Please watch the video before reading my contextual information below -- I'd like to know your gut response.
Love and Theft from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password "otherness"
"Love and Theft," or "the detour through the other defines the self"
While the gender-subverting politics of my earlier study seemed clear enough, I was inspired to take a self-reflexive, critical look at myself and dig deeper into the politics of embodying racial others. On one level, this exploration stems from my discomfort with appropriating the queer women-loving blues in my first study, particularly because this strand of the blues springs out of the lived experience of black American working class women in a post-Emancipation era. It was also informed by my analysis of the German Kabarett readings, where I perceived that -- once again -- white middle-class women were empowering themselves by appropriating an exotic, racialized, and classed other, in particular through the Orientalism of their naked Salome-inspired dances. Thus the twin legacies of blackface minstrelsy and Orientalism inform my study, which correspond to the two movement traditions (jazz and kathak) referenced in my first study.
The title of the study, "Love and Theft," is taken from Eric Lott's book, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, which looks at white working class males' appropriation of blackness. "The detour through the other defines the self" is from psychoanalytical theorist Diana Fuss' Identification Papers. I understand the quotation as suggesting how the very process of identification -- brimming over with desire for the other -- destabilizes identity.
FEEDBACK QUESTIONS
1. What is your reaction to the racial and gendered identity theft performed in this study by my East Asian female body? Does it read as simple appropriation, or do you feel it has a critical edge? If the latter, how might I deepen and clarify that critique further?
2. What parts of the study do you find compelling aesthetically, if any?
3. How might you imagine this study and my earlier one connecting? (Initially I imagined this video would be intercut with phrases from my original study; however, once I started editing, I found this hard to do.)
4. Any other thoughts or suggestions for further development?
PS - Aditee imagined this study as a prequel to my earlier one, so I've cut the two together here. Please answer Feedback Question 3 before watching!
love and theft_prove it on me blues from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password "make-up"
Love and Theft from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password "otherness"
"Love and Theft," or "the detour through the other defines the self"
While the gender-subverting politics of my earlier study seemed clear enough, I was inspired to take a self-reflexive, critical look at myself and dig deeper into the politics of embodying racial others. On one level, this exploration stems from my discomfort with appropriating the queer women-loving blues in my first study, particularly because this strand of the blues springs out of the lived experience of black American working class women in a post-Emancipation era. It was also informed by my analysis of the German Kabarett readings, where I perceived that -- once again -- white middle-class women were empowering themselves by appropriating an exotic, racialized, and classed other, in particular through the Orientalism of their naked Salome-inspired dances. Thus the twin legacies of blackface minstrelsy and Orientalism inform my study, which correspond to the two movement traditions (jazz and kathak) referenced in my first study.
The title of the study, "Love and Theft," is taken from Eric Lott's book, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, which looks at white working class males' appropriation of blackness. "The detour through the other defines the self" is from psychoanalytical theorist Diana Fuss' Identification Papers. I understand the quotation as suggesting how the very process of identification -- brimming over with desire for the other -- destabilizes identity.
FEEDBACK QUESTIONS
1. What is your reaction to the racial and gendered identity theft performed in this study by my East Asian female body? Does it read as simple appropriation, or do you feel it has a critical edge? If the latter, how might I deepen and clarify that critique further?
2. What parts of the study do you find compelling aesthetically, if any?
3. How might you imagine this study and my earlier one connecting? (Initially I imagined this video would be intercut with phrases from my original study; however, once I started editing, I found this hard to do.)
4. Any other thoughts or suggestions for further development?
PS - Aditee imagined this study as a prequel to my earlier one, so I've cut the two together here. Please answer Feedback Question 3 before watching!
love and theft_prove it on me blues from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password "make-up"
1)Your assignment response has encouraged me to rethink about the concept of or the art of MAKE-UP. On the one hand it becomes a skill/technique of using lines and colour to either highlight and accentuate the positives in a person's facial features or a method to hide and cover-up the flaws. In both cases, as I understand, upon using make-up we land up 'completing', 'correcting' or 'remaking' our selves in a way that would enhance our beauty and generate maximum appeal, mostly based on a certain trend or public demand and opinion. To me it feels as though, make-up helps us become someone we are not and someone we think we want to be. At times it seems that the desire to be someone more desirable, more exotic (as that too heightens one's appeal) is something that is hidden within us. Which may mean that somewhere we might be even desiring to become the "other", that which is different, that which is more appealing, that which is not me, so as to become more popular or to at least get noticed. Make-up trends around the world sort of hint to this very aspect as well. Like body tanning saloons in Europe (where they spray paint on your body and help you change your skin colour for a few days) and ever growing fairness creams market in countries like India, where we are technically encouraged to steal another identity and become someone we are not, as that is what is most desirable.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe working on this line we could possibly think of the use of make-up in cabaret and other such performing arts where the performance maybe becomes more about performing another identity? So making the desire to become the other more as a marketing strategy as that might sell more? So the performer and the character being performed maybe are separate, who maybe sometimes are dictated by the market to choose a certain character? So making further maybe question the idea of a form becoming a method of expression for the less vocal versus that which is run by the market (profit making/commodifying and selling a form to make money).
2)I think the use of the contrast between black (skin and eyes) and red (lips) was quite compelling. For the play that these contrasting colours created makes the racial comment for me more vivid. I feel that the market has always associated colours that we wear with reference to our skin colours. So some colours sort of get assigned to some complexions and thus maybe even are thought of as appropriate for a certain race, thus the contrast is very interesting.
3)I feel this assignment response could make an interesting prequel to your earlier assignment. Intercutting this response with the earlier one might not fit at all, unless there is another segment that can be prepared that connects these two. But so far I have no idea of what might that be.
4) I would like to see how the first assignment response would change if this segment was to lead into that. Could be interesting to reshoot a video, at some later point maybe with both these segments.
Dear Aditee, thanks so much for your thoughtful response! I love your analysis of the politics of make-up and appreciate the connection to commercialism and marketability. Since you’re curious about this study as a prequel to my previous one, I’ve quickly edited the two videos together so that you can see what this might look like. Because I used the same music for the two studies, I’m wondering if you think I should change the soundtrack for one of the studies, and if so, what you might imagine in its place.
DeleteSpeaking of blackface being mobilized for marketing reasons (and in an Asian context), check this out: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/31/dunkin-donuts-apologizes-for-bizarre-and-racist-thai-advertising/
DeleteFROM SHY:
ReplyDelete1. This study evokes many emotions in me. First I was worried for you putting the hot cork to your face; I was aghast by the use of blackface because it is such a charged part of American history; I was amused by the exotification of taking on the South Asian dance eye make-up because it seemed more digestable next to the blackface; I was unsettled and confused with the kiss: and had a small feeling of pleasure when you donned the hat over the jewelry which complicated your gender presentation. Mostly you hit lots of buttons of discomfort in me.
It definitely has a critical edge because it puts two similar appropriations (that of African/American cultures and that of South Asian/Middle Eastern cultures) next to each other causing many possible frictions and collusions between racial politics, cultural appropriation, orientalism and exotification. It’s interesting that just the black face alone made me feel sick, but the South Asian make-up somehow lightened it. In comparing these two, the blatant history of the use of black face in American Minstrelsy to make-fun of and belittle people of African descent makes it much easier to see the power dynamics and the harmful racial politics at play than in the case of exotifying South Asianness which to me seems tame in comparison. Obviously my identity and experience is much more tied to the South Asian side of the exotification, and I have definitely had to deal with many people thinking I'm an "exotic dancer" (aka a stripper) if I tell them that I perform Indian dance. However I find strategies to deal with moments like these and am able to be amused by them rather then scarred by them, and in some rare cases I feel I am able to educate the person more about Indian dances. On the other hand, I met an old white woman who lives up the street and who has tons of blackface figurines and old jazz albums all over her house. I was so horrified by her collection, that I never managed to make myself go back to her place, even though she was just a sweet old lady who had just lost her husband of 50 years and needed company and help. I somehow could forgive her for her ignorance, but couldn't forgive myself for going into that space and ignoring it or endorsing it by my presence. My reactions to these two situations is fairly similar to my reaction to your study. It would be interesting to see how different people might react to it.
SHY'S COMMENTS CONT.
ReplyDeleteEverything is farther complicated by the fact that you are Asian, and thus already bringing in another ethnicity that is also often orientialized and exotified and appropriated from. Of course this appropriation happens across minority communities all the time, as you showed in your Thai donut ad above.
I’m not sure how to deepen and clarify except that some other examples of these two worlds being appropriated side by side might be useful to take into account. Here is another shocking example where I felt the appropriation of these two worlds collided recently in the yoga world: http://jezebel.com/santa-barbara-yoga-studio-gives-out-do-rags-at-ghetto-1251090792
And here is a comparison of the appropriation of hip hop and yoga:
http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/09/gandhi-kendrick-lamar-defending-the-culture-roopa-singh/
It’s always tricky to be able to signify when something is a critique or whether it is being done unconsciously. I would be curious if someone who doesn’t know you might take this piece... How to make it evident that is a critique? Perhaps pushing it to the point of ridiculousness? I know that already putting the two on either side of one face is a strange juxtaposition, but how could it get pushed more so we know that you are messing with our assumptions and associations ? Maybe playing with labeling and mislabeling or cross labeling the two sides could be interesting. For example, labels that make us think and rethink each side of you and the inherent power or disempowerment in the labels and the make-up such as “minstrel,” “servant,” “dancer,” “master,” “entertainer,” “slave,” “harem,” etc.
Perhaps playing with expression would be interesting too. You look bored with yourself and your own identity in the beginning. What do you “feel” when donning the different faces? I know you said you had trouble with the mirror image in this case, but could be a future idea to play with.
SHY'S COMMENTS PART 3:
ReplyDelete2. What parts of the study do you find compelling aesthetically, if any?
The moments of the flame and cork I think were beautiful and could signify much if delved in more....like heat and danger. The whipping of out of the shirt from nowhere was a lovely change of pace and added an element of surprise. In general, the cuts to focus on different parts like the shirt buttons, or the cork are particularly interesting and it would add more aesthetic variety if you had some shots of the close up of the eye or charcoal on the skin. The overall feeling of you looking in a mirror is nice too because it creates a personal space.
The title is a nice framing and made the blackface slightly more bearable because love and theft is different than contempt and theft -which is what I always think of in relation to blackface.
3. How might you imagine this study and my earlier one connecting? (Initially I imagined this video would be intercut with phrases from my original study; however, once I started editing, I found this hard to do.)
I’m interested in Aditee’s idea that this could be a pre-lude to the earlier study. And if your face were actually painted during the first study as well, then you could play with facings. For example, you already have moments when you have your back to the camera and then turn back around partially or fully. The turning could be made more specific to reveal only one side or the other of your face, and choice moments when both sides of the face are seen. You could also play with the revealing of layering of the costume (removal of the hat to show the head jewelry and maybe covering it up again..etc.). I don’t mind the same song being played in both, because one sounded more back-groundy while getting made-up, like an inner thoughts sound track, while the other one felt louder and more like you were on stage performing your newly claimed identity/ies. Otherwise some contemporary popular music that appropriates both could be an interesting comparison…Not sure I can think of any off the top of my head but I’m sure there’s some examples out there…
Or would it add a triple commentary to add this totally racist song against asian women called “Asian Girlz” by Day Above Ground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNSM3k9LqWs ?
4. Any other thoughts or suggestions for further development?
Not at this time.