Looking at some of John
F. Kennedy's speeches, I got that feeling: this was our president.
Today's leaders can only represent half of us, and we seem to have little use
for figures evoking bipartisan support: they write books like Chesley
Sullenberger, give lectures like Valerie Plame. Michael Jordan owns the Charlotte Hornets, among other business interests (and he reportedly likes to gamble). Similarly, Henry
Aaron, Cal Ripken and Derek Jeter stick to baseball. Stephen King was an
impressive critic, but seems to have retreated to fiction. Mark
Zuckerberg says, “start a company," Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos run
theirs. Most film stars are actually selective with political
comments.
If success is hard,
moral leadership might be hardest. We know the checkered history of
famous preachers. David Letterman stumbled under the mantle of Paar,
Allen and Carson. Mel Gibson kept a lid on his considerable issues
until The Passion of the Christ. EDIT: add Lance Armstrong, Stephen Collins, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer.
Roseanne Barr made an unlikely bipartisan leader. A gay-rights pioneer,
she became leery of the extremes of the modern Left, and is a Trump
supporter. Certainly, she disappointed her fans, this writer included,
with her pathetic tweet.
EDIT, 12 August 2018: This is why I usually avoid writing about recent events. Roseanne now says she thought (Obama advisor) Valerie Jarrett was white, as if to excuse (arguably, this makes the tweet worse, an attempt to sneak by a racial insinuation). As someone who enjoyed Roseanne (1988-97), I'd prefer to assume its star is experiencing mental deterioration, may she find the humility to fall silent. END
At the same time, it’s hard to wake up
every day on-thin-ice. That truth informs the following piece, written
in 2017, mostly about events of 2006. (I'll return to Roseanne at the end
of the post.)
Coded
Race and the Richards Outburst
Ty Cobb was a charter member of the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. He was also hypersensitive and a
brawler, and the center of an anecdote that illuminates American
racism. On May 15, 1912, Cobb climbed into the stands in New York to
beat up a disabled fan who’d called him a “half-nigger.” (This
incident seeded the idea of Cobb as virulent racist, a fabrication according to
Charles Leerhsen, author of Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty (2015).)
The 106-year-old
anecdote seems very American: we’re still violent, racist and baiting each
other. Nevertheless, it benefits from annotation: in 1912, many
considered race more essential than skin color or facial features, and the “one
drop of blood” rule classed a person “black” if they had any black
ancestry. This attitude factored into American resistance to
Darwinian science (the "Scopes monkey trial," creationism), in that
Darwin suggests — in these terms — we’re all black. The
racist (of any color) is self-loathing.
The fan’s insult points to a question for media criticism: can a character’s
race be coded? The following recreates my own train of thought, and
therefore may not be complete, while parts may have been covered by other writers
(although searches yielded little, as noted below). I'll focus
on a single combination: white actors as coded black characters.
A knowledge of science fiction gives an advantage, e.g. Star Trek’s Spock
has (traditional) Asian characteristics, layered with Leonard Nimoy’s Judaism
(the Vulcan salute derives from rabbinical practice). In the 1980s, at
least one critic compared E.T.‘s appearance to that of starving
African children, a then-current image in Western culture. E.T. launched
a cycle in which white leads befriend innocent aliens (Starman) or A.I.
(Short Circuit). Sometimes, a black actor plays the alien:
Joe Morton in The Brother from Another Planet, Louis Gossett, Jr.
in Enemy Mine, Damon Wayans in Earth Girls Are Easy.
Any discussion of race and science fiction brings up Star Wars.
It's rarely mentioned that James Earl Jones was originally uncredited as
the voice of Darth Vader. Jones was known in 1977, and has a
distinctive bass voice — everyone knew it was him, but he and George Lucas
playfully left doubt. Or maybe not playful, given accusations of
racism aimed at the franchise, decades before Jar-Jar Binks.
This may sound comically conspiratorial, but we get caught up in what
was/wasn’t intentional. Both Jones’s non-credit and the Chasing
Amy parody distract from the obvious: Darth Vader is a
“black villain,” with the voice of an African-American then known for
provocative roles. Jones played the first black president in The
Man, and based-on-truth films paired him with white women: he played the
Jack Johnson figure in The Great White Hope (Best Actor nod)
and the paranormal witness in The UFO Incident.
Like the black hat in a Western, Darth Vader at least nods toward an
African-American villain, relatively rare in Hollywood’s sound era (if more
evident than black heroes). The end of 1983’s Return of the
Jedi reveals a pale wretch, but the tickets and toys had been sold,
concurrent to the extended tease that Anakin might be African (note also the CW’s short-lived Star-Crossed, about the Atrians).
Similarly, J.K. Rowling was a billionaire before declaring Hermione
Granger black.
Bo Derek was unknown when cast as an idealized female in 10 (1979),
source of comic anxiety for Dudley Moore. The 10 trailer
pushes mystery: as we first see Derek with cornrowed hair, the narration says
Moore “doesn’t know … where she comes from.” Again, the implication is
she’s not-quite-white, but in this case it’s tantalizing. Derek soon
filmed Tarzan, perhaps the most racialist English-language classic.
Like James Earl Jones, Boris Karloff was uncredited in the 1931 Frankenstein (the
credits have “?” opposite “The Monster”). Like Derek, Karloff was
not well-known. He was British (born William Henry Pratt) but had
adopted a stage name that (ultimately) matched an intimidating creature, in an
era when the Slavic enemy was often demonized. Karloff reportedly
had Anglo-Indian heritage — his skin was variously described as swarthy,
yellow, etc. — he played the title villains in The Mummy and The
Mask of Fu Manchu (both 1932).
Race is a background theme in any Frankenstein narrative. As the daughter of prominent intellectuals, Mary Shelley had
lifetime exposure to debates about slavery. Whether they admitted so or not, Europeans had to suspect Africans were their distant
relatives. Whereas Dr. Frankenstein tries to abandon his sudden kin,
whites enslaved Africans — both were hounded by judgment.
We’ve had media criticism exploring race (gender, class) for at least 50
years. It’s hard to know if it’s doing more good than
harm. At times the writer (or reader) oversimplifies, or seems
motivated by resentment or overcompensation. In the remainder I try
to locate understanding, if only for one person.
Michael Richards played Kramer on Seinfeld; he’s also known for his
racist outburst/rant (in 2006) when confronted by a black heckler at a comedy
club. Richards’ famous role may have been a contributing
factor. Although originally based on a white man (Larry David’s
former neighbor, Kenny Kramer), and sometimes characterized as a slacker (nut, "pod,"
hipster-doofus), TV’s Kramer has much in common with the “coon” stereotype of
minstrel-show tradition, as described by sociologist David Pilgrim:
“The coon was portrayed as a lazy, easily
frightened, chronically idle, inarticulate, buffoon. … The coon differed from
the Sambo in subtle but important ways. Sambo was depicted as a
perpetual child … the coon acted childish, but he was an adult; albeit a
good-for-little adult.”
(from the site of The Jim Crow Museum of Racist
Memorabilia)
Like the coon, Kramer
has distorted beliefs and comical fears, and penchants for wild schemes and
fresh fruit. Like the “Urban Coon” subtype, he’s a sharp dresser
despite lack of conventional employment. Admittedly, Kramer is
smarter than typical. Richards:
“The real key came about eight or nine shows
in. I had been playing Kramer as if he were slow-witted … Then I
learned to play him as if he were blocks ahead of what everyone’s saying, and I
had him.”
There are various ways
this argument may be misunderstood; for one, I am not defending abusive
speech. Granted, I will omit various Kramer traits and storylines,
but even among other influences, the parallel seems clear. I'm assuming
any use of the stereotype was unconscious on the part of the white boomers
producing the series (it would hardly have remained unremarked,
otherwise).
Like various plotlines,
the casting of Richards plays into a race-bending subtext, in that he’s a large
man with kinky hair. In “The Fusilli Jerry,” Kramer errantly
receives “ASSMAN” vanity plates, but soon adjusts to the persona. In
“The Wig Master,” circumstances leave him an evident pimp. In “The
Burning,” he’s an actor for a medical school, and is typecast as gonorrhea
patient. Kramer is an effortless seducer, a recovering gambling
addict, and afraid of clowns (they wear whiteface). He favors Cuban
cigars; also Hennigan’s scotch, because it leaves no smell.
Several misadventures
involve skin and/or color: in “The Wife,” Kramer falls asleep in a tanning bed,
after which he appears to be in blackface. In “The Abstinence,” his
home smoking-lounge damages his skin. In “The Butter Shave,” the
mistake is butter as tanning lotion. In “The Chicken Roaster,”
Kramer can’t sleep due to the brilliant (red) sign of a new Kenny Rogers
Roasters. After switching apartments, Jerry starts behaving like
Kramer, but it’s Kramer who’s addicted to the chicken.
According to Donald
Bogle’s standard reference Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks:
An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, the foremost
screen-actor of coon roles was Stepin Fetchit, who was known for physical
mastery —a Richards specialty — and being unfazed by criticism (when in character),
also like Kramer. Bogle notes two 1934 films: in The World
Moves On, the character finds himself in the French Army — compare Kramer’s
bumbling into jobs in “The Bizarro Jerry” and “The Summer of
George.” In David Harum, the character does dishes while
soaking his feet — Kramer prepares salad in the shower in “The
Apology.”
Seinfeld was slow to address Kramer’s lineage, but
what’s there connects. In “The Nose Job,” he needs a jacket from the
apartment of his mother’s imprisoned friend. Elaine pretends to be
the man’s daughter, “Wanda Pepper,” while Kramer poses as her
fiancé. The cover is blown when the building’s manager disparages
Babs (Kramer’s mother) as “nasty,” a “drunken stumblebum” who’d typically get
loud as she “drank Colt 45 from a can.” (In the U.S., Colt 45 malt
liquor is associated with African-Americans, as in ad campaigns with Billy Dee
Williams and Snoop Dogg.)
In “The Switch,” we meet
Babs (Sheree North), a bathroom attendant who tells Kramer she has “two years
clean.” The episode ends with Babs discovered in bed with Newman,
the unappealing postman. Per traditional stereotypes, Babs is the
sort who’d have sex with non-whites. Considering all of the above,
the buried implication is that Kramer is (part) black. And regardless
of origin, the surname cooperates, by suggesting “creamer,” thus a lightening
in color. (Coffee is a theme for Kramer, e.g., he’s hooked on café
lattes.) Finally, in Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s arc about
a Seinfeld reunion (2009), Michael Richards fears he has
(fictional) “Groat’s disease”; to raise his spirits, the Kramer-like Leon
(African-American actor J.B. Smoove) claims to have Groat’s. (Of
course, the plan goes awry, giving Richards the chance to express anger
respectfully.)
The 1990s was a comeback
decade for the coon, inspiring Spike Lee’s despairing Bamboozled (2000). I’m
suggesting neither moral equivalency, nor that Richards was victimized in any
way. Nevertheless, the sampling of a powerful stereotype could cause
identity issues for the actor playing Kramer for a decade. Turning
the screw, the character became an icon to a young generation known for
hypersensitivity to prejudice. The actor would have to be the
perfect cosmopolitan. (Kramer’s first name is Cosmo.)
Novelist Milan Kundera
suggested vertigo is the fear of falling meeting the desire to
fall. In 2006, Michael Richards lived a white-American nightmare,
but he received compensation: in addition to affirming his own whiteness, he no
longer had to fear ruining his career with a racist outburst. This
payoff becomes more tempting if the career is essentially over.
Given an imperfect
memory, I recall one critic citing a coded black character: in Planet
of the Apes as American Myth, Eric Greene discusses the title character
in Edward Scissorhands. (I was unable to find references
to Kramer in this context.) Apparently, for our talk of racism, we
make the essentialist assumption that a white actor always plays an (entirely)
white character. We diminish the reefs; American race-consciousness
is fathomless.
afterword (2018)
I’ll attempt an updated
conclusion, while planning to address these matters at greater
length. Also, please note that for various reasons, comments are disabled on this
blog. I apologize to any who might otherwise have left (civil) comments.
In his classic Wayward
Puritans, Kai T. Erikson explained that a society gets the deviant
behavior it expects. Sometimes, we overreact: troubled by Quakers (1650s),
the Puritan fathers banished these dissenters “on pain of
death.” The policy was “an invitation to disaster, for
nothing could so satisfy the Quakers’ call to persecution as a chance to suffer
on the gallows for the sake of conscience.”
This dynamic,
definition-of-deviance vs. behavior, evolved because it strengthens the
community, assuming a consensus majority. The
Puritan authorities prevailed, of course, until later
centuries. Today, we are precisely divided, as between those who
consider Roseanne’s tweet deviant, and those more troubled by (what they consider)
the overreaction.
Like Michael Richards,
Roseanne became wealthy and famous playing a working-class individual with poor
boundaries. As with Richards, we can assume some degree of identity
whiplash. Roseanne’s career wasn’t over, of course, she’d made
a comeback. In any case, she’s a 65-year-old, on medication, has profusely apologized, and she deserves a second chance. (EDIT: No, she probably doesn't, in the absence of real contrition.)
Our excess condemnation
stems from the overarching myth addressed by Steven Pinker in The Blank
Slate: “the idea that the human mind has no inherent structure and can be
inscribed at will by society or ourselves” (page 2). And in his
preface: our “refusal to acknowledge human nature is like the Victorians’
embarrassment about sex.” This becomes “the mentality of a cult,”
with one inevitable result being “a ‘politically incorrect’ culture of shock
jocks … emboldened by the knowledge that the intellectual establishment has
forfeited claims to credibility in the eyes of the public.”
The mistake made by
scientific writers, including Pinker, is to presume logic can ever hold
sway, society-wide. History suggests societies run on myths,
not facts or logic (perhaps for the same reason no driver expects a terrible
accident: reality is too much). Even when we remold the community to
be fairer than in the past, we must compensate with new myths ... or a stealthy
return to old ones.
Like good utopians,
Americans are constantly declaring the end of old myths and
customs, but with a fatal inability to agree on new (or newly strengthened)
ones. Our usual self-evaluations — tolerance, freedom, free markets,
voting — don’t work here because essentially negative (don’t infringe
on my rights), and too nearly-global to serve as national/cultural
identity. The syndrome helps explain the runaway wealth gap: even as
traditional values fade, we value money.
As Pinker implies, we
are neo-Victorians, with speech taking the place of sex, and those with poor
(verbal) impulse-control the “perverts." This exchange leaves
American racism as our primary existential threat. Cracking down on speech is understandable: unlike systemic racism,
we can (often) identify the guilty. But it doesn’t seem to help, indeed,
it may not be coincidence that mass incarceration paced political
correctness. As Van Jones comments in 13th (1:22:30),
criminal justice reform will trigger substitute abuses.
There is
nothing audacious about false hope. We’re in bad trouble, and no one
is coming to bail us out.
