To Be or To Do?

That, it seems, is the question in my class this semester. We have been looking at race and sex in theatre and film, and the big question that we've been grappling with has to do with this -- is your race/sex something that you ARE, or is it something that you DO?

http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000514.html

Consider the qualities: black/white/yellow/blue/gay/straight/bi/male/female/transgender -- are they something that pre-exist your conscious choices, or are they the result of decisions that you make, and behaviors that you choose? When dealing with prejudice and bias, this is a fairly important question, and advocates of equality and fair treatment, it seems to me, tend to waver on this issue depending on how the answer helps them at any given time. But that's getting ahead of myself a bit.



We watched Bamboozled for yesterday's class, Spike Lee's film about an African American television producer who, under pressure to stop advancing "Cosby-show" like programming that depicts middle-class blacks, pitches the idea of a New Minstrel Show. Initially he does this with the intention of getting fired (he has a contract with the studio that would make quitting unpleasant); however, to his initial dismay, the show is a hit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboozled -- a good synopsis and overview here.



In terms of the Be/Do conundrum, the main character, Pierre, is a black character living a white life - -satirically so, in fact. When a lawyer observes that the Minstrel Show "can't be racist, because it's written by a black person," his assistant notes that Pierre may be a Negro, but he isn't black.

In the class, most students have settled into the posture that race is socially constructed, not biological. The way you are classified is contingent upon changing circumstances. However, that doesn't stop some/many of them from believing that people are inevitably categorized by physical characteristics. So, for them, Pierre IS black, regardless of his behavior, because other people see him that way. His choice, inasmuch as he has one, is to behave the way other people expect him to or not; his blackness is something that pre-exists, and despite the fact that what it means to be black is a changeable thing, his blackness is not something about which he has a choice. Which, come to think on it, is a fairly nuanced position to take.

Sexuality is much, much, MUCH trickier for the class. They are almost all down with the concept of manliness/womanliness as socially contingent constructs, in the same way that race is understood to be socially contingent. What it means to be a man or a woman is something that is not fixed. They do, however, take the same tack in regards to the essential nature of sexuality -- one is EITHER a man or a woman, and that is not something about which one has any choice -- it is entirely determined by (as our friend T-rex might say) the persuasion of one's naughty bits.


Now, that's a pretty straightforward position to take; sex = biology. They have blurred the lines, however, by recognizing that ones biological sex does not have anything to do with the way one behaves, to the extent that behavior is something one can choose -- they put the "performance" of sexuality under the heading "gender." So, what one sees, in terms of other people, is their gender -- they appear to be a man or a woman, due to the way that they perform their identity. However, this May or May Not be the "truth" -- truth, in this case, being related to their actual naughty bits.


So, I think the big discussion for the end of the semester has to do with how the idea of a pre-discursive truth like biology influences social behavior. What are the consequences of a person who chooses to perform an "untrue" identity? The white person who performs blackness or the male person who performs womanness or the gay person who performs straightness (though we haven't really dug satisfactorily into sexual behavior as pre/post discursive, another thing to try to nail down (like jello on a wall) before the semester ends) is, under the parameters that most of the students have accepted, fundamentally lying -- is that cool? I think the most interesting answer might be that, yes, its cool, everyone lies about things all the time, what's the big deal? Because if that's the case, then . . . what is the function of "truth?"


Truth is beauty, yes, I know. Thanks for jumping in there, Plato.


The semester has really been an interesting one, and I think the students have really gotten a lot out of the class. I know I have!


Ran 10.5 miles in the miserable cold rain on Sunday; 1H 30 mins +/-; functionally just under 9:30 min/miles. Yesterday 50 mins on the treadmill. My ankles are hella sore. Too many years not plie-ing enough during jumps; I can't say I wasn't warned. Bend those knees and ankles, kids who are jumping!