairly self-explanatory, since Jody himself is the town's mayor. Thus, necessarily the porch must develop opinions about Joe and his actions, and Janie is included with Joe in the porch's idea of those in charge. With Tea Cake, this centrality seems to be of less importance, likely because Tea Cake views himself as a part, not a guardian, of the people. However, almost at the beginning of Hurston's depiction of Janie's life as a mucker in the 'glades, she states: "Tea Cake's house was a magnet, the unauthorized center of the 'job'" (132) because "the house was full of people every night" (133). Again, the people are flocking to Janie's porch.
This, interestingly, is the complete opposite experience of both Bigger and the invisible man. Perhaps this difference is significant in showing the difference between the actions/experiences of some of the characters in these books? Is it even possible to show a character who is one of the powerful and influential members of the African American community if one is trying to write a protest novel (Wright), or trying to encompass the whole African American experience, since this is not possible by showing only the upper crust? Or is it actually the case that Janie is unlike Bigger and the invisible man in that she is the talk of the town? Perhaps all three are, at some point, but it manifests itself differently in each. Probably, the best any reader can do is to guess the author's intentions here by reading their own writings on these works.
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